APU Professor Abbylin Sellers Receives Prestigious Fulbright Award

Abbylin Sellers, PhD, associate professor in Azusa Pacific University’s Department of History and Political Science, received a prestigious Fulbright Award for the 2022-23 academic year.

From September 2022 through February 2023, Sellers will teach at two institutions in Japan: Yokohama National University and Hosei University. Sellers will be one of eight instructors teaching the Study of the United States for the Humanities and Social Sciences; however, she will be the only Fulbright instructor teaching at these two institutions, while the rest are teaching courses from their respective disciplines at other universities across Japan. Sellers’ pedagogy will focus on political science, specifically American constitutional democracy and the American presidency. She will offer Japanese students a unique perspective on the juxtaposition between the U.S. and Japan’s own constitution and democracy.

“As a naturalized American citizen with Korean and Japanese ancestry, I’m excited to immerse myself in Japanese culture, to take in as much as I can,” Sellers said. “I’m especially looking forward to engaging with students from a different culture to understand how they view America and our government.”

Sellers earned a PhD in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University and an MA in Public Policy from Regent University. Her research focuses on welfare policy, political behavior, and immigrant entrepreneurship. Sellers teaches courses focused on American politics and public policy, specifically American government, U.S. political institutions, state and local politics, welfare policy, and 20th century Communism.

The Fulbright Program awards only about 900 grants per year to university faculty and administrators out of thousands of applicants. APU boasts 70 Fulbright Awards offered to faculty, students, and alumni since 2002.

Since its inception in 1946, under legislation by the late Senator J. William Fulbright, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 400,000 people with the opportunity to observe others’ political, economic, educational, and cultural institutions, to exchange ideas, and to embark on international ventures of importance. The program operates in 140 countries worldwide.