Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Altadena Town Councilmember Wins Fulbright Scholarship to Pakistan

Altadena Town Councilmember Jennifer Hall Lee, an accomplished filmmaker, writer and speaker on the role of women in society, has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach the history of the United States Women’s Liberation Movement and research feminism in Pakistan.

The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board said Lee will teach and do research at the International Islamic University, Islamabad in 2019. Her project is titled “Women’s Liberation: Is Feminism Global?”

Lee was in Islamabad in 2013 at the invitation of Dr. Munazza Yaqoob of Islamic University for the screening of Lee’s documentary film, “Feminist: Stories From Women’s Liberation.” Yaqoob will be Lee’s faculty host during Lee’s academic visit next year.

“I feel overjoyed and really excited about receiving the Fulbright,” Lee said. “Right now I’m talking with my faculty host Dr. Munazza Yaqoob about all the details that have to go into place, and I’m pulling together all my documents, pamphlets and information about the women’s liberation movement in the United States to take with me.

“I’m going to be teaching several workshops on the history of the women’s liberation movement in the United States, and teaching them about the different feminists who worked on the big events that helped to change our country for the better.”

As an Altadena Town Councilmember, Lee is Chair of the Altadena Town Council Education Committee. She and the committee recently worked with Principal Lori Touloumian in a collaborative effort to celebrate Women’s History Month at PUSD middle schools.

“I would definitely talk with the women in Pakistan about what we did in teaching young people the history of the women’s liberation movement in the United States,” Lee said. “During that era, we talked deeply about media images of women and how women were objectified. In the era of Me Too, I think it’s valuable to look back at the history of women in the workplace.”

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Scholarship recipients are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as a record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.

The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which operates in over 160 countries worldwide.

Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given more than 380,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Lee, who grew up in New York and Georgia before moving to California after college, began her film career as a visual effects editor, compositor and digital intermediate editor at such studios as Lucasfilm, Warner Bros., and Technicolor. Her credits include such films as “Back to the Future 2,” “The Hunt for Red October,” “The Mask,” “Forrest Gump,” and many more.

Lee is a nine-year resident of Altadena. She represents the central East section of Altadena on the town council and sits on the board of her husband’s manufacturing business located in Altadena.

In 2014, Lee was named one of the Global Ambassadors for the Global Media Monitoring Project, the longest ongoing study of gender in media in the world.