Bailey College Faculty Headed to Malawi on Fulbright Awards

Kinesiology and Public Health Department Associate Professor Joni Roberts and Physics Professor Pete Schwartz have been awarded prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards in 2025-2026. 

June 2025 / NEWS STORY
by Nick Wilson

Two Bailey College of Science and Mathematics faculty members have been chosen through a selective process to serve in southeastern Africa next year, representing Cal Poly as educators and cultural ambassadors.

Kinesiology and Public Health Department Associate Professor Joni Roberts and Physics Professor Pete Schwartz have been awarded prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards in 2025-2026 to conduct work in Malawi, Africa, a landlocked country bordered by Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique.

Roberts will teach global health and health policy at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences while conducting research on malnutrition in pregnant women.

Roberts’ professional work has included studies on reproductive and women’s health in Africa, including research related to stigmas around menstrual hygiene and sanitation which can contribute to infections, school absences and disgrace.

Schwartz has previously visited several African countries, including Malawi, to help community members develop affordable and ecofriendly solar electric cooking technologies. He’ll teach introductory physics courses at University of Mzuzu.

“Joni and Pete are both model cultural and educational ambassadors of the U.S. and will make Cal Poly proud,” said Nishi Rajakaruna, a Cal Poly biological sciences professor and Fulbright U.S. Scholar Alumni Ambassador. “They will serve as outstanding representatives, showcasing to Malawi and the broader African community the very best of what America represents. Their compelling applications and lifelong achievements distinguished them in a highly competitive selection process.”

Roberts Returns to Malawi

Roberts first was introduced to the country in 2012 while on a service-learning trip (conducting community health education on HIV/AIDS and Heart Disease), returning in 2014 to complete dissertation research (on antenatal care in pregnant women).

“I fell in love with Malawi, and I’m excited to return as a Fulbright Scholar to reunite with my colleagues there,” Roberts said.

Roberts will teach upcoming medical professionals; attend health clinics, working with malnourished pregnant mothers and children; give talks and participate in community activities. Roberts said that an academic exchange experience offers mutual learning experiences and connection.

“The basic assumption is that, as Americans, we’ll bring wealth of knowledge, experience and resources, but the reality is that we gain more wealth than we impart upon them,” Roberts said. “The greatest thing we gain is cultural immersion. My goal is to have a global discourse about life here, about life there, and how we bridge the gap.”

Malawians are vibrant with life, song, joy and resilient through hardship in touching and instructive ways, said Roberts.

Malawi was ranked No. 140 of 167 countries that received scores in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Report, which takes into account hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean and affordable energy and several other factors. Malawi has a poverty rate of about 70% where people live on less than $2.15 per day, according to worldbank.org.

“Poverty is a mindset,” Roberts said. “We view poverty very differently in the U.S. than poverty is viewed elsewhere in the world. Generally, here, wealth is very integral to how we function. And in other places of the world where the entire country is economically low income, then it's a completely different perspective than us living in an affluent country where some people happen to be low income.”

Roberts said that some of the cultural norms in Malawi remind her of her homeland of Jamaica.

Additionally, aside from her Fulbright work, Roberts will conduct site visits of African countries to explore possibility for establishing exchange programs involving Cal Poly and campuses in countries such as Kenya, Cameroon and South Africa. The experience for faculty and students alike to have international exchange is fulfilling and brings new perspective.

“We’re fortunate to be able to have the opportunity to spend a year exploring our pedagogical approaches in a different way, and then come back with fresh insights and new ways of doing things,” Roberts said.

Schwartz Returns to Africa

Schwartz visited the African countries of Uganda, Malawi, Togo, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia and Ethiopia in 2022 and 2023 while on sabbatical, developing solar electric cooking devices with collaborators there and documenting his experiences through a blog.

Schwartz said the desire for physics education in Africa is strong, recalling an experience speaking for three hours at the University of Zambia.

“It was so engaging,” Schwart said. “Ultimately, they said, ‘If you come back here, we'll give you 5,000 students. I said, ‘I might do that.’ It didn't work out. But I'm going to Mzuzu.”

As a teacher, Schwartz uses a teaching approach called “Parallel Pedagogy,” which is a way to learn introductory physics where all four concepts (momentum, energy, forces and motion) are introduced on the first day in a way that students already understand (such as considering momentum in a collision between a truck and small car traveling in opposite directions) and they’re developed simultaneously over the course with increasing complexity. This alternative method has been adopted by five to 10 other physics instructors at Cal Poly and other high schools and colleges nationally, Schwartz said. 

“Our studies show that this method prepares students to better apply concepts,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz also heavily engages in class dialogue while encouraging students to speak up, a divergence from traditional education in Africa where teachers’ expertise is often unquestioned and students don’t often interact with faculty in the same way they do in the U.S.

“One of my teaching techniques is to say, ‘Okay, this is how we do this problem’ and then absolutely go off a cliff, and if nobody interrupts me, I walk out of the room,” Schwartz said. “Someone has to say, ‘No, you can't do that, Pete, right?’ I’ve literally had a class practice: I count to three and the students shout, ‘No, you’re wrong, Pete!’”

Schwartz said he believes that students learn best from vibrant group discussion.

“I have 100 videos for Intro Physics, and so students watch one of those the night before, and then they come in and we argue about physics and introduce ideas and participate in discussions,” Schwartz said. “Research indicates better learning results from this method, and I think that invoking it on a mass scale would work very well. This is a different learning environment in Malawi, of course.”

In his first trip to Africa, Schwartz said that he has been awestruck by the everyday interactions that make travel to the continent so memorable.

“One of the things that brought me to tears the first time I saw it is that if a bunch of women are together and something happens, they bust out singing – in four parts,” Schwartz said. “I was dumbstruck.”

Anyone interested in applying for Fulbright US Scholar Awards can do so at the following link and contact Rajakaruna with any questions or for guidance at nrajakar@calpoly.edu.