AIMEE GARDNER HEADS TO IRELAND AS A FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR 

October 2024

Aimee Gardner, PhD, associate dean for faculty development and director of the Academy of Medical Educators, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award for the 2024-2025 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. 

Gardner, who is also a professor of GI, trauma, and endocrine surgery in the CU Department of Surgery,  will be working this fall with colleagues at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s Institute of Leadership and Center for Positive Health Sciences on the creation of experiential-based leadership development programs. 

Gardner plans to bring insights on simulation and experiential learning back to Colorado after her time in Ireland. 

“We know that experiential learning is the most effective kind of learning,” she says. “We want to place people in a high-fidelity environment where they can experience the realism and the emotions and see the impact of their behaviors and actions. 

“Simulation-based education capitalizes on the psychology of how people learn and makes things stick when they're introduced to new concepts, procedures, ideas, or workflows. It’s going to be a lot of fun to build new programs that leverage this modality and also expand the traditional scope of leadership topics by bringing in the positive psychology literature."  

Over 800 individuals teach or conduct research abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program annually and the roster of previous Fulbrighters is impressive and includes include 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, 41 heads of state or government, and thousands of leaders across the private, public, and non-profit sectors.