Brooklyn College is proud to announce that Mark Ungar, professor of political science, has been selected as a 2026–27 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Brazil.
During his appointment, Ungar will be based at two national universities in Brazil’s Amazon Basin, in the states of Pará and Amazonas. There, he will be teaching and working with Brazil’s federal environmental enforcement agency (IBAMA), regional indigenous federations, and the universities’ biodiversity and law centers. Their aim is to strengthen criminal justice and policy responses to environmental crime—particularly illegal logging, mining, and ranching—that fuel deforestation, transnational organized crime, and global climate change.
Ungar is a faculty member in Brooklyn College’s Department of Political Science and the CUNY Graduate Center Doctoral Programs in Criminal Justice and Political Science. He has published five books and more than 40 articles, policy reports, and book chapters addressing judicial reform, citizen security, and policing. His professional experience includes leading projects for the United Nations, the Inter-American Development Bank, USAID, and multiple national governments in Latin America. He was elected in 2011 to the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and has held grants from the Ford, Tinker, Henkel, and Tow foundations as well as a residential fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The Fulbright Scholar Program is one of the world’s most prestigious academic exchange initiatives, supporting teaching and research abroad while fostering international collaboration. Alumni of the program include numerous Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and MacArthur Fellowship recipients. Research on Fulbright participants consistently shows increased international scholarly collaboration and long-term academic partnerships, with benefits extending to their home institutions.
