About The Fulbright Awards Dinner
Each year, One To World honors outstanding individuals who have furthered Senator J. William Fulbright’s vision of peace through intercultural awareness and understanding at the One To World Fulbright Awards Dinner. The late Senator Fulbright was honored at this event in 1993, and Harriet Mayor Fulbright continues to serve as Honorary Chair in his memory.
The One To World Fulbright Awards Dinner is a benefit event aimed at raising money for One To World programs as well as awareness of the Fulbright program. Awards are presented by visiting Fulbright grantees currently affiliated with New York area academic institutions before an audience of over 400 international leaders in business, higher education, the arts, government, and you!
One To World 2022 Fulbright Awards Dinner
The 2022 One To World Fulbright Awards Dinner will be held on Tuesday, May 24th at The Plaza in New York City. For information about the event, or to purchase tickets, please visit the One To World 2022 Fulbright Awards Dinner page.
30th Annual One To World Fulbright Awards Dinner
The 30th Annual One To World Fulbright Awards Dinner was held virtually to ensure the safety of our participants and guests. Our program shined a light on the significant contributions of our distinguished honorees to international awareness and understanding, while profiling exceptional young leaders from around the world who have studied at New York-area institutions as Fulbright scholars and international students. You can view our 2021 event on YouTube.
In 2021 One To World is proud to have honored
Esther Benjamin has been a global executive in the public, private, and civil society sectors for over 25 years. She has led programs and partnerships in over 100 countries. Esther is CEO and Executive Director of World Education Services Inc., a social enterprise dedicated to helping international students, immigrants, and refugees achieve their educational and workplace goals in the U.S. and Canada.
Previously, Esther worked with Laureate Education Inc., as CEO for Africa Operations and CEO of Monash South Africa. She was then Laureate’s SVP for Global Public Affairs. Esther served in President Obama’s administration as Associate Director for Global Operations for the Peace Corps and oversaw programs in nearly 80 countries. Following the 2008 elections, she served on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team.
Esther also worked at the International Youth Foundation, where she developed global programs and partnerships in 75 countries. She was Executive Director for Resource Development at the International Partnership for Microbicides, a global biotechnology organization developing products for women in the Global South to protect themselves from HIV.
In 1999, President Clinton appointed Esther a White House Fellow and she worked with the Secretary of Labor on international policies and programs. In 1994, Esther was appointed United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Officer, responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid in Somalia. Esther serves on the Board of Directors of Echoing Green; Seed Global Health; the Foundation for Society, Law & Art in South Africa; and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. She earned master’s degrees in International Affairs and Applied Economics from American University. She is a Trustee of North Central College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and English. New York Times best-selling author Wes Moore profiled Esther as “The Globalist” in his book The Work: Searching for a Life that Matters.
Isabella de la Houssaye has worked extensively around the world for the past 30 years, first as an international project finance attorney for White & Case, then as an investment banker based in the Hong Kong office of Lehman Brothers. She is currently the co-owner of Material Culture, a Philadelphia-based importer, retailer and auctioneer of art, antiques and traditional crafts from around the world.
Isabella is a passionate believer in the importance of cultural exchange and has biked, run and ridden horseback across many countries including Mongolia, India, Libya, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Turkey, South Africa, and Haiti to promote cultural exchange. She gives cultural studies lectures and has curated a number of cultural exhibits to promote better understanding.
Isabella has a BA from Princeton University, a JD from Columbia Law School and is a Trustee of Princeton in Asia and Give Back Yoga, and an Advisor to the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Students on Ice. She is married to David Crane and they have five children.
Sara Miller McCune is the founder of SAGE Publishing and executive chairman of the company’s board of directors. Guided by an entrepreneurial spirit and an unwavering dedication to academia, the then-24-year-old Sara founded SAGE in 1965 to start a company that would allow scholars to disseminate quality research in their own voices and break new ground in emerging fields of study. Today, Ms. McCune also serves as a director of SAGE Publications Ltd (London, founded in 1971) and Corwin, a SAGE company and leading publisher for educational administrators and teachers. SAGE set up subsidiaries in India in 1981, Singapore in 2006, Melbourne in 2015, and Toronto in 2018. Ms. McCune remains actively involved in the company’s expansion and development.
Reflecting her longstanding interest in philanthropy, especially in promoting social, educational, economic, and environmental justice, Ms. McCune is founder and president of the McCune Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Ventura County, California, where SAGE’s home office is located. The foundation supports productive change through building social capital in two counties on California’s Central Coast.
In 2012, Ms. McCune received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Queens College (CUNY), for her visionary work as publisher, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. In 2014, she was awarded an honorary fellowship from Cardiff University and an honorary doctorate from Bath University and in 2016, Ms. McCune received honorary degrees from California State University Channel Islands and Sussex University. Ms. McCune is also an Honorary Fellow of both the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford and the prestigious Pembroke College of Oxford University. Additionally, she is an honorary alumna of University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), as well as a recipient of their highest honor, the Santa Barbara Medal.
In 2018, Ms. McCune was awarded the coveted London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her 50+ years working within the publishing industry. The award is a testament to her tireless support of social science research, her unwavering commitment to the global dissemination of knowledge, and her passionate belief that education is fundamental for the formation of healthy societies. In 2019 she was selected for membership to the highly prestigious American Philosophical Society (founded by Benjamin Franklin), and in April of 2019, she was awarded the Venky Narayanamurti Entrepreneurial Leadership Award from UCSB’s College of Engineering.
An active supporter of the behavioral and social sciences, McCune serves on the New-York based Social Science Research Council’s Board of Directors and is a past chair of their Visiting Committee. Previously, she was a long-serving member of the board of directors of both the American Academy of Political and Social Science and Stanford’s CASBS center.
A former McKinsey consultant, Keohane advises institutional, corporate, and philanthropic investors, community development and finance organizations, educational entities, think tanks, and mission driven companies. She speaks and writes regularly on social and economic policy, sustainable and impact investing, and the role of business in society and is the author of two award winning books, Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance is Tackling the World’s Most Urgent Problems (2016) and Social Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century: Innovation Across the Nonprofit, Private and Public Sectors (2013). Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Time, and the Harvard Business Review, among other publications.
Keohane is a senior fellow at New America and serves on several nonprofit and corporate boards. She holds a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an MSc from London School of Economics, where she was a Fulbright Scholar.