Oliver Daliet, a student from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), graduated with his bachelor’s degree in 2017 and was recently named a Fulbright Fellow for 2018-2019.

The Fulbright Program, which is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Government, was created by Congress in 1946. This nationally competitive and prestigious scholarship offers opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide.

Daliet was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, then moved to Newnan, Georgia after Hurricane Katrina. He returned to Louisiana to attend the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts for his last two years of high school.

“Receiving such a prestigious award is truly humbling,” said Daliet. “Throughout the entire application process and even now, I find myself thinking back on my journey to get to this point. I'm just grateful to everyone who helped me get here, especially my parents, whose tireless work ethic and passion is something I try to emulate every day. Without them, I wouldn't be in this position.”

Under the Fulbright program, he will be working with a large scale, prospective study at the University of Iceland under the guidance of Kristín Briem, professor and chairman of the Research Centre of Movement Science. The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of preventative training against non-contact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in young athletes.

ACL ruptures are one of the most serious injuries in sports and require reconstructive surgery followed by months of rehabilitation. Although risk factors associated with ACL injuries have been previously researched, the mechanism of injury prevention as a result of training is largely uninvestigated. A large prospective study on the effectiveness of preventative training for ACL ruptures during the pubertal years of young athletes has not previously been conducted, and therein lies the novelty of the project. The results of this study will not only provide novel information about the development of male and female athletes through puberty, but also improve the knowledge of preventative exercises and guide future interventions on reducing the risk of ACL injuries in this population.

In addition to being named a Fulbright scholar, Daliet received Georgia Tech’s Presidential Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) in Fall 2016 and won two Tower Awards in 2016 and 2017.