LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) – Two University of Louisiana at Lafayette faculty members share more than a last name. They’re now sharing a prestigious award.

News 10 spoke to the married Dr. Yuling Huang-Davie and Dr. William Davie about how the Fulbright scholarship will change their coming school year.

Dr. Yuling Huang-Davie first love is the piano. Now she’s a Fulbright scholar as well.

The Fulbright program allows scholars to travel to other countries to teach, conduct research, and work on projects. However, she will not be the only one in her family packing her bags for Malaysia this fall.

“I thought about encouraging my husband to apply he said, ‘why don’t you apply?’ so to make a long story short, we encouraged each other, and both applied in our separate categories,” Huang-Davie said.

Dr. William Davie is with the universities communications department. This is his second time in the Fulbright program. He also did it 8 years ago in China.

“I wanted to have a teaching career because I felt like I could incorporate some of my experiences in the field and teach students how to become effective journalists and make a difference in their community,” Davie said.

The Davie couple is excited to teach in Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur, and have big plans.

“I’ll be teaching piano students there how to collaborate with singers and instrumentalists I also think I’ll be involved with some operatic stage production musical operations,” Huang-Davie said.

“I’m going to teach media ethics and media literacy and focus on a research book involving the origins of international journalism in the far east in terms of broadcasting and new media’ Davie said.

The duo hopes to be back for the 2024 spring graduation with plenty of stories to tell upcoming students.