Ketcham earns Distinguished Scholar Fulbright in Scotland

University of New Mexico professor Amaris Ketcham has been awarded a Distinguished Scholar Fulbright for the 2026-27 school year.

A professor in the Honors College, Ketcham will be using the opportunity to advance her research on the outdoors and its impact on wellness. Hosted by the Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Ketcham will be creating comics about "wild swimming," or swimming outdoors. Ketcham said that much like the Honors College, the institute fosters interdisciplinary work.

Much of Ketcham's work is in graphic medicine, which combines discourse about health with the art of comics. She will use this time abroad to research and draft a manuscript.

"One of the things I'll be looking at is how blue spaces and green spaces influence both our physical and mental wellbeing," Ketcham said. "From Victorian hydrotherapies to today's wild swimming and forest bathing, people turn to the outdoors to feel better. And now there's a lot of research showing that being in these spaces can actually reduce inflammation, having an impact on our physical health as well as our mental health."

Forest bathing is the practice of spending time spending time in nature, in a forest or a similar environment, as a way of connecting with nature and relieving stress.

The Fulbright Program is one of the most prestigious awards in higher education, available to both students and faculty. The award allows faculty the opportunity for an exchange program to complete research within their area of expertise while working at a foreign university.

The distinguished scholar awards have stricter requirements than the bulk of Fulbright Awards, as recipients must have at least seven years of experience in their area of discipline.

Ketcham, who is also a UNM alumna, is the faculty advisor for Scribendi and has numerous books, poems, comics, and articles published. She has co-taught the UNM Scotland summer study abroad program "Write to Roam" twice and will be taking students abroad again in 2027. She also works with UNM's Arts-in-Medicine program, led by Dr. Patrice Repar. Ketcham's grandmother was Scottish, making the opportunity to be able to work in Edinburgh even more meaningful.

"Amaris is just a remarkable individual," Honors College Dean Noami Yavneh Klos said. "As a college we are just really proud of her accomplishments, and this is a tremendous recognition. It's a remarkable opportunity for her to learn and grow as a scholar, as an artist and as a person. She's going to be bringing back new knowledge and new experiences and that is going to be for the benefit of our students and our community."