Brigham Young University associate professors of communications Steven R. Thomsen and Allen W. Palmer have been named Fulbright Scholars and will conduct research during the 2003-2004 academic year under the auspices of the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Thomsen will teach in the Psychology Department and conduct research at the University of Oslo, Norway, from August through December 2003.
Thomsen's research interests include the role and effect of advertising on the beliefs, thinking and behavior of adolescents with regard to drinking. He has completed a study of seventh- and eighth-grade adolescents in the intermountain area, and plans a similar study of adolescents in Norway while there.
Palmer will be teaching and doing research at the Polytechnic University of Namibia in Windhoek from January to July 2004. His research project concerns community-based approaches to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In some parts of Africa, the HIV/AIDS infection rate is as high as 40 per cent of the total adult population. Many communities are experiencing serious secondary social problems, such as the rapid increase in the number of AIDS orphans.
Thomsen and Palmer are two of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to more than 140 countries for the 2003-2004 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program.
Writer: Elizabeth B. Jensen
