Public health expert Dr Elizabeth Klein from The Ohio State University has been awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Applied Public Policy, funded by Flinders University and Carnegie Mellon University Australia.

Dr Klein researches environmental and policy change strategies to promote primary prevention of chronic disease. Her research agenda has focused around understanding the barriers and facilitators to tobacco use at the community, and how to use policy level as an intervention; the majority of this work has focused on youth and young adults.

Dr Klein has also been actively involved in community- and clinic-based studies with children ages 0-5 years in order to understand optimal policy, systems, and environmental change strategies to support the primary prevention of obesity.

Pending travel restrictions, she will be hosted on campus at Flinders University later this year.

The Australian-American Fulbright Commission also announced that as part of the 2021 Australian Fulbright cohort, Flinders University student Ms Natasha Wood has earned a Fulbright Future Scholarship (funded by The Kinghorn Foundation), and Flinders alumnus Mr John Kuot has been awarded a 2021 Fulbright Anne Wexler Scholarship in Public Policy (funded by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment), and the Fulbright Victoria Scholarship.

Fulbright Executive Director Thomas Dougherty identified this as “a great achievement, and testament to the outstanding learning environment that Flinders University has fostered”.