October 26, 2005

UCSF Postdoctoral Fellow Receives Fulbright Scholar Award

By Kirsten Bermingham, Council for International Exchange of Scholars

Marya Levintova, Ph.D., a Postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Health Policy Studies (2002-2004), and currently a Specialist at the Institute for Global Health, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct research under the auspices of the Russian Public Health Association in Moscow, Russia, in the Spring and Summer of 2006, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Dr. Levintova will examine health policy changes related to non-communicable diseases in post-Soviet Russia. This project will involve extensive field work with the Russian government, NGOs and international organizations located in Russia. Dr. Levintova has been involved in a number of projects in the former Soviet Union together with Dr. Thomas Novotny (Director of International Programs, UCSF, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Coordinator for Education, Global Health Sciences) on issues pertinent to non-communicable disease mortality and behavioral risk factors. Drs. Levintova and Novotny are also recent recipients of an NIH-grant to examine the relationship between female tobacco consumption and tobacco industry behaviors in China.

Dr. Levintova is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries for the 2003-2004 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.

The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Over its 57 years of existence, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have studied, taught or done research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the U.S. They are among more than 250,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers, and university faculty and professionals who have participated in one of the several Fulbright exchange programs.

Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields. Among thousands of prominent Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; and Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corporation