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A lawyer, an agricultural scientist, a doctor and a cognitive scientist - all either students or graduates of The University of Western Australia - have been named as 2015 Fulbright Scholars.

Lawyer Matthew Crowley has been awarded a Professional Scholarship. He is working as General Counsel in WA's Department of Commerce while completing a doctorate in law at UWA, where he is also a visiting lecturer. He will join the Federal Trade Commission in Washington DC as an International Fellow. He hopes to meet experts in New York who preside over some of the biggest civil penalty cases in the world.

Agricultural scientist Ted Lefroy has been awarded a Senior Scholarship. He has led two national research projects that brought together ecologists, geographers, economists and social scientists to work with land managers and policy makers on environmental problems in agricultural landscapes. He will join the University of Washington where he will conduct research for a book that he hopes will close the gap between perceptions of nature in popular culture and scientific concepts.

Doctor Robert Marshall has been awarded a Postgraduate Scholarship. He is working at the Royal Darwin Hospital where he is committed to closing the gap in Indigenous health outcomes and improving healthcare in rural Australia. He will work as a Fulbright scholar to foster strong research connections between the US and Australia.

Cognitive scientist Briony Swire-Thompson has also been awarded a Postgraduate Scholarship. She is a PhD candidate with UWA's Cognitive Science Laboratories where she is researching how people process misinformation and how they update their memory when information they believe to be true turns out to be false.  She will work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to expand her research into the area of political misconceptions.

Meanwhile, UWA is hosting Dr Wendy Nembhard, a 2014 Fulbright Scholar from the University of Arkansas. She will work at UWA's School of Population Health and the UWA-affiliated Telethon Kids Institute to investigate the short- and long-term morbidity, mortality issues and educational outcomes among children with congenital heart defects in Australia.

The 2015 Fulbright Scholars will be awarded their scholars at the 2015 Showcase and Presentation Dinner at the Hyatt Regency in Perth on February 19.

Media references

Matt Kemp (Fulbright Australian-American Fulbright Commission)

David Stacey (UWA Media) (+61 8) 6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716