Dr Hamish Graham, (MBBS(Hons) 2005), has won a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, while Professor Michael Douglas (BSc(Hons) 1989, PhD Sci 2000), was awarded a Fulbright Northern Territory Scholarship.

Dr Graham, a Paediatric Registrar at Alice Springs Hospital and co-founder of Global Health Gateway Inc, will undertake a Masters of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health focussing on health policy measures to improve childhood malnutrition, a condition that causes one third of the preventable child deaths worldwide.

“As a paediatric doctor I have had experience working in child health and nutrition in the clinical and local community level in Australia, Asia and Africa but I clearly see that it is at the population and policy level that real advances are to be made,” Dr Graham said.

“By undertaking the Masters of Public Health it gives me the opportunity not only to acquire essential skills and knowledge in the area of child health and nutrition, but also collaborate and learn from some of the leading experts in this field.”

Professor Douglas, currently the Director of the Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge Research Hub at Charles Darwin University, will collaborate with researchers at the University of Maryland and Oregon State University.

“There are many threats to the Northern Australian river systems and the scholarship will help me develop frameworks to help solve critical threats to Australia’s tropical rivers and coasts,” Professor Douglas said.

In all 25 Australians were named Fulbright Scholars in 2012.

The Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind, created by Senator J. William Fulbright and the US Government in 1946. In Australia, the scholarships are funded by the Australian and US Governments and corporate partners and administered by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission in Canberra.