CLEVELAND -- Nahida Gordon, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the School of Medicine, will be forging new partnerships between CWRU and Birzeit University in Palestine. Gordon has been chosen to receive the Fulbright Alumni Initiatives Award (AIA) from the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars. Her application was one of only 19 to be funded from more than 200 submitted.

Under her proposal, entitled "Collaboration in Public Health between Birzeit University and Case Western Reserve University," she plans to promote new contacts that will benefit participants from both institutions. For CWRU participants, this project will provide a wider view of existing public health concerns. For the Birzeit University participants, it will provide an avenue for further development of both the infrastructure and human resources for research and teaching purposes. A Web site will be developed to facilitate communication between faculty members at both schools, leading to future joint research.

In 1997, Gordon was selected to be a Fulbright Scholar at Birzeit University. While there, she helped integrate biostatistics courses into the master of public health curriculum. After completing her sabbatical, she continued collaborations with some faculty members there and demonstrated that research collaborations can continue through the use of the Internet. She felt that research collaborations could benefit both institutions.

This marks the second year of the Fulbright AIA Program, in which former Fulbright Scholars make proposals to translate their individual Fulbright experience into ones having greater institutional impact.