Norris, Alison

Alison Norris, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health’s chronic disease division, has received two grants for HIV-related studies in Africa. With a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant and an International Dissertation Research Grant from Yale’s Center for International and Area Studies, Norris will spend a year conducting doctoral research at the Tanganyika Planting Company, a large sugar plantation near Mt. Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. More than 7,000 adults live and work there, and her study aims to understand how life in a “company town” influences risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Norris’ research will describe how and why people have sex with partners who infect them with HIV, and explain who is most at risk for infection with HIV and other STDs in the plantation community. She hopes this information will suggest ways to reduce the spread of HIV.