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Jeffery A. Fletcher, a recent graduate from the Systems Science doctoral program at Portland State University, is one of only 34 recipients nationally of the National Science Foundation's 2004 International Research Fellowship.

NSF's International Research Fellowship Program enables budding postdoctoral scientists and engineers in the United States to conduct leading-edge research in biology, physics, engineering, geosciences, computer science, or social and behavioral sciences in collaboration with foreign institutions. The awardees are granted on average $100,000, for a duration of three months to two years, to conduct their research through the use of research environments available in their international host site.
 
Fletcher's research topic-When Does Nature Favor Chaos? : Metapopulation Dynamics, Life History Evolution, and Multi-Level Selection-involves understanding how the natural selection of life history traits at different hierarchical levels influences population dynamics in highly subdivided populations such as tropical social spiders and parasites living within hosts. This research will be useful in understanding medically important species such as malaria. The two-year research project will be conducted in collaboration with the department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in British Columbia, Canada and will also include fieldwork in Latin America.

"The UBC Department of Zoology's focus on population dynamics and the number of biologists in the department with expertise in evolutionary theory, offers an excellent environment to address my research questions," said Fletcher.

Fletcher's research interests include evolutionary theory, especially theories of the evolution of altruistic and cooperative behavior. His methods emphasize computer models and applying more general theories, such as game theory, to investigate the problems in evolutionary biology. Fletcher has a master's degree in Computer Science from Portland State University and a Bachelors degree in Biology from the University of Oregon, Eugene. He has taught courses in PSU's Department of Computer Science, Systems Science Ph.D. program, and School of Business Administration. For more information on Fletcher's research and teaching, visit www.sysc.pdx.edu/~jeff. He can be contacted at 503-725-4995 or jeff@pdx.edu.

For more information about NSF's International Fellowship Program visit www.nsf.gov/sbe/int/int_postdocs.htm#postirfp.

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