Two Old Dominion University faculty are continuing their research and teaching half a world away from the Norfolk campus this semester as they finish their Fulbright fellowships.

Cynthia Jones, associate professor of biological sciences, is lecturing and researching at the University of Sydney in Australia through February.

Carl Boyd, Louis I. Jaffé Professor of History and an eminent scholar, is lecturing at Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozan, Poland, through June.

Jones continues her work linking fish ear bone, or otolith, chemistry to models of marine fish populations. She has gained an international reputation in fisheries science largely through her research at Old Dominion.

Her work has resulted in 10 years of continuous funding from the Biological Oceanography Program of the National Science Foundation.

Otoliths, which absorb materials from the water in which fish live, can be analyzed, providing a wealth of information about the creatures' migration patterns.

Since 1987, Jones has been principal investigator on research grants totaling more than $4.5 million.

Boyd is studying the contribution of Polish mathematicians to code-breaking in pre-World War II Europe, a topic that has fascinated him for the last two decades and which has received increased attention in recent years after documents relating to the subject were declassified in the years after the fall of Communism.

The Fulbright program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by former Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas and has become the preeminent international exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government.

The program strives to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those from other countries.

Grants are awarded to American students, teachers, and scholars to study, teach, lecture and conduct research abroad and to foreign nationals to engage in similar activities in the United States.

Individuals are selected on the basis of academic or professional qualifications and potential, plus the ability and willingness to share ideas and experiences with people of diverse cultures.

Approximately 4,200 new grants are awarded annually to recipients in 140 countries. Approximately 220,000 "Fulbrighters," 82,000 from the United States and 138,000 from abroad, have participated in the program since 1946.