Robert Hearne, associate professor of agribusiness and applied economics, has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar to Thailand for the 2009-10 academic year. His Fulbright proposal is titled, “Strengthening Environmental Economics and Assessing Environmental Services Payments in Thailand.”

He expects to leave in August for Kasetsart University in Bangkok for a stay of about nine months. “I am very excited,” said Hearne, who will lecture and conduct research on environmental services payments and protected area management. “Kasetsart University is the leading agricultural university in Thailand.”

Before joining NDSU in 2002, Hearne conducted research on protected area management and eco-tourism in Central America at the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Institute in Turrialba, Costa Rica. “This Fulbright is an opportunity to return to that research line,” Hearne said.

In addition, Hearne will teach a class in environmental economics and policy at the National Center of Excellence for Environmental and Hazardous Waste Management at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “We will be promoting and fostering a collaborative degree program and research effort between NDSU’s environmental and conservation sciences program and this institute in Thailand,” he said.

Sponsored by the U.S Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program sends 800 United States faculty and professionals abroad each year.

Hearne earned his bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; master’s degree in agricultural economics at the University of Kentucky, Lexington; and doctorate in agricultural and applied economics at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul.