The co-directors of the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention are pleased to announce that Anne M. Bowen, PhD, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, has been appointed an RCAP co-director. Dr. Bowen is professor in the Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing and Director of the Nightingale Center for Nursing Scholarship. Anne has made several presentations at the RCAP national conference and published in the RCAP monograph. Prior to this appointment Anne was an RCAP research fellow.

Dr. Bowen is a licensed clinical psychologist with interesting in Health Promotion and interventions for people with chronic illness. Her research focuses on reducing risks for acquiring and transmitting the HIV virus. She is especially interested in developing interventions for rural people. She recently completed and Internet intervention for rural MSM with exciting results and is currently developing an Internet intervention to reduce depression among rural men who have sex with men. The intervention will be innovative in that the approach utilizes the techniques of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Mindfulness to help men live the life they want to live.

Anne has just completed a qualitative study with rural methamphetamine users in Wyoming. She is also engaged in cross cultural work and developing HIV risk reduction interventions for urban drug users in Tanzania. Finally, she is mentoring graduate students and nursing faculty on projects examining HPV vaccine acceptance, health care for women who have sex with women, women screening for breast and cervical cancer, and factors affecting rural peoples' use of the internet to obtain health information.