2015 Global Reach

November 2015 • Vol. 14

Greetings!

In this Issue: CONAHEC report............................................................ 3 Collaboration Deepens Between UA and Japan ..............................................................4 Strengthening Higher Ed Ties Between US and India................................................ 5 UNAM Center for Mexican Studies Launched..........6 UA Author: Understanding Mexico Requires Context......................................................... 7 UA Hosts Mexican Science Delegation .....................8 Binational Border Health Thematic Network Program .....................................................10 Project REINU Taps into UA’s Extension Expertise..........................................10 Dr. Cecilia Rosales......................................................... 11 UA and Dubai’s Official Partnership in the Dubai Expo 2020.............................................. 12 UA Shares Agriculture with the World......................13 UA Aids Myanmar’s Seafood Industry..................... 14 Dual-Degree Graduate Program Gives Rise to UA Startup.......................................... 15 UA International Centers Receive Title VI Funds.............................................................. 16 Global Excellence Awards............................................17 Student Focus: UA Study Abroad Photo Contest..... 18 Student Focus: Distance Runner Elvin Kibet.......... 20 UA Prof Receives UNESCO Appointment................ 21 Student Focus: Learn, Do, Share................................22 Student Focus: Students Explore Pharmacy Education in Thailand............................................... 23 Fulbright News.............................................................24 A Universal Science Infrastructure: iPlant...............26 IRDG/IRDG Reports.....................................................28 2015 College Advisory Committee............................30 2015 Institutional Partners..........................................31 Front Cover: UA Study Abroad students from the Accelerated Public Health Cohort in Cuernavaca, Mexico enjoy a day trip to Teotihuacan. (More, page 18).

Back Cover: UA Delegation in Dubai. (Full story on page 12).

This past year the University of Arizona’s (UA) Office of Global Initiatives (OGI) established successful global connections linking research, data and higher institutions between the UA and our friends abroad. We welcomed numerous partners, students and colleagues to sunny Tucson, Arizona and expanded, as well as diversified, UA’s global partnerships. The November 2015 Global Reach issue highlights numerous programs, events and people that encompass OGI’s global knowledge network, including: Mike Proctor

- Project REINU: The UA was key in facilitating, developing and building a university-based extension network throughout Mexico. Support included providing on-site technical trainings to Mexican university administrators in Mexico, as well as a planned Tucson urban farm tour showcasing the University of Arizona and Pima County Cooperative Extension’s Tucson Village Farm – a working urban farm built by and for Tucson’s youth – an ideal U.S. extension system model.

- The Center for Mexican Studies – Tucson: UA’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) partnership dates back to 1980, with transformative and ongoing research collaborations existing in astronomy, arid lands and medicine. President Ann Weaver Hart, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and UNAM Rector José Narro signed an agreement in early 2015 to open The Center for Mexican Studies to be housed on the UA campus. The Center’s grand opening occurred in September, and has already generated momentum for additional institutional research partnerships and student and faculty mobility programs.

- Undergraduate Certificate in International Environmental Conservation: A unique Study Abroad program housed in UA’s Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences where students visit Australia, Ecuador or Namibia; students participate in actual research courses related to conservation and environmental science. Courses can be applied to the Undergraduate Certificate in International Environmental Conservation.

- Sustainable fishing in Myanmar: This UA-led partnership was awarded a $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to restore a severely decimated aquaculture industry; this international research partnership is central to Myanmar’s strategy to rejoin the global economy.

The above OGI activities and goals, and countless others, establish the University of Arizona as a preferred partner to institutions around the world – a global knowledge network and THE global land-grant university.

We truly appreciate your support in our international initiatives. Our combined successes make us proud, and we are excited to continue creating a global Arizona experience.

Best regards, Mike Proctor Vice President, Global Initiatives

The University of Arizona is proud to celebrate the 16th annual International Education Week.

IEW is celebrated nationally and is a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education. The week celebrates the benefits of international education and exchange throughout the

world. The UA will host lectures, events and special sessions throughout the week. Unless noted, all events are free and open to the public. See the “Calendar of IEW Events” webpage for an overview of all events to be hosted campus-wide at the University of Arizona.

More on International Education Week: global.arizona.edu/iew

Global Grand Challenges: Channeling International Collaboration

The Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) is a non-profit membership network of 180 higher education institutions in the United States, Mexico, Canada and members in 19 additional countries around the world.

CONAHEC was created to support the need for higher education Sean Manley-Casimir, institutions to work together to Executive Director, prepare globally and inter-culturally CONAHEC competent graduates able to address future challenges in collaboration with multicultural and international groups of colleagues.

The main function is to facilitate international and interinstitutional collaboration in higher education focusing on strengthening the North American higher education community and its relationships with partners around the world.

CONAHEC serves as an information platform, and has a number of programs which support internationalization of higher education institutions. These include international mobility programs for faculty, staff and students such as internship and service learning opportunities. The organization helps members find partners for international initiatives and acts as a liaison among them and with North American governments, and organizes higher education conferences and meetings in collaboration with sister organizations and associations.

CONAHEC also provides instruments to help members assess their own internationalization programs, promotes its members and their programs at international conferences and events and presents at conferences and events on timely topics in international higher education. global.arizona.edu

CONAHEC’s Mobility Incubator Program is generating excellent results both in increasing regional student mobility, and in helping to identify opportunities for new and strengthened relationships among some of the region’s best institutions.

In January of 2015, CONAHEC collaborated with the Jalisco Consortium for Cooperation and Internationalization of Higher Education and the Secretary of Innovation Science and Technology of the State of Jalisco to bring a group of US and Canadian visitors to learn about the opportunities for collaboration that exist in Guadalajara, Mexico.

In March, CONAHEC collaborated with a group of seven universities in Puebla, Mexico along with the US Embassy in Mexico and the Government of the State of Puebla to implement the Very Interested in Puebla (VIP) Visit to highlight the excellence of Puebla and region as another of the primary higher education nodes in the country.

More recently, in October, CONAHEC collaborated with the Consortium of Mexican Universities (CUMex) and the National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions (ANUIES) to bring a group of institutional leaders to visit institutions in San Antonio, Texas, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tucson, Arizona, and Fullerton and San Jose, California, all in the span of a week.

Join us at CONAHEC’s 17th North American Higher Education Conference that will take place in beautiful San Luis Potosí, Mexico from March 16-18, 2016 generously hosted by the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí (UASLP).

CONAHEC’s activities and network provide excellent opportunities for UA faculty, researchers, students and staff for collaboration with Mexican, Canadian and South American institutions. To find out more about CONAHEC and its activities, please visit http://www.conahec.org

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Collaboration Deepens Between UA and Japan University Relations – Communications A strengthened collaboration between the University of Arizona and Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and the University of Tokyo was the result of a trip overseas in June 2015 by a delegation from the UA and the Arizona Board of Regents.

The UA and ISAS are part of parallel missions designed to bring back asteroid samples that could hold clues to the formation of the solar system and the origin of life-seeding molecules on Earth. The UA leads the OSIRIS-REx mission under a contract with NASA. ISAS, which is part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, leads the Hayabusa 2 mission.

... another example of how the UA has extended its global reach...

Hayabusa 2, the successor to the first asteroid sample mission ever undertaken in 2005, is already en route to the asteroid 1999JU3. It will be exploring that space rock at the same time that OSIRISREx, scheduled to launch in a little more than a year, will be exploring the asteroid Bennu.

Representatives of the two missions met last fall on the UA campus. But the recent visit has taken the relationship to another level, according to Tim Swindle, head of

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the UA’s Department of Planetary Sciences and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, who went on the weeklong trip and said he envisions UA and Japanese representatives shuttling back and forth every few months.

Also on the trip from the UA were President Ann Weaver Hart; Kimberly Andrews Espy, senior vice president for research; Mike Proctor, vice president of global initiatives; Jon Dudas, senior associA film crew from last year captured the UA meeting with Dr. Masaki Fujimoate to the president; to, ISAS director of solar system exploration, and Dr. Shogo Tachibana and Buell Jannuzi, head Dr. Harold Connolly, the scientists who oversee the sample analysis plans for Hayabusa-2 and OSIRIS-REx, respectively. Photo by Professor Dante of the Department of Lauretta.

Astronomy; and Dante Lauretta, principal Hayabusa 2 “will get there a little before investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission.

OSIRIS-REx gets to Bennu,” Swindle said.

“But both missions will be at their asterEileen Klein, president of the Arizona oids at the same time. As Dante Lauretta Board of Regents, and Greg Patterson, puts it, the Japanese are jumping off the vice chair of ABOR, were also part of the cliff first.” delegation.

The missions could yield similar data Swindle said that in addition to the things from similar asteroids, but they are tricky. that the two asteroid missions will learn from each other, there is the possibility “The sampling will be difficult,” Swindle of working more closely on identifying said. “Each mission has the ability to try other missions. Another collaboration more than once. The Japanese will learn, will involve the UA’s Steward Observatoand we’ll learn from watching them. We’ll ry and the University of Tokyo Atacama share nuts and bolts on analyzing data.”

Observatory, or TAO, in work on a 6.5-m infrared telescope.

However, OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa 2 are front and center for now.

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Strengthening Higher-Ed Ties Between US and India

by Amanda Ballard University Relations - Communications Mike Proctor, the UA’s vice president for global initiatives, recently met with higher-education leaders throughout India during a visit facilitated by the United States-India Educational Foundation.

“With one of the fastest-growing economies and the secondlargest population in the world, India represents major collaborative opportunities for Arizona,” says Mike Proctor, the University of Arizona’s vice president for global initiatives.

“You can’t ignore places like India,” he said. “It’s an incredible, dynamic place. And we have to think through a more comprehensive relationship structure.”

Proctor made his first visit to India in March as part of the Fulbright program. Fulbright Scholarships allow students, faculty and staff to travel to other countries to participate in a variety of education-related activities.

Proctor’s Fulbright visit was facilitated by the United StatesIndia Educational Foundation, an organization that works to promote mutual understanding between India and the U.S. through educational exchanges of scholars, professionals and students.

While in India, Proctor met with higher-education leaders throughout the country, traveling to Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. He visited with representatives from the University of Delhi, Stella Maris College, O P Jindal Global University, and many other private and public institutions to learn about the strengths and challenges of India’s higher-education system.

“So many of the critical needs and central challenges that they’re facing align with strengths of our institution, from higher-education administration to water to linguistics and public health,” Proctor said. “There’s a huge need to provide access to higher education to a really large number of people.

How do they solve that, and how do we help contribute to that solution?”

India is often cited by business and industry leaders as one of the world’s strongest emerging markets and is one of the BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — distinguished by large, fast-growing economies. Proctor said this is just one of the many reasons the U.S. should explore potential collaborative opportunities with India.

“There were some really fascinating things going on at some of the universities,” he said. “We can learn a lot from India.”

Proctor said that the UA Office of Global Initiatives is working to develop long-term strategies to maintain relationships with various countries around the world, including India.

“One of the key things is, we have to figure out how to be more effectively and sustainably engaged in some of these critical regions,” Proctor said.

“We have a lot of collaborations across campus that are very organic,” he said. “Some of them are very strong. And there’s no architecture to that, which is fine. But those relationships wax and wane with funding and the interest of faculty. Part of what we’re trying to do with multiple regions is build an architecture around a set of relationships, so there is some continuity.”

Beyond student recruitment, Proctor said these relationships allow the UA to both develop and share its expertise in water, food security, public health and cultural interaction. In turn, the state benefits from shared learning experiences that result from international partnerships.

“The UA is a hub in a global knowledge network, and the things that we’re good at are the things that are important to the rest of the world right now,” Proctor said. “Is there a deeper experience that can be drawn from working more closely with other countries? That answer is always yes.”

Proctor said his visit clarified several ways in which the UA could help advance higher-education initiatives in India.

For example, he said the UA could lend its expertise in the country’s development of a new technical university and new accreditation standards for state-funded universities. He added that a collaborative service-learning program in which U.S. students could travel to India to work in communities alongside local college students could be developed.

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University Relations Communications The UA’s collaboration with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the largest university in Latin America, has entered a new stage.

Ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) at the UA. Pictured are Claudio Estrada Gasca, Franciso Trigo Tavera, Andrew Comrie and Mike Proctor.

UNAM Center for Mexican Studies Launched The University of Arizona’s collaboration with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, or UNAM, on a Center for Mexican Studies, which was announced earlier this year and formalized in June with a signed agreement, has entered its next phase.

A delegation from UNAM visited Tucson for four days of academic and cultural activities related to the inauguration of the UNAM Center for Mexican Studies in Tucson. UNAM, a public research institution based in Mexico City, is the largest university in Latin America. UNAM already has four full-time representatives based at the UA at 939 N. Tyndall Ave., working for the center under the direction of Claudio Estrada.

Estrada, UA President Ann Weaver Hart and Francisco Trigo, UNAM’s institutional development secretary, were among those in attendance at a dinner held at Old Main on Monday evening that introduced the center’s advisory committee.

“The center reflects the University of Arizona’s commitment to partnership,” Hart said in addressing the guests, who included UA deans Jeffrey Goldberg (College of Engineering), John Paul Jones III (College of Social and Behavioral

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Sciences), Charles Cairns (interim dean, College of Medicine), Mary Wildner-Basset (College of Humanities), Joaquin Ruiz (College of Science) and Jory Hancock (College of Fine Arts).

“We mean partnership in the broadest human sense,” Hart said. “We have different talents, similar interests and a remarkable set of resources.”

Hart traced the universities’ relationship to 1980, noting that it has included collaboration ranging from astronomy to the arts. In presenting a symbolic key to the center to Trigo, she said the UA has decided to move its Mexico City office — a fixture since 2007, when it was established through the College of Science — onto the UNAM campus there.

Collaborative research has been a focus of the Mexico City office from the beginning. In 2013, the office established a binational consortium to research arid-lands issues facing the Southwest and Mexico. The consortium, a partnership between the UA and UNAM, is funded

by Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology, also known as CONACyT, which is the country’s equivalent of the National Science Foundation in the U.S.

In recent years, the Mexico City office also has focused on facilitating technology transfer initiatives.

UNAM has had a presence for years in San Antonio, Chicago and Canada, according to Trigo. He said those offices initially were isolated from universities, and recent affiliations have been located on or near college campuses. These include UNAM satellites in Beijing, Paris, London, Costa Rica and Spain, as well as branches at the University of Washington and California State University, Northridge.

The UA becomes the 11th location outside Mexico for UNAM, which claims an enrollment of more than 340,000.

“The center will begin on solid ground because of the relationships that already exist between our faculties,” Trigo said, praising the UA’s Mike Proctor, vice president for global initiatives, for his work in helping to establish the center.

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UA Author: ‘Understanding Mexico Requires Context’ University Relations Communications Regents’ Professor Oscar Martínez, who grew up in Ciudad Juárez, examines his native country’s economic challenges in his new book, “Mexico’s Uneven Development.”

As a boy growing up in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Oscar Martínez always wondered why life there was so different from the sister city of El Paso, Texas, on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande.

For Martínez, the stark contrast between Juárez and El Paso symbolizes the differences on a larger scale between Mexico and the U.S. — complex differences that can’t be explained without their history, according to Martínez’s new book, “Mexico’s Uneven Development: The Geographical and Historical Context of Inequality.”

“People need to have a better understanding of the kind of country Mexico is,” says Martínez, a Regents’ Professor of History at the University of Arizona, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the history of Juárez.

Oscar Martínez, Ph.D.

“This book shows that Mexico has been through a number of transformations,” he says. “Governments have come and gone, but underdevelopment is a constant. More than half the population is poor. It’s a mystery I’ve sought to answer.”

Martínez participated in a panel discussion on the UA’s longtime collaboration with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, or UNAM, as part of “UNAM at UA,” four days of academic and cultural activities related to the launch of UNAM’s Center for Mexican Studies in Tucson.

The main objectives of the center are to strengthen academic collaboration with the UA and to deepen and expand the development of joint research projects in social and natural sciences, engineering, and the humanities, among other fields.

The center also aims to develop student mobility programs, conduct activities related to teaching Spanish and Spanish certification, disseminate Mexican cultural activities and participate in a UNAM initiative to assist migrants.

Martínez, who has been at the UA since 1988, has focused his research over the years on the political, economic and social history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The new book is his third, after “Troublesome Border” (2006) and “Mexican-Origin People in the United States: A Topical History” (2001).

Explanations often advanced for Mexico’s problems include government incompetence, corruption and cultural deficiencies, but Martínez says those don’t go nearly deep enough. He says Mexico has been hindered in its development by five “foundational factors,” which he identifies as natural environment, natural resources, population dynamics, relations with other countries, and the structure of production and governance.

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Simple geography, he says, is central to explaining how Mexico and the U.S. evolved differently. Lacking the waterways of the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, and with smaller coastal cities than those in the U.S., Mexico was limited in its economic development and also its political and social integration.

“Mexico is one-fifth the size of the United States, its location is less favorable, its shape is more contorted, its topography is much more mountainous, its resource endowment is significantly smaller, its coastlines have far fewer good harbors, and its rivers and lakes have almost no navigation possibilities,” Martínez writes.

“These basic physical differences provide a logical starting point for understanding the divergent economic trajectories of each country.”

Agricultural production, he says, has suffered in Mexico because of climatic conditions, uneven rainfall patterns and the fact that little more than 10 percent of the land is suitable for cultivation.

It’s also unfair, Martínez says, to compare Mexico’s development to the swift economic rise of China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and South Korea — countries that have benefited from far more favorable geographic and international circumstances, including easy access to global shipping lanes and to U.S. markets, while receiving significant U.S. aid.

Martínez says steps that might improve living conditions in Mexico could include mandated wage increases, expansion of social programs, state support for domestic research and development, subsidization of homegrown manufacturing companies, aid to farmers hurt by trade policies, and legalization of drugs in order to lessen corruption and lawlessness.

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(Photo by John de Dios.) Mexican Sen. Alejandro Tello, José Lever, and President Ann Hart.

Pyrargyrite ore from a Zacatecas silver mine.

A view of an ASARCO mine in Sahuarita, Arizona.

UA Hosts Mexican Science Delegation University Relations - Communications A science delegation from Mexico says it has found the right partner in the University of Arizona — and hopefully the answer to some of the country’s most pressing concerns in mining and technology.

The delegation, led by Sen. Alejandro Tello, president of the Mexican Senate’s Commission on Science and Technology, visited the UA at the beginning of 2015 to confer with administrators and faculty.

Tello’s home state of Zacatecas is rich in mineral wealth, responsible for making Mexico the world’s largest producer of silver, and he was specifically interested in issues pertaining to sustainable mining. The first day of the three-day visit included a trip to the ASARCO mine in Sahuarita, about 25 miles south of Tucson.

“Zacatecas is the leading producer of silver in the world, and the University of

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Arizona is a world leader in sustainablemining studies,” Tello said through an interpreter at a reception Monday evening preceding the launch of the annual UA College of Science Lecture Series. “I’ve found an excellent response to the questions I had, both the theoretical and the practical.”

Others in the delegation included José Franco, immediate past president of the Mexican Academy of Sciences; Teresa De León, director of technology commercialization for Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology; Ofelia Angulo, academic director of the National System of Technological Institutes; and Victor Gutiérrez, president of the National Chamber of Electronics, Telecom and Information Technologies.

The group was hosted by José Lever, director of the UA’s Mexico office. UA President Ann Weaver Hart gave an official welcome to the visitors before the reception.

Gutiérrez said that Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has introduced a series of economic reforms, with one goal being an increase in the number of information technology professionals across several fields. Gutiérrez identified seven of those fields: business analytics, big data, mobile Internet, advanced robotics, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing and digital interconnection.

Those, he said, could have an economic impact of as much as $35 trillion for Mexico over the next 10 years.

Of the UA, Gutiérrez said, “You are leading in fields like mining and engineering, and there is a lot of innovation in robotics. You are doing a lot of research in the telecommunication fields.”

Gutiérrez said he was especially impressed by Jeff Goldberg, dean of the UA’s College of Engineering, which this psat summer accepted 30 graduate students from Mexico. He credited Lever

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The faciltiies at the University of Arizona’s mirror lab.

with calling attention to the UA’s array of scientific endeavors.

“He has explained to us much of your activity and programs,” Gutiérrez said.

Lever, who has been with the UA for nearly eight years, said the visit to the Sahuarita mine provided an indication of how the UA-Mexico partnership can benefit both sides.

“It was enlightening,” he said, “and it showed in an undeniable way how the teamwork of the University, the community and the industry can make responsible mining work for everyone’s benefit.”

Lever said the delegation’s visit demonstrated that the groundwork being done in Mexico by the University is paying dividends.

“We started spreading the word with the right people in Mexico about the UA’s strength,” he said, “and that went to the

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San Pedro Martir Telescope will reside at El Observatorio Astronómico Nacional.

“... the University of Arizona is a world leader in sustainablemining studies ...” ears of the senator.”

The visitors joined a packed house at Centennial Hall for the kickoff of the lecture series, which featured an engaging talk by the Rev. Guy J. Consolmagno, a planetary scientist with the Vatican Observatory Research Group.

The series, now in its 10th year, will be presented on Mondays through March.

The delegation toured the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab on the second day of its visit. Mexico’s National

Astronomical Observatory is located in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir range on Baja California peninsula, at an elevation of more than 9,000 feet. The UA is working with astronomy groups at the Instituto Nacional de Astronomia, Optica y Electronica, located in Puebla, Mexico, and the Instituto de Astronomia, Universidad Nacional Autonomia de Mexico, based in Mexico City, on the designs for a 6.5-meter telescope at the site.

The Mirror Lab will produce the primary mirror for this proposed telescope, the San Pedro Mártir Telescope, or SPMT, which probably will coordinate with its twin instrument, the 6.5-meter telescope at the MMT Observatory on Mount Hopkins near Green Valley, Arizona. Both observatories are envisioned to operate through a collaboration involving the UA, the aforementioned Mexican partners and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

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The Binational Border Health Thematic Network Program aims to integrate the individual and organizational capital of the public, private and social sectors of the Border States. Through this integration, members propose to contribute to improving our common public health challenges at the US-Mexico border using the Healthy Border 2020 Initiative as a framework.

Together, representatives of the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission, the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, the University of Arizona and the University of California, San Diego agree to create collaborative partnerships and work on collaborative scientific, academic, technological, information and communication activities in binational health as well as training for academic faculty, students and staff to strengthen research, monitoring and evaluation in the field of binational health for the benefit of society.

The structure of the Binational Border Health Thematic Network is supported by financing from the CONACYT Thematic Networks. The winning proposal was approved and published

by CONACYT on Friday, April 10, 2015.

Dra. María Gudelia Rangel Gómez Secretaria Ejecutiva Comisión de Salud Fronteriza México-Estados Unidos Sección México Dr. Jesús Ancer Rodríguez Rector Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León C.P. Enrique Etienne Pérez del Río Rector Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas

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Lic. Ricardo Duarte Jaques Rector Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez Mark G. Yudof President University of California, San Diego Ann Weaver Hart President The University of Arizona

Project REINU Taps Into UA’s University Relations - Communications Nearly 60 representatives from 19 Mexican universities made a visit to the Tucson Village Farm, located at the University of Arizona’s Campus Agricultural Center along north Campbell Avenue. They participated in a UA-hosted training for a project to establish a new extension network in Mexico.

The UA is leading the initiative, in partnership with New Mexico State University. The project is called the Red De Extensión e Innovación Nacional Universitaria, also known as Project REINU, and translates to the National University Extension and Innovation Network.

“The University of Arizona is privileged to serve in this role as U.S. lead in helping Mexico develop a nationwide network for university extension and innovation,” he added. “This opportunity comes as a result of literally generations of UA work in Mexico, and a shared vision for deep collaboration in the future. Together, we can work to empower individuals and communities to find new opportunities for education and economic development.”

Project REINU will serve Mexico as a national university-based network of scientists and educators to provide resources and educational services across the country. The network will serve as a link between research-based information and communities, as well as youth-based programs similar to Arizona’s 4-H Youth Development program.

Top photo: UA 4-H Youth Development Assistant Agent, Elizabeth Sparks, leads a session with REINU extension workers in Mexico City. Bottom photo: REINU team members visit Tucson.

UA’s Dr. Cecilia Rosales Appointed to Binational Border Health Thematic Network

by Geri Kelly Cecilia Rosales, MD, MS, assistant dean of the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health -- Phoenix, was appointed to the Academic Technical Council (ATC) of the Binational Border Health Thematic Network (BBHTN). The network is comprised of experts from 10 border states to improve response to the challenges posed by public health conditions on the U.S.-México Border.

Extension Expertise 4-H is the largest positive youth development and youth mentoring organization in the U.S., empowering six million young people in partnership with 110 universities — including the UA. It is the youth development program of the nation’s Cooperative Extension System and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The UA oversees 4-H programs for ages 5 to 19 in all 15 counties in Arizona.

The Smith-Lever Act of 1914, signed into law

by President Woodrow Wilson, established the Cooperative Extension System affiliated with the nation’s land-grant universities. The UA’s Cooperative Extension links the research and expertise of the University with Arizona’s counties, using faculty to staff each extension center and provide resources to communities. There are currently six primary universities in Mexico involved. Each university has satellite offices, totaling 19 extension sites in Mexico. Proctor said the goal is to involve 80 universities in Project REINU by 2018.

Paul Gutierrez, an extension specialist for New Mexico State University, said partnering with the UA on project REINU was an obvious choice. Both universities are land-grant institutions, and their border locations mean they are well-prepared to serve Mexico and form strong partnerships with Mexican institutions.

“The partnership with the University of Arizona was very easy,” Gutierrez said. “We’re all part of the same cultural fabric.” global.arizona.edu

Cecilia Rosales, MD, MS

Funded by a $250,000, one-year grant from the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) in Mexico, it is the only funded network focused on the U.S.México border region. The network’s frame of reference will align and follow the priorities established in the Healthy Border 2020 Initiative, to address five public health priorities of binational concern, including chronic and degenerative diseases, infectious diseases, maternal and child health, mental health and addiction, and injury prevention.

Gudelia Rangel, PhD, executive secretary for the Mexico Section of the U.S.-México Border Health Commission, said Dr. Rosales was invited to be part of the initial proposal-writing team and a member of the Academic Technical Council because of her prestigious and extensive experience in the field of border health.

“In addition, because of the academic nature of this network, we identified and invited individuals, such as Dr. Rosales, and institutions, such as the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, whose research, teaching and service mission and focus includes the border region, to be a part of this grant.”

Dr. Rosales has worked in the health arena for more than 20 years and in public health more than 15 years. She joined the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health in 2005, after serving five years as director of the Office of Border Health for the Arizona Department of Health Services. Dr. Rosales has expertise in program development and implementation, public health administration, policy and health disparities research in the Southwest.

Dr. Rosales uniquely contributes to the body of knowledge about Hispanic, border and bi-national health and conducts community-based participatory research in the Southwest. She served on the U.S.-México Border Health Commission, the Arizona-Mexico Commission, the Border Governors and the state health departments in Arizona and Sonora. She understands the context of how the public health infrastructure can be strengthened at the local, state, national and binational levels to eliminate health disparities.

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UA and Dubai’s Official Partnership in the Dubai Expo 2020

by Alyssa Schlitzer Office of Global Initiatives The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country of great innovation, culture and commerce for the Gulf region of North Africa and South Asia. The fundamental legacy it holds, which is one of facilitating connections and pioneering new ideas, resulted in the authorization for the city of Dubai to host the world exposition in 2020, known as Dubai Expo 2020.

Dubai Expo 2020 will be unlike any other world exposition held in the past. It will symbolize global recognition of UAE’s legacy and of Dubai’s acknowledgment for being a well-known global center of trade and logistics.

The 6th Annual GCC Reunion will take place in

Tucson Jan 21-24 2016

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solutions through sustainability, mobility, and opportunity. The goals of Expo 2020 are to create lasting sources of energy and water, create smart systems of logistics and transportation, and carve new paths to economic development throughout the region.

To obtain these goals, the Dubai Expo 2020 is focusing on the worldwide collaboration between the United Arab Emirates, the University of Arizona, the Emirate of Dubai, Dubai Expo 2020, and DP World because of the different strengths, knowledge, and power each group has to offer for the exposition’s sustainable success.

Hassan Hijazi, director of International Alumni and Development Initiatives in the Office of Global Initiatives at UA, develops networks of global alumni that will lead to business development for the university in terms of research and partnerships with other universities on the global level.

One of the best alumni groups the UA has, according to Hijazi, is in the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) region, where they hold the GCC friends and alumni reunion every January.

The University of Arizona, being a top 20 U.S. public research university, signed an agreement to be a partner in Dubai Expo 2020 and will play a major role because of its achievements of focusing on sustainability challenges, innovation, and education since being founded in 1887.

The UA started attending this reunion a year after it was created in 2011, and the network has become more connected since then because more alumni’s have been incorporated into the group creating a stronger and well-rounded alumni reunion group.

The University of Arizona has now entered a Knowledge Partner Agreement with Dubai Expo 2020 defining respective roles in the Dubai Arizona Knowledge Consortium.

Hijazi said the reunion in January 2015 consisted of about 130 alumni, President Dr. Hart, upper UA administration members, and a few deans’ from different colleges around the university.

The main vision and theme of Dubai Expo 2020 is to create a platform for the global community to create long-lasting

On this particular trip, according to Hijazi, the UA signed an agreement with the Dubai Expo 2020 administration for a possible partnership with the

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sustainability project they have planned for that year.

“Through the alumni network [Dubai] has learned about the university and how involved we are in sustainability matters and how we could be an excellent partner on sustainability and the everlasting relationship that will develop into the future as a sustainable model,” said Hijazi.

The goals for Dubai Expo 2020 include building the Jubilee Gardens by exploring local seeds and vegetation in Dubai and by building a lab that will study the environmental impacts water shortages and climate change have on the future of the region, Hijazi said, and the UA will be a partner for this project.

According to Hijazi, UA will create a team from various colleges that will be helping with the creation of these projects, including people from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, to aid in the Jubilee Gardens, and people from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies to help evaluate cultural impacts and educate future generations about the agriculture and traditional wealth heritage in Dubai.

The UA and Dubai signed an agreement making the university an official consultant for Dubai Expo 2020 and the upcoming sustainability projects. “That is a really big deal for us,” said Hijazi.

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UA Shares Agricultural Technology with the World UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the United Kingdom’s Prince Charles and other dignitaries delivered keynote addresses.

The Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture has become one of the world’s most influential global platforms for exploring innovations toward sustainable agriculture and food security.

The University of Arizona again served as Official Knowledge Partner to the 2015 Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, this spring. With 102 countries represented at the Forum — launched just a year ago — the GFIA has become one of the world’s most influential global platforms for scientists, entrepreneurs and policymakers to present and explore innovations toward sustainable agriculture and food security.

UA-sponsored exhibits have included various controlled environment agriculture greenhouse technologies, a patented algal bioreactor for biofuels and aquaculture systems.

“Our GFIA involvement clearly recognizes the University of Arizona’s global reputation,” said Shane Burgess, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Our world-class expertise and record of arid-land food security and sustainability innovations in CALS benefit our state and the rest of the world.”

The GFIA is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority under the patronage of its chairman, H. H. Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who serves as deputy prime minister of the UAE and minister of presidential affairs.

The World Bank, the Clinton Climate Initiative and the CGIAR, among others, were represented on the forum’s advisory board. global.arizona.edu

The plenary panel for “Edible Cities: Building Resilience With Urban Agriculture” at the GFIA (from left): Maximilian Loessl, founder of the Association for Vertical Farming; Marcelo de Andrade, chairman of Pro-Natura Brazil and partner of Earth Capital Partners, LLP; Joel Cuello, UA professor of biosystems engineering; Roger Platt, president of the U.S. Green Buildings Council; and Gus van der Feltz, global director of City Farming, Philips (not pictured).

(Photo by George Zaharescu)

Last year’s inaugural GFIA, for which the UA also served as Official Knowledge Partner, or university consultant, was named Best Conference at the 2014 Middle East Event Awards.

“As a land-grant university, innovation has simply been an integral part of our DNA,” said Joel Cuello, official UA liaison to the GFIA and professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering.

“At CALS, what is natural for us to seek to discover and design not only applies to the benefit of Arizona, but the rest of the world,” he said.

Along with the large exhibition of varied technology innovations, roundtable discussions and more than 100 TED-style innovation presentations, this year’s GFIA featured five conferences, including the Global Climate-Smart Agriculture Summit, held in the same year of the United Nations’ launching of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture.

In addition to coorganizing with the Global Cities Network the forum’s featured conference on “Edible Cities: Building Resilience with Urban Agriculture,” the UA also co-organized with the UAE Ministry of Environment and Water a tutorial workshop on arid land hydroponics and algae production.

“Given that over 70 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities by 2050, the pressure for cities to develop their own sustainable food production systems drives innovations in an integrated way across the food, water and energy nexus,” said Cuello, who participated in the Edible Cities Conference plenary panel discussion. “This clearly helps in reimagining the technologies and strategies to improve the performance of more traditional production systems.”

Joining Cuello in delivering the tutorial workshop were UA senior research specialist Takanori Hoshino, postdoctoral researcher Sara Kuwahara, master’s student Cody L. Brown —all from the CALS Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering — and UA alumnus Eiichi Ono of Japan’s Tamagawa University. (continued on page 30)

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UA Aids Myanmar’s Seafood Industry UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences A University of Arizona-led partnership was awarded a grant of more than $1.7 million from the United States Agency for International Development to help develop an aquaculture industry that will be central to Myanmar’s strategy to rejoin the global economy.

man condition is extremely impressive in itself, but it is fundamentally about something much bigger,” said Shane Burgess, dean of the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

nurseries, on-farm sanitation, nutrition and aquaculture feed technology, mangrove restoration, an aquaculture-seafood business dictionary, and scholarships and internships.

The Myanmar Fisheries Federation, or MFF, represents most of the private sector fishing, aquaculture and seafood processing enterprises in the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. The country’s people consume, per capita, four times the amount of seafood as Americans.

Josephine Korchmaros, associate research professor from the UA Southwest Institute for Research on Women, recently visited Myanmar to help guide efforts to increase female participation in all aspects of the seafood value chain.

Myanmar “will be joining the Southeast Asia Free Trade Zone in 2016 and its seafood industry must quickly catch up to its Vietnamese, Thai and Malaysian partners who have heavily invested in all aspects of the seafood industry in recent years,” said principal investigator Kevin Fitzsimmons, director of international programs for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a professor of soil, water and environmental science.

The Office of Global Initiatives at the UA facilitated the development of the proposal and is now administering the financial aspects of the project.

A fishery in Myanmar. (Photo: by Irina Repnikova, Fish Farming International)

The USAID funding has resulted in the implementation of the three-year project, “Developing a Sustainable Seafood Industry Infrastructure in Myanmar (Burma),” a partnership between the UA and Yangon and Pathein Universities in Myanmar, and the Myanmar Fisheries Federation.

The project is helping build the human and physical capacity of the country’s seafood industry to make it profitable and internationally competitive.

“This project and its impact on the hu-

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A major objective to develop a seafood safety laboratory is now in progress at Yangon University. Jean McLain, associate director from the Water Resources Research Center and associate scientist in CALS, traveled to Myanmar during the summer to help set up the lab.

“We are working in Myanmar and with importers in other countries to meet their standards and get them samples so that they will purchase more as we get product up to their (evolving) standards,” Fitzsimmons said.

Other major objectives include work on crab, shrimp and fish hatcheries and

One early objective of the project already has been achieved, according to Fitzsimmons. Tiran Group in Israel, along with the UA, Aquaculture Without Frontiers and MFF, collaborated to transfer an aquaculture library donated by renowned Israeli scientist Gideon Hulata to Myanmar at MFF headquarters.

Scholarships for Myanmar students to study aquaculture and fisheries will be awarded for the Asian Institute of Technology and Yangon and Pathein Universities. Student internships will be supported by the project, paying for half the stipend while the private sector partners pay the other half. The first five interns already are working at a farm and a processing plant.

The project is working with MFF to organize additional training workshops and inviting the returned fishermen to participate, so that they can get training in aquaculture rather than being forced back to the sea.

“The project will build capacity and professionalism in the universities, the seafood processing and marketing sector, and in the aquaculture and fisheries sectors by partnering with the civil society and private sector to train people and empower entrepreneurial energies.”

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Graduate Dual-Degree Program Gives Rise to UA Startup Company

By Paul Tumarkin Tech Launch Arizona Multiple Supporting Elements of the Ecosystem Come Together for Success With the big data industry booming and technology companies incorporating flash memory into all kinds of devices, the demand for reliable, solid-state memory is growing at an exponential rate.

Codelucida, a startup company based on a technology developed in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona and the University of Cergy-Pontoise in France, aims to bring new levels of accuracy and efficiency to these solid-state drives (SSDs).

The collaboration grew out of a technology management agreement and graduate dual-degree program between the UA and the University of Cergy-Pontoise. Bane Vasic, Ph.D., UA Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and David Declercq, Ph.D., Professor at the University of Cergy-Pontoise, France, had been collaborating for a number of years, and have co-advised multiple post doctoral students from both countries.

One of those doctoral students, Shiva Planjery, Ph.D., was the lead inventor of the technology and now holds a prominent position in the company.

With alternative storage technologies on the industry roadmaps, the development of novel reliable storage systems is of critical importance. The dual degree program contributes significantly to the evolution of data storage technologies and the information infrastructure in the United David Declercq, Shiva Planjery and Bane Vasić. Photo by Paul Tumarkin.

States and France by tracing a path to a new generation of data storage systems that will reduce greatly the energy requirements and lower their impact on the environment.

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students receive broad training in mathematics, science, and engineering, and their educational experiences will be enriched by the close collaboration between Dr. Vasic and Dr. Declercq. The highly competent workforce produced this program is already contributing to the competitiveness of US and French industries, especially in the data storage industry.

In short, the invention licensed by the company is an errorcorrection technology for next-generation solid-state drives (SSD). It addresses a major need in the growing market as SSDs face major issues in terms of reliability due to the growing demands for higher storage capacity at reduced cost, and increased speed and endurance for emerging storage applications. It will have a major impact on consumer devices such as laptops and tablets as well as data centers and cloudbased storage systems which are all migrating to the use of SSDs over conventional hard disk drives to enable faster speeds and reduced power usage.

To protect the invention, start the company and license the technology from the UA, the team worked with Tech Launch Arizona (TLA), the UA unit that commercializes inventions stemming from university research. The company is also taking advantage of other TLA resources; it is going through the Mentored Launch program at the Arizona Center for Innovation, an incubator at the UA Tech Park, which is also part of TLA. Along with helping develop the company’s business strategy, Arizona Center for Innovation (AzCI) is also assisting with product prototyping.

“What we’re developing is relating to decoders and how you retrieve information on SSDs,” explains Vasic. “As errors happen, you not only need an algorithm to correct them, but you need that software to be energy- and space-efficient, so it will fit on chips for mobile devices.”

The market for this breed of memory – known as NAND flash memory – has grown from $370M in 2000 to an estimated $23.6B in 2013 and is expected to reach $30.8B by the end of 2016, according to a leading industry market source.

Most recently, Codelucida was awarded a $750,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase-2 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The company previously completed a $150,000 six-month Phase-1 grant, which made it eligible to apply for the competitive Phase-2 grant. The two-year grant is non-dilutive federal funding meant to further assist the company in its commercialization efforts.

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UA International Centers Receive Title VI Funds

by Lori Harwood UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Grants totaling $2.5 million go to the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy.

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy at the University of Arizona have been awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Education for four years of funding, totaling more than $2.5 million. The grants establish the UA as a leader in foreign language instruction and Middle Eastern studies.

According to the U.S. Department of Education website, the grants are designed to “strengthen the capacity and performance of American education in foreign languages, international and area studies, teacher preparation, and international business education.” They are funded under five programs authorized by Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965.

The UA received grants under three of the five programs.

CMES, which is housed in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), was named a Title VI National Resource Center, or NRC. These centers are funded to provide research and instruction in foreign languages and international studies, as well as outreach to secondary and elementary schools and to the wider community. CMES also received funds for Foreign Language and Area Studies, or FLAS, fellowships.

CERCLL, housed in the College of Humanities, was named a Title VI Language

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“Title VI National Resource grants are the gold standard in international studies ...”

Resource Center. These centers are funded to develop resources for the teaching and learning of foreign languages at K-16 levels across the U.S. and to promote the learning of languages that are less commonly taught.

Center for Middle Eastern Studies The UA’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies is one of 15 Middle East centers nationally to receive NRC funding and one of 13 to receive FLAS fellowship support in the new grant cycle. The UA has had a National Resource Center in Middle East studies since 1975, making it one of the longest consistently funded NRCs in Middle East studies in the country.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” said Anne Betteridge, director of CMES. “The Title VI National Resource grants are the gold standard in international studies. This is a hugely important form of national recognition, especially given the fact that 100 National Resource Centers representing all areas of the world were funded in this grant cycle, compared to 127 in 2010-13.”

NRC funds support the mission of CMES to develop Middle East programs across the UA campus, train students in Middle Eastern languages, and provide outreach

to K-12 schools and the community.

Betteridge said the NRC funds also will allow the SBS college to develop the classes “Environmental History of the Middle East” and “Minorities in the Middle East” (the latter taught in Arabic); to hire a new faculty member in environmental studies of the Middle East and North Africa; and to engage in new collaborations with colleagues in the UA College of Education, Cochise College and UA South to internationalize curricula.

The FLAS funds will allow CMES to award 11 academic-year awards to students during each of the four years, and to support intensive language study for at least five students each summer. UA undergraduate and graduate students in any discipline who study Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Turkish can receive FLAS awards. Students also may petition to use the awards to study additional Middle Eastern languages, such as Berber and Kurdish.

“This was a particularly competitive year, and three existing Middle East centers lost their funding,” said Scott Lucas, former director of the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, which houses CMES. “We are delighted that the UA remains among the elite universities that are National Resource Centers for Middle Eastern Studies and has secured FLAS fellowships for UA graduate and undergraduate students.”

Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literary Established in 2006, CERCLL is a collaborative effort among programs, departments and colleges at the UA and other institutions in the Southwest and beyond.

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Global Excellence Awards Recognize International Work Projects are led by UA faculty in the Colleges of Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Education. Additional partners include organizations on campus working in international education, including CMES, the Office of Global Initiatives and the Confucius Institute, as well as several of the 16 other Language Resource Centers around the U.S. In the new grant cycle, CERCLL will work more closely with local educational institutions, including UA South and Pima Community College, to expand outreach to underserved and minority student populations.

“Global competencies are an ever-increasing imperative for our students, so we are excited to embrace this priority from the Department of Education, in order to make quality foreign language education accessible to a greater number of students in southern Arizona and beyond,” said CERCLL co-director Chantelle Warner.

Ten projects will be funded by the grant, including the creation of teacher manuals for developing second- language literacy through digital gaming and the development of a digital archive of authentic interactions between Chinese-language learners and their peers during study abroad.

CERCLL will continue to offer outreach activities for K-16 educators to enable them to better integrate a range of linguistic and culture perspectives into their classrooms. The center’s biennial Intercultural Competence Conference, which draws scholars and teachers from all over the world, will continue with fifth and sixth iterations in 2016 and 2018.

This fall, CERCLL hosted the first hybrid symposium on digital literacies in the second-language classroom. Based on the high levels of interest, two more events are planned for the new grant cycle.

The UA’s Office of Global Initiatives and Center for English as a Second Language recognized three Global Excellence Award winners in Fall 2014. These awards recognize individuals and groups who have produced a substantial impact in the areas of international service or international education.

Donald Slack, a professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, received the Excellence in Global Education Award. Slack has furthered the cause of international education through multiple initiatives and contributions for more than 40 years. UA alumna Chelsea Halstead, co-founder and program manager at the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, received the Excellence in Global Service Award. At Colibrí, Halstead coordinates with forensic specialists throughout Mexico and the border region, and travels throughout the Southwest giving public presentations on the humanitarian dimensions of the border crisis.

The Student Award for Global Excellence went to Team Guate, made up of public health and development practice students. With guidance from faculty members in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, the students developed a service learning practicum in western Guatemala and southern Mexico with a focus on border health, migration, sustainable development and cultural enrichment.

The 2015 awards will be presented at a public reception in the Student Union Gallery on November 19th at 4pm.

Donald Slack (left) stands with the members of Team Guate and Chealsea Halstead.

“With only 16 National Language Resource Centers nationwide, CERCLL is a central hub for foreign language education in the Southwest and a force of innovation across the country,” said CERCLL co-director Beatrice Dupuy. “This award is certainly also a testament to UA’s strengths in second-language learning and teaching. We look forward to continuing to foster and contribute to the great work that is being done here.”

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Y D STU

D A O ABR T S E T N CO O T O H P

S R E N WIN

u

Each year the winners and all of the 150+ submissions to our annual study abroad photo contest represent the UA’s diverse array of programs, locations and students. These photos were our 2014 photo contest winners:

Winner | Cultural Sn apshot: Kyle Flynn

Auschwitz Concen

tration Camp

At right: Winner of the School Spirit category: Jennifer Lim “Family of Wildcats on Volcan Villarrica” (Arizona in Vina del Mar) Winner of Landscape and Nature category: Briana Sanchez “Ramadan Kareem” (Arizona in Jordan)

Winner of Cultural Snapshot category: Hannah Gaber “A Quiet Moment of Study” (International Journalism Fieldwork: Oman and Dubai)

(Above): Grand Prize Winner: Tatyana Ray “Intercultural Exchange with an Ndebele Artist“ (Geography of Health and Development) A delightful visit with one of the most famous Ndebele female artists, Esther Mahlangu!: sharing images and laughter after an iPhone photoshoot.

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The 2015 awards will be presented at a public reception in the Student Union Gallery on November 19th at 4pm.

Come join us!

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Distance Runner Elvin Kibet Found Her Way at UA

by Sean Collins Arizona Athletics

But her sisters wouldn’t let her give up so easily. Silvia thought that if she could run a 5K in less than 15 minutes, then Elvin could do it in 17 minutes. That translates roughly to a 9-minute 3K.

The native Kenyan was not welltrained when she came to the U.S., but she will leave the UA as one of the best distance runners in school history — and with big plans for the rest of her life.

Li already was heading to Kenya to check out another athlete, Lawi Lalang. In the email exchange with Hugo, Li said there would be a time trial with four people.

You must run 3,000 meters — about two miles — in nine minutes. And do it at an elevation of 7,000 feet.

That was the task that stood between Elvin Kibet getting from Eldoret, Kenya, to Tucson and the University of Arizona, where her college athletic and academic career of distinction ends this spring when she graduates from the UA on May 16.

Associate head coach James Li of the UA track and field program often makes recruiting visits to Kenya. He knew of the Kibet family because of two of Elvin’s athletic sisters: Silvia won the silver medal in the 5,000 meters at the 2009 IAAF World Championships, and Hildah was a marathoner who was ranked in the top 10 in the world.

Elvin graduated from high school but did not know what her next step would be. Going to a university in Kenya is far different from attending one in the U.S. A student’s grades determine which universities will extend an invitation.

“I missed an A-minus once,” Kibet said.

“By just a little bit I missed it. I just considered myself a failure. I thought, ‘I’m so done now.’”

Her sisters thought she should try running. Some people run so well that they go to America to compete in school, they told her. The option was intriguing.

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A 9-minute 3K is very fast. Kibet ran it in 11 minutes.

“I always bulldoze into everything. So I said this is it, running, let’s do it. My sister gave me running shoes, they didn’t fit, but that was fine,” says Elvin Kibet about how she began running. (Photo: J and L Photo)

“Since a very young age, I’ve always taken risks. I take the big challenges ...”

One of Elvin’s sisters was married to a man named Hugo, who knew Olympian Bernard Lagat, who trains with Li. That is how the dots got connected. Hugo got Li’s email address, contacted him and said that Elvin was interested. “(Li) said, ‘She’s never run before, but she’s interested? Yeah, OK, she better run a 3K in nine minutes.’ I just laughed and said, ‘OK, let’s look at another option,’” Kibet recalled.

“I brought my video camera and recorded her running,” Li said. “I watched it over and over. I just liked her ease, how effortless her mechanics were. There was just untapped potential there. She had no real training at that point. I thought, ‘Here’s another chance I’ll take.’ It wasn’t an easy decision.”

It took him a month to decide before he sent an email to Kibet, offering a full athletic scholarship to attend the UA. And that’s how Elvin Kibet left behind Eldoret, located on the equator.

“Where I grew up was very basic,” said Kibet, one of 10 children. “We would go to the river to get water. We would go to the forest to get wood for fire. We did a lot of farming. My parents had goats and sheep and cows. We would just go to school, come back, do chores, clean the house and tend to the livestock. It was very basic.”

“When I landed in Tucson, I had a bag about the size of a backpack. I saw Coach Li and he asked where the rest of my stuff was. You know, where my big bag was. I told him that all my stuff was right here in this bag. He just kind of laughed.

He didn’t really know what to say.” (continued on page 27)

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UA Prof Receives UNESCO Appointment

University Relations - Communications The UNESCO Chair in Environmental History has been awarded to David Pietz to promote research and teaching focused on the history of global environmental change.

David Pietz, who directs the Global Studies Program at the University of Arizona, has been appointed to serve as the inaugural UNESCO Chair on Environmental History.

The position was created this year at the UA as part of a long-term project to explore best practices to manage water resources in a changing world.

Pietz, of the UA College of Humanities, is the first person to hold the chair position, which is one among numerous chairs addressing varying issues on behalf of UNESCO, the global peace-building organization within the United Nations.

UNESCO’s chairs program was founded to promote international inter-university cooperation and networking, and it currently involves more than 650 institutions in 124 countries.

Pietz’s initial focus as a UNESCO chair will be on the “Water and Indigenous Peoples” project, a research and teaching project. “The Water and Indigenous Peoples project comports with UA’s strategic research and teaching emphases in environmental studies, water, food and agriculture, and global health,” said Pietz, also a UA associate professor of East Asian studies. “The UNESCO chair will bring deserved recognition of UA’s tradition of excellence in these research arenas.”

Pietz said the project also will advance research themes of the College of Hu-

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manities in significant ways, particularly around cultural understanding and through the enhancement of international and intercultural relations.

“We, in the College of Humanities, are so proud to have Pietz with us as the UNESCO chair,” said Mary Wildner-Bassett, dean of the College of Humanities.

“His important work, which has been recognized by this very prestigious designation, brings together the studies of humanities related to traditions, cultures and languages with important work in and for the environment,” Wildner-Bassett said. “His membership on and contributions to our faculty, and in his additional role as director of the interdisciplinary Global Studies major program, are prime examples of the intellectual and applied synergistic work accomplished by many in the college.”

Much of Pietz’s scholarly work has been focused on long-term continuity and change in China’s water management on the North China Plain, which has been experiencing a water deficiency. With a doctorate in modern Chinese history from Washington University, Pietz’s research interests are in environmental history and the history of technology in China and East Asia. His work focuses on long-term continuity and change in China’s water management on the North China Plain.

His publications include “Engineering the State: The Huai River and Reconstruction in Nationalist China” and “State and Economy in Republican China: A Handbook for Scholars.” His newest book, “The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China,” was published in early 2015 by Harvard University Press.

Pietz’s current research on resource management in China has been supported by grants from the National Science David Pietz, Associate Professor, FoundaEast Asian Studies tion, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the American Philosophical Society and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University.

In collaboration with co-principal investigator Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted, a political science professor at Eastern Washington University, Pietz will lead the Water and Indigenous Peoples project.

“Population growth, expanding per capita consumption, increasing pollution and the compounding effects of climate change have made global access to clean water resources a global social, economic and political concern,” Pietz wrote in the project statement.

“The marginalization of indigenous peoples by colonial and national impulses has been further exasperated by the pressures of increasingly nationalized and globalized resource endowments. Faced with increasingly scarce water resources, indigenous communities have also progressively seen their traditional relationship with water resources circumscribed by legal institutions and frameworks that have displaced traditional practices that (continued on page 30)

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Learn, Do, Share: Life and Career Skills In Situ College of Agriculture and Life Sciences In situ. Learning, researching, and working on site. With local people. In their communities. Immersed in the experience.

From the iconic Namib sand dunes, the extensive Amazon rainforests of Ecuador, to the swaths of arid Western Australian terrain that even most Aussies have never Julianna Renzi visited. These are the places where Wildcats learn, do, and share – far beyond the classroom.

For Julianna Renzi, traveling to Namibia also meant returning to the country where she was born. An Environmental Sciences major at the UA, Julianna was one of 13 students who spent the summer of 2015 in Namibia. “We learned about Namibian culture, conservation biology, desert ecology, and how to do research in the field,” she notes, “and when I say that I mean everything from data collection to setting up a roof tent.”

The program was led by two faculty members in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: Thomas Wilson, associate professor of practice in the UA Department of Soils, Water, and Environmental Science, and Hans-Werner Herrmann, associate research scientist in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment. Although Professors Wilson and Herrmann have been leading the Namibia trip since 2008, they now do so

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as part of a newly created International Environmental Conservation Certificate program.

As Professor Wilson notes, the certificate was developed as a bridge to benefit students academically, professionally, and personally and challenges them to connect their classroom knowledge to real world challenges. Engaging in this type of program, at this point in their lives, “is all about a new experience for students – it changes their lives, the ways they think, their self-confidence – more than any other experience at the UA.”

“I gleaned new perspectives about what I want to focus on for a career...”

As part of the 12-unit certificate, students learn and practice environmental conservation, partner with local and international stakeholders to build awareness of conservation topics, and conduct extensive team-based field research in Namibia, Ecuador, and Australia. A capstone presentation is the students’ opportunity to “crystalize their experience, articulate what they learned, and how they translated their classroom knowledge to their interactions with the local community,” Wilson notes. The presentation also develops essential communication skills and shows other students that “they will learn something from this experience – regardless of their major.”

Once completed, students obtain an undergraduate certificate in International Environmental Conservation. This distinction stands out to employers and graduate school committees as a mark of international competency – an indicator employers rank as one of the top five most sought after professional skills.

Through the program “I gleaned new perspectives about what I want to focus on for a career as well as providing me with the opportunity to get in touch with my roots,” Julianna comments. “All of this in addition to the beautiful Namib sand dunes, awe-striking views of lone oryx, the best star-gazing in the world, and watching bustling water holes in Etosha National Park.”

The International Environmental Conservation certificate program is a life-changing opportunity that challenges students to learn, do, and share as way of living – an invaluable mindset that helps students successfully transition from the classroom to the real world.

Do you know any students interested in the environment, conservation, global exploration, or anything in between? If so, talk with them about this opportunity, share the impact study abroad had on you, and encourage them to move beyond all the reasons why they shouldn’t go so they can understand all the reasons why they should.

Julianna’s advice to students considering this transformative experience? “Do it,” she says. We couldn’t agree more.

Learn more about the IEC certificate program: swes.cals.arizona.edu/undergrad-program/international-environmental-conservation-certificate

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Students Explore Pharmacy Education, Practice in Thailand

by Elizabeth Harris College of Pharmacy Eight PharmD students spent part of their summer experiencing aspects of pharmacy, as well as culture and food, in Bangkok, Thailand. Highlights of the itinerary from their 12-day trip included visits to several community pharmacies and the Pharmaceutical Science department of Chulalongkorn University, as well as Grand Palace, Wat Pho and other cultural attractions. Through the trip, UA College of Pharmacy students learned about pharmacy education and practice in a different culture and location.

In 2014, a group of 14 students took a similar trip to Japan. The Japan trip was such a positive experience that plans began to be made for another trip.

Michael Katz, director of international programs for the college, who facilitated both trips, wrote in a blog just before the Thailand-bound group left the United States: “Why Thailand? Well, the easy answer is that I personally and the UA College of Pharmacy institutionally has a strong, long-term relationship with Thailand. UA COP was a charter member of the U.S.Thai Pharmacy Consortium.”

The consortium is a coalition of 15 U.S. pharmacy schools and all the pharmacy schools in Thailand. The group has the goal of advancing pharmacy education and practice in Thailand.

Students on the trip, who are all members of the International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation, included Christopher Hagen, Mika Janowski, Rick Lasica, Ashley Loy, Farah Raheem, Supranee Soontornprueska and Daniel Vergel de Dios, all from UA, and Mai Yokota, a friend from Kobe Gakuin University in Japan.

The group kept a blog to record their trip, which everyone on the trip updated periodically. Lasica wrote before the trip about his goals for the journey, including learning about opportunities for pharmacists in Thailand, understanding the health insurance system there and networking with people along the way.

The photo below depicts Osotsala Pharmacy, which is operated by Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of pharmaceutical science. The group visited several community pharmacies, including this one. Lasica later posted an update on the blog detailing the services these community pharmacies offer, and how they differ from similar services in the United States.

“Since there is universal free healthcare in Thailand,” he commented, “the hospitals often have

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very long wait times to receive care, even to pick up a prescription. Many people spend an entire day patiently waiting in the hospital to receive care! Therefore, many patients go straight to their local community pharmacy to seek advice and therapy from the pharmacist.”

Raheem wrote about another difference in the way pharmacy services are provided in Thailand. Medication therapy management service there is accomplished through home visits. The students shadowed pharmacy students on a home visit.

Vergel de Dios commented before the trip, “As one of the student exchange liaisons for our IPSF chapter, I’m looking forward to meeting with pharmacy students at Chulalongkorn University.

Along with meeting people, I’m hoping to experience Thai culture, learn some of the language and, of course, eat A LOT of the food.”

Sure enough, he later posted descriptions of all sorts of adventurous foods the group tried, such as noodle bowls made with pork’s blood broth, fried worms, goose feet, fried crocodile, and various desserts.

Several students commented on various cultural experiences in their blog updates. For example, Yokota noticed that Thai students, similarly to students (continued on page 27)

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FULBRIGHTS Engage Wildcat World Citizens American Indian Studies collaborated with Fulbright Canada to initiate a Fulbright Visiting Chair in Aboriginal Entrepreneurship position at the UA. The signing ceremony took place on October 13, 2015. Keith James, the new head of AIS, is the lead on this initiative.

University Relations Communications While taking a Spanish course taught by University of Arizona associate professor Melissa Fitch, Jennifer DiLallo began directing more of her attention abroad.

In the course, Fitch — a UA Faculty Fellow and Fulbright Scholar in 2011 — emphasized that students be attentive to self-care while also dedicating themselves to work that is fulfilling.

“She reminded us that we have the time and opportunity to explore the world along our way to the workforce,” said DiLallo, who is jointly studying Hispanic linguistics and also speech, language and hearing sciences.

Dr. Michael Hawes, Executive Director, the Fulbright Foundation of Canada; J.P Jones, Dean, College of Social & Behavioral Sciences.

AIS also introduced a new course in American Indian studies which features a sequence of visiting speakers from around North America and the world. The focus is to examine a range of critical current issues facing indigenous communities. Dr. Hawes was the inagural speaker in this new course during his visit.

Though diverse in nationality and profession, all of the speakers are deeply knowledgeable about important aspects of indigenous life, and deeply passionate in their efforts to advance indigenous wellbeing. They will share their disciplinary and cultural knowledge and expertise via orations followed by question and answer sessions. For more information, please visit: ais.arizona.edu

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Ultimately inspired by Fitch and her teachings, DiLallo became involved in the teacher training program offered by the UA Center for English as a Second Language, which trains students to work as certified English teachers abroad.

Later, DiLallo applied for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a nationally competitive program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

DiLallo eventually earned a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to serve in Brazil, becoming one of several UA students and alumni to be granted Fulbrights this year.

“Interacting across cultures and teaching language are immensely satisfying to me,” said DiLallo, who will teach English in Brazil beginning next spring.

The UA has long been a top producer of recipients of Fulbright scholarships, which, in this case, support funding for students to spend one year abroad teaching, study and conducting research.

Students also design a communitybased project associated with their scholarly work.

This year, several UA students and alumni were awarded and accepted Fulbrights under the U.S. Student Program for work abroad during the 2015-2016 academic year. They include: David Bui, a student in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, who received the Fulbright Fogarty Award and will work in Peru.

Shannon McCarthy-Contreras, a student in the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, who received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship for work in Brazil.

Katherine Delahoyde, who graduated from the UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Germany.

Jibreel Delgado and UA alumnus Amer Taleb, both of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, who received a Fulbright Study/ Research Grant and Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, respectively, for work in Turkey.

Sarah Kelly, a student in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, who received a Fulbright Study/Research Grant for work in Chile.

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UA Fulbright Awards Edward Polanco, a doctoral candidate in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, who received a Fulbright Study/Research Grant for work in Mexico.

UA alumnus Vince Redhouse, a member of the Navajo Nation, who earned his degree in philosophy, politics, economics and law, and received a Fulbright Study/Research Grant to work in Australia.

Polanco said he took an interest in the scholarship program because he wanted to immerse himself in Mexican culture while also making connections with individuals living and studying in the neighboring country.

“The Fulbright allows me to live in Mexico for 10 months and establish and develop lifelong networks,” said Polanco, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of History.

While in Mexico, Polanco will pursue dissertation-related research in Mexico’s Archivo General de la Nación, the country’s national archive. With a focus on colonial Mexican history, he also will investigate various other archives in Mexico City and Puebla.

While there, he also will take a Nahuatl language course at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, which is a UA partner, and help a community organization transcribe and analyze colonial records.

“Living in the very place that I study will allow me to gain an invaluable understanding of Mexico’s cultures,” said Polanco, whose long-term goal is to teach at a U.S. university. global.arizona.edu

“I plan to share my observations with my future students, in an effort to enrich their classroom experience. I am a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History.

“One of the most rewarding aspects of the Fulbright is that I am able to learn from Mexican scholars and students who are investigating Mexico’s past,” he said. “I am able to reciprocate by sharing knowledge and experiences from the worldclass education that I have received at the UA.” DiLallo intends to pursue an M.S./ Ph.D. in speech-language pathology with the intention of researching the language development of bilingual children.

“I’m especially interested in social factors that mediate language development in underprivileged communities,” DiLallo said. “Our field needs a great deal of minds working on this topic so that we can avoid diagnosing language differences as language disorders and improve upon our evaluation and therapy techniques.”

Of the Fulbright, DiLallo said she is grateful for the opportunity to teach abroad and enhance competencies relevant to her academic life and professional career.

The UA is also proud to host over 40 visiting international Fulbright student recipients. These students are pursuing masters’ and doctoral degrees in academic programs across campus. Upon completion of their degrees, many will return to their home countries having been enriched by their Arizona Fulbright experience.

The Fulbright program is the leading international educational exchange program sponsored by the United States government. Each year this program awards grants to over 800 U.S. faculty members to conduct research around the world.

Visit www.cies.org/us_scholars for information on the Fulbright Scholar Program.

u UA Fulbright Scholar Recipients ‘15-’16: Suzanne Dovi ������������������������������������������������� Norway Political Science Stephen Kobourov ���������������������������Czech Republic Computer Science Craig Palmer ������������������������������������������������������ Serbia Anesthesiology Nicolette Teufel-Shone �������������������������������� Canada Community Health Services/ Liaison/Counseling

u UA Fulbright IEA Seminar Recipient ‘15-’16: Michael Proctor �������������������������������������������������� India University of Arizona United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF)

u Visiting Fulbright Scholar Recipients ‘15-’16: Walter De Jesus Quintero Betancourt ����������������������������Venezuela Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research Sylviane Dederix �������������������������������������������Belgium Catholic University of Louvain Michelle Anne Deshong �����������������������������Australia James Cook University Abdelhalim Hasnaoui ������������������������������������Tunisia Preparatory Institute for Engineering Studies of Tunis Jodie Margaret Roberta Hunter ������New Zealand Massey University Maja Subeli ���������������������������������������������������� Slovenia National Institute of Public Health GlobalReach, Fall 2015

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A Universal Science Infrastructure: The iPlant Collaborative

By Shelley Littin Since its inception in 2008 with a grant from the National Science Foundation, the UA-led iPlant Collaborative has expanded far beyond its original directive to provide a national computational infrastructure for plant scientists. Now, the increasingly sought-out project has blossomed into the NSF’s premiere data management platform for all life sciences.

The $100 million project, based at the BIO5 Institute, forges new collaborations between researchers across the world, empowers the development of new computational platforms that run on iPlant’s underlying infrastructure, and enables scientific breakthroughs derived from global research collaborations. The following are just a few examples of the multitude of ways iPlant is impacting scientific initiatives and discoveries worldwide: Big Data Bridges the Atlantic High-performance cyberinfrastructure is crossing the Atlantic, thanks to a collaboration between the iPlant Collaborative and scientists

at three United Kingdom universities and The Genome Analysis Centre, in Norwich, U.K. The initiative known as iPlant UK extends into the U.K. the data storage and analytical platforms provided by the iPlant Collaborative. In early 2015 the project was funded at £1.8 million (about $2.7 million) by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

“Scientists from all over the world use iPlant to share data and computational methods,” said Matt Vaughn, an iPlant co-principal investigator. “iPlant UK is a natural extension of our platform to support plant scientists in the U.K.” From Nigeria to America and Back George Ude is a professor of biology at Bowie State University, and a longtime iPlant collaborator. Ude quickly found that iPlant’s universal computational tools for data management were perfect for not only his undergraduate students, but also for his colleagues in Nigeria.

Traveling to Nigeria, Ude and iPlant faculty lead Dave Micklos trained genetic researchers at Godfrey Okoye University in iPlant’s tools for DNA barcoding and analysis of splice data and large-scale RNA-sequencing data. Ude frequently takes students from Bowie State University to Godfrey Okoye, first to analyze the DNA of Nigerian plants, and then to categorize them using iPlant’s data management tools. Some Godfrey Okoye students have gone on to create their own research projects in Nigeria, continuing to use iPlant’s tools and services remotely for data analysis.

Through iPlant’s unique platforms, students and teachers around the

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world can work on the same projects, and use accessible tools to further science in their fields, Ude said. “I’m able to teach bioinformatics to people in Africa.

They can log in from wherever they are and have access to the data through iPlant, which is something that I think is unique.”

Improving Global Breeding Data Management iPlant provides a computational infrastructure upon which new projects can be built, serving diverse scientific needs worldwide. The Integrated Breeding Platform IBP) is a prime example. The platform was conceived to help plant breeders accelerate the creation and delivery of new crop varieties in answer to an increasing global demand for food. The project gives access to vanguard technology and quality services for both traditional and modern breeding activities.

The IBP’s regional hubs provide support in the use of modern tools and services through capacity building, technical support and crop-specific expertise, and interact directly with local project users to inform them of IBP functionalities to address their expressed needs. Hubs are located in Benin, Brazil, China, Columbia, Europe, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, North America, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, and Zimbabwe – all hosted by the iPlant Collaborative’s infrastructure.

To join the community, or to learn more about the iPlant Collaborative’s capabilities and opportunities for scientists, developers, and educators, please visit the website: http://www.iplantcollaborative.org

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Distance Runner Elvin Kibet

THAILAND

(continued from page 20)

Kibet said that she finally felt comfortable after her second year at the UA, especially after connecting with others from Kenya. Li was able to lure Lalang to Arizona and Stephen Sambu was already on campus. Sambu and Lalang were the only people with whom Kibet could speak Swahili, her native language.

Then there was the training, which was another foreign language to her.

“When I got here, the training was just unbelievable,” Kibet said. “They would go out for a long run and run for 90 minutes. I had never run for more than 15 minutes. It was so hot and I was so impressed with their work. It took me so long to accept long runs. But in time, it made me stronger.”

And so much better. She became a sixtime NCAA All-American, a three-time Mountain Pacific Sports Federation All-Academic honoree, a four-time Pac-12 Conference All-Academic honoree and the 2013 Pac-12 Cross Country Scholar Athlete of the Year. She holds the UA women’s record at 5,000 meters (15:36.08) and has the second-fastest time at 10,000. Her brother, Collins, followed her to the UA, joining the men’s team in 2013.

“Why I run is because I want to make a difference in my society,” Kibet said. “I come from a really humble background.

I look back and if it was not for the people who stepped up in my life and helped me, the people who gave me shoes, training programs, scholarships, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

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(continued from page 23)

Kibet plans on running for the next two years after she completes her college eligibility at the UA. She wants to attend graduate school to study global health and maternal and child care.

from her own Japanese culture, were less likely to speak up and ask questions in class. Hagen explained, “Culturally, students don’t question teachers or the teacher may become offended.”

“Part of why I run is to be a voice for those people who don’t have a chance,” she said. “I want to be a really good runner and then be able to start these programs in Kenya or Africa or wherever.

I want to help people, especially women and children. Getting a public health degree for me was perfect.”

However, Yokota observed that each culture has its own strengths. “Asians might not [be] active enough to tell [their] own opinion in front of people, but they are good at cooperating. We need to find [our] own good points and how to use [them] instead of trying to change.”

Eventually, Kibet wants to return home.

On the group’s final night, tragedy struck when a bombing took place at a nearby shrine. Mercifully, no one in the College of Pharmacy group was harmed. Katz called the event “sobering.”

“We have a saying in Kenya: Charity begins at home,” she said. “I will go back and start there. I plan on empowering women and young girls. I can be a witness and show them that I left the house. I went to university in America. I think I can be so inspirational. I want to empower women to be independent. I think that if women are independent and have things for themselves, our society can be different.”

The UA was the spark she needed.

“This is like my home,” she said.

“I’m going to cry when I leave here.”

“The thoughts of the University of Arizona and our Thailand 2015 team are with the families of those killed, with those who were injured, and with all our Thai friends and colleagues,” he wrote. “It is hard for rational people to understand what motivates people to harm others in the name of politics, religion or whatever other excuse people have.”

Just before leaving the country, Katz summed up the trip and expressed his concluding thoughts: “Of course the best part of a trip like this is the people. We have met many people professionally, and our hosts have been very gracious. [Our students] have represented our universities, profession and countries well. I’m proud of them.”

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International Research Development Grant The purpose of the International Research Development Grant (IRDG) program is to provide travel support to tenured and tenure-eligible faculty for the development or continuation of international research. Only current research projects of exceptional value or proposed research activity of exceptional promise will be funded. There are two annual granting cycles for the IRDG. The next application deadline is March 28, 2016 for travel starting between May 1, 2016 through October 31, 2016.

The award is limited to a maximum of $1,500 for airfare assistance only. This grant is administered and funded by the Office of Global Initiatives.

2014 – 2015 Recipients and Country Visited: Greg Barron-Gafford Thomas Bever Rebecca Fisher Todd Fletcher Joseph Galaskiewicz Patrisia Gonzales Anthony Jull Henrietta Kralovec Oliver Monti Mary-Frances O’Connor Susan Shaw Patricia Stock Douglas Taren Jennifer Teske Elisa Tomat Adam Ussishkin Noah Whiteman Praise Zenenga Frederic Zenhausern

Assistant Professor Research Professor Associate Professor Associate Professor Professor Associate Professor Professor Associate Professor Associate Professor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor Assistant Dean Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Associate Professor Associate Professor Director

School of Geography and Development Linguistics Basic Medical Sciences Disability and Psychoeducational Studies Sociology Mexican American Studies Geosciences UA South Secondary Education Chemistry and Biochemistry Psychology Anthropology Entomology Academic Affairs-Public Health Nutritional Sciences Chemistry and Biochemistry Linguistics Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Africana Studies Center for Applied NanoBioscience and Medicine

France Germany Australia Chile Japan New Zealand Hungary Finland Austria Germany Ireland Chile Nepal Chile Germany Malta New Zealand Zimbabwe Italy

Visiting Scholars Grant The Visiting Scholar Grant (VSG) provides funding to assist departments in bringing distinguished international scholars to The University of Arizona. The funds are to be used for domestic portions of airfare only (between U.S. port of entry and Tucson, AZ).

The funds cannot be used for overseas or international portions of travel. Clear evidence of cost-sharing from at least two UA funding sources must be shown (not including VSG funds). The Office of Global Initiatives has made $5,000 available for this fiscal year to directly fund the VSG. The maximum award amount is $400 per award. The VSG requests can be submitted at any time. This grant is administered and funded by the Office of Global Initiatives.

2014 - 2015 Visiting Scholars Grants Awardees: Host Department: Visiting Scholar:

Department of History Post-doctoral fellow Dr. Magdalena Gross (Holocaust Education in Poland)

Hosting Department: Anthropology Visiting Scholar: Dr. Vasileios Kylikoglou (Greece) Hosting Department: Poetry Center Visiting Scholar: Dr. Tarfia Faizullah (Fulbright Scholar to Bangladesh)

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Featured IRDG Trip Reports The following are reports received from 2015 IRDG recipients discussing the work they did during their time abroad. Reports are edited for length.

Patricia Stock, Chile: During my trip to Chile I visited Dr Werwin Aballay’s laboratory at the Department of Plant protection, Universidad de Chile. We drafted a research proposal that deals with the consideration of entomopathogenci nematodes for control of insects pests in Chile with a special focus on the control of blueberry weevils.

I also gave a departmental seminar on “Entomopathogenic Nematodes and their implementation in Pest Management”. I met with M.Sc. Patricia Flores Quiroz, the research and development manager of Bio-Agro. This company focuses on the use of biocontrol stargies for management of agricultural pests. During my visit to this company I met also with other exective managment officers including the company CEO, Mr. Paul Abogabid, and Dr. O. Rubilar, Manufacturing and Research Development manager. In addition, I traveled to Puerto Montt to deliver a seminar on Biociontrol Alternatives for the management of the horsefly scaptia latta.

Todd Fletcher, Chile: I received an IRDG grant to visit colleagues in Chile to follow up on a nation-wide research study that I completed regarding the implementation of inclusive education in Chile. I was particularly interested in exploring ways to study evidenced based practices taught in university preparation programs and to survey practicing teachers in the use of evidence based strategies in their current job placement.

I had discussed [with faculty from various universities] the possibility of evaluating and assessing teachers practices and the use of evidenced-based approaches. I global.arizona.edu

followed up with faculty who expressed interest the current state of teaching practices in inclusive education in Chile.

I had conversations [with faculty at University of San Sebastian campus in Puerto Montt, Chile] about a research project focused on working with teachers who were currently working in the field.

I shared with them a self-rating scale developed by my colleague David Mitchell in New Zealand (Strategies for Enhancing Learning: Teacher Questionnaire). The questionnaire is designed so that general and special education teachers rate the frequency of the use of evidence-based strategies to enhance learning of their students. It uses a lickert scale providing quantitative data about the frequency of the use of that particular strategy.

I discussed in depth with two colleagues from San Sebastian and Diego Portales the possibility of doing a similar project in the Santiago area. They agree and are working on the translation and adaption of the questionnaire.

Rebecca Fisher, Australia: I was able to travel to Sydney, Australia to work in Dr. Sally Dunwoodie’s laboratory at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. Dr. Dunwoodie and I are currently collaborating on a study of the effects of hypoxia on spinal development and the etiology of vertebral defects such as scoliosis. During my visit, I tested the application of two imaging techniques, Optical Projection Tomography and micro-CT, to analyze muscle defects in wild type and Hes7 heterozygote mice treated with short-term gestational hypoxia. The resulting data indicate that micro-CT is a very promising tool for our project.

In particular, I tested a soft-tissue staining protocol for micro-CT that allows for visualization of the spinal musculature and related structures. I conducted a series of experiments to determine the optimal percentage concentration and duration of staining for 17.5 day old mouse embryos. I was also trained in the use of the micro-CT scanner and operated the scanner

independently during my visit. The experiments were a great success, as we were able to visualize a diversity of soft-tissue structures such as skeletal muscle, blood vessels, and internal organs.

Joseph Galaskiewicz, Japan: The purpose of the trip was to work with Dr. Yoshiki Yamagata who is a Principal Researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Science in Tsukuba, Japan.

We continued our work on the ratification of eight major environmental treaties, preparing two papers for submission for publication; verifying data we are using to depict the changes in the network of ratifications over time. I also gave a seminar at the Institute on citizen participation in community problem solving and environmental challenges. Furthermore, I consulted with him on the final chapter of his upcoming book on the planning for and response to environmental calamities. I also agreed, along with UA sociology grad students (and perhaps Brian Meyer) to write a self standing chapter; a critique of technological approaches to planning for and responding to environmental crises and how social, political, and cultural contexts impact the way people behave in the time of crises.

Anthony J. T. Jull, Hungary: I visited the Institute of Nuclear Research, Debrecen (Hungary) [for] a project entitled “Extreme solar events recorded in the carbon-14 record in tree rings”. I sought to broaden international participation in this project; we will submit a new NSF proposal with a parallel application to the Hungarian NSF and also to the European Science Foundation. We also agreed on a broad spectrum of joint cooperation on this proposed study. I was also able to visit the Horia Hulubei National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Bucharest, Romania. We also discussed similar parallel research with Romanian colleagues, especially cooperation on joint work on iodine-129, as well as the carbon-14 work on excursions in the carbon-14 record in tree rings.

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Agricultural Technology (continued from page 17)

Ten countries were represented among the tutorial workshop attendees, who included producers, entrepreneurs, investors and government officials.

“The attendees were quite engaged,” Brown said. “It was apparent that they were seriously considering crop hydroponics and algae production as innovative alternatives for higher-value production systems in arid lands.”

Other UA CALS participants in the GFIA included Kevin Fitzsimmons, International Programs; James Buizer, School of Natural Resources and the Environment; and Akrum Tamimi and George Zaharescu, from the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science.

The Program Innovation team at the UA Office of Global Initiatives assisted in facilitating the partnership with the GFIA. “As a land-grant institution, the University of Arizona enjoys a long tradition of working with communities through the discovery and dissemination of agricultural systems and innovations,” said Randy Burd, assistant vice president for program innovation for UA Global Initiatives and CALS associate professor of nutritional sciences.

“This project allows the UA and other U.S. land-grant institutions to connect internationally with universities, private industry and government entities to increase impact and establish a 21stcentury land-grant mission that spans the globe,” Burd said.

COLLEGE ADVISORY COMMITTEE Faculty Representatives, 2014 – 2017 Alberto Arenas, Ph.D. College of Education

Professor John Ehiri College of Public Health

Professor Robert Ariew (ex officio) Second Language Acquisition and Teaching

Professor James Field College of Engineering

SevaPriya Barrier, J.D. Dean of Students Office Anne Betteridge, Ph.D. (ex officio) Center for Middle Eastern Studies Professor Andrew Carnie (ex officio) Graduate College Professor Thomas Cockrell College of Fine Arts Professor Malcolm Compitello College of Humanities Bradley Dreifuss, MD College of Medicine Professor Beatrice Dupuy (ex officio) Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy

Professor Kevin Fitzsimmons College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Professor Benjamin Fortna (ex officio) School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies Professor Hoshin Gupta College of Science

Coach Erik Omar Guzman Ojeda Arizona Athletics Suzanne Panferov, Ph.D. (ex officio) Center for English as a Second Language Professor Christopher Scott College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Justin Walker, MBA College of Optical Sciences

Professor Mary Hardin College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

Professor Albert Welter (ex officio) School of International Languages / Literatures and Cultures

Professor Michael Katz College of Pharmacy

Professor Brent White College of Law

Sean Manley-Casimir (ex officio) Director, Latin American Collaborations

Professor Cynthia White Honors College

Marylyn M. McEwen, Ph.D. College of Nursing

Daniel Zeng, Ph.D. Eller College of Management

UA Prof; UNESCO (continued from page 21)

often defined the basis of social and economic welfare.”

The research project involves an exploration of the historical trajectory that defines the contemporary relationship between indigenous peoples and water in a variety of cultural contexts, ranging from indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest to other indigenous and largely marginalized peoples living in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Central and South America.

“Our regional study of the traditional and transformation of water practices of the peoples of the Pacific Northwest in the United States will be embedded in a context of the comparative experiences of indigenous peoples’ relationship with water around the globe,” Pietz said.

The project’s teaching component is centered on the creation of a certificate in water governance, which initially will be delivered to tribal nations in the Pacific Northwest through a distance education infrastructure. After initial development and delivery to regional partners, Pietz and Zeisler-Vralsted plan for the certificate program to be offered internationally.

The project also will lead to the launch of an annual symposia, providing a forum for exchange and avenues to incorporate policy ideas. Project directors will work to establish a network of partners, involving faculty and graduate students.

“The creation of a global collaborative network can provide pathways to further research collaborations in multiple areas,” Pietz said.

2015 Institutional Partners The Office of Global Initiatives acts as a centralized hub for the development of collaborative research agreements, faculty development/capacity building, dual degrees, undergraduate transfer articulation agreements, intern options for undergraduate international students who are not already at the UA, and sponsored programs to name a few. Below is a list of institutional partnership agreements signed over the last year. For more information on partnership development with institutions abroad, please visit global.arizona.edu/global-knowledge-network/institutional-partner-database.

COUNTRY

PARTNER INSTITUTION

DEPARTMENT

UA FACULTY SPONSOR

Argentina

Departamento General de Irrigacion

Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy

Christopher Scott

Australia

The University of Adelaide

Physics

Johann Rafelski

Australia

Monash University

Office of Global Initiatives

Mike Proctor

Brazil

Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)

Office of Global Initiatives

Mike Proctor

Canada

Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States (Fulbright Canada)

American Indian Studies

Keith James

Chile

Universidad Finis Terrae

College of Education

Bruce Johnson

China

Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Geosciences and Physics

Anthony John T. Jull

China

Donghua University

Systems and Industrial Engineering

Neng Fang

China

Ocean University of China

College of Law

Brent White

China

Ocean University of China

Management Information Systems

Daniel Zeng

Czech Republic

University of South Bohemia

Molecular & Cellular Biology

Carol Bender

France

Universite Jean Moulin-Lyon 3

College of Law

David A. Gantz

France

Universite Denis Diderot - Paris 7

French and Italian

Lise Leibacher

Germany

Universitat Stuttgart

Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

Hermann Fasel

Germany

Universitat Bremen

History

Jadwiga Pieper

India

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) - Madras

Materials Science & Engineering

Srini Raghavan

Indonesia

University of Mataram

School of Natural Resources

Larry Fisher

Italy

Universita di Bologna

College of Nursing

Leslie Ritter

Japan

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science

Astronomy

Dante Lauretta

Japan

Hokkaido University

East Asian Studies

Albert Welter

Jordan

Royal Scientific Society of Jordan

Soil, Water & Environmental Sciences

Sharon Megdal

Kazakhstan

The Kazakh Research Institute for Plant Protection and Quarantine

School of Art

Irina Panyushkina

Korea, Republic of

Gachon University

Computer Science

Richard Snodgrass

Korea, Republic of

Seoul National University

Mining & Geological Engineering

Kwangmin Kim

Lebanon

University of Balamand

Laboratory of Tree Ring Research

Ramzi Touchan

Mexico

Universidad de las Americas - Puebla

Nutritional Sciences

Randy Burd

Mexico

ANUIES, CONAHEC and UA Consortium

Office of Global Initiatives

Sean Manley-Casimir

Mexico

Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM)

Office of Global Initiatives

Mike Proctor

Morocco

National School of Forestry Engineering

Laboratory of Tree Ring Research

Ramzi Touchan

New Zealand

The University of Waikato

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Stephen Cornell

Romania

Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering

Geosciences and Physics

Anthony John T. Jull

Saudi Arabia

University of Dammam

College of Public Health

Iman Hakim

Singapore

National University of Singapore (NUS)

Office of Global Initiatives

Mike Proctor

South Africa

North-West University

Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy

Robert Varady

Spain

Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

Chemical and Environmental Engineering

Maria Reye Sierra Alvarez

United Arab Emirates

Bureau Dubai Expo 2020

Office of Global Initiatives

Mike Proctor

United Kingdom

University of Nottingham

Chemistry

Katrina Miranda

United Kingdom

University of Liverpool

School of Architecture

Sussannah Dickinson

global.arizona.edu

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