photo (L-R): 2017-18 UC Davis Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow Martin Kailie, Peter Nasielski, a design and sustainable environmental design undergraduate student, and Dana Armstrong, an international agricultural development graduate student, working on a project together in Sierra Leone.
Global Aggies: CAMPUS CONNECTIONS LEAD TO INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS Given the thousands of students and scholars with international and transnational ties and the thousands more of faculty members and visitings scholars with expertise across hundreds of disciplines at UC Davis, often inspiration for international projects and connections for interdisciplinary collaborations begin on campus. Dana Armstrong, an international agricultural development graduate student, and Peter Nasielski, a design and sustainable environmental design undergraduate student, met Martin Kailie, a farmer, social entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Green Africa Inc., at UC Davis during the D-Lab course: Feasibility Studies in International Development. Kailie was spending the academic year on campus through the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program—which brings international leaders to UC Davis for professional development and collaboration in agricultural and rural development, natural resources management, and environmental science. As a part of his fellowship, Kailie was interested in the feasibility of a project in his home country of Sierra Leone. In studying the feasibility of a market in Sierra Leone for cookstoves that run on ethanol made from a locally sourced plant known as cassava, Armstrong and Nasielski became intrigued—so much so that they decided to partner with Kailie to continue working on the project, including much needed on-the-ground research.
“I had to overcome challenges as we went, but was informed by best practices learned at UC Davis and from discussions with expert researchers.”