In an effort to boost medical research and enhance global health care training, Michigan State University is creating new strategic partnerships with colleges and teaching hospitals in South Africa and the Dominican Republic.

The initiative, led by Reza Nassiri, professor and acting director of MSU’s Institute of International Health, will include faculty and student exchanges and may eventually expand collaborations in clinical research projects.
 

John Staatz leads a set of agricultural research projects in West Africa, with funding totaling $7.5 million, aimed at improving the performance of West Africa’s food system. Researchers, farmers, traders, government officials and non-governmental organizations are all part of a collaborative effort to improve agricultural productivity and access to food in Mali and other countries in West Africa. MSU’s Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics has received approx

Providing opportunities for interdisciplinary teams of students to engage in community-based research and development projects in agricultural and engineering, Irving Widders, professor of horticulture, and Brian Thompson, professor of mechanical engineering, have started a study abroad program to examine and meet the needs of underserved communities in the Andean highlands. Successful projects include: fruit crop promotion, ecotourism education, marketing of commodities and water-heating

With support from the Agricultural Product Export Development Authority, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and the National Institute of Marketing Boards, the Indian Horticulture Development Alliance is promoting growth in the Indian mango market.

When the Swedish government announced that the country would stop using oil by 2020, it was clear that its leaders were concerned about the environment.

But there was another obvious motivation behind the decision: Sweden has no domestic oil industry, and importing petroleum had become costly.

“And when you don’t have any oil, you get good at not using it,” says Kris Berglund, a University Distinguished Professor of forestry and chemical engineering.

Leading a team of forestry and engineering researchers from MSU, in collaboration with researchers from Colorado State University, the World Agroforestry Center in Kenya and the Center for International Forestry Research in Indonesia (among others), Skole hopes to create a model that development programs worldwide could adopt to assess their carbon footprint.

For the first time in Burundi’s 80-year history of coffee production, the once war-torn, African country is producing specialty coffee to be sold direct to the markets, thanks to training and research provided by Michigan State University.

In Africa the journey toward improved health care is long and difficult. The problems begin early in life, with Africa’s infant mortality rate being ten times higher than the average rate for developed countries, and continue throughout life, with risks of life-threatening diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The lack of diagnostic equipment compounds the challenges.

Yet there is hope for improved health care in a hospital in Malawi, located in southeast A

A Michigan State University researcher is among a team of scientists that has uncovered the mechanism by which the amount of beta-carotene, or provitamin A, is increased in corn, a finding that can help combat vitamin A deficiency and improve human health in the developing world.

Brazil’s policy of protecting portions of the Amazonian forest from development is capable of buffering the Amazon from climate change, according to a new study led by Michigan State University researcher Robert Walker, professor of geography.

MSU researchers find that farmers are more likely to reenroll their land in a conservation program if they talk to their neighbors about it.

Scientists from MSU’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability used a simulation model to study the amount of land farmers in the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China reenrolled in the Grain-to-Green Program (GTGP), which aims to reduce soil erosion by converting sloping cropland to forest or grassland. Farmers receive

Costa Rica’s average life expectancy and infant mortality rates are virtually identical to that of the United States. Assistant Professor C. Patricia Obando, Director of Medical Education in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology in the College of Human Medicine, hopes to share the secrets of her home country’s health care success via a unique exchange program.

Aboard a traveling hospital on the Amazon River, a group of Michigan State University medical students had a lesson in tropical medicine, working with patients suffering from parasitic infections, malnutrition and malaria.

In a move designed to strengthen research collaborations and educational resources, Michigan State University, Federal University of Para (Universidade Federal do Pará), Federal University of Bahia (Universidade Federal da Bahia) and University of São Paulo have joined to launch The Brazil Partnership Program.

Helping a developing African nation reduce hunger and create economic opportunity is a job for not one— or even two—but three equal partners. Michigan State University’s Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics is a key part of a unique triad working to improve agriculture and food security in Mozambique.

Specialists from the U.S. and Brazil joined forces with Mozambique’s Ministry of Agriculture and its National Agricultural Research Insti

Michigan State University’s College of Education has been tapped by one of the world’s most influential philanthropic organizations, the Azim Premji Foundation (APF), to improve teacher education throughout India.

This past fall marks the pilot run of a new partnership, where 20 King Khalid University (KKU) students will join a class of MSU students via an interactive open educational resource entrepreneurship education curriculum.

From video games, to smartphone apps, to geo-tagging on Facebook, technology plays an ever-increasing role in just about everyone’s life. At Michigan State University, researchers in the field of rehabilitation counseling want to know how technology can make a difference for those with intellectual disabilities.

Last fall, MSU co-hosted an international conference on the topic in Ireland and announced that it would join an interdisciplinary research team to study the issue

An MSU-led consortium of researchers earned the prestigious $2.3 million Partnerships for International Research in Education (PIRE) grant.Their research will focus on the development of nanotechnology tools to better understand how mebranes work and how to make them better.

It doesn’t matter that Neil Carter has only twice caught fleeting glimpses of a tiger in all the months he’s spent in Nepal. In fact, it’s kind of fitting. Carter, a doctoral student in MSU’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, approaches conservation and sustainability in a way that’s not just about a charismatic animal. It’s about connectivity and the delicate, complicated dance between tigers and people in Nepal.