Nearly 20 female participants in Manama, Bahrain, and Amman, Jordan, took part in a distance-learning course offered this past spring by the UI's International Writing Program. The course focused on issues of artistic identity while fostering the participants’ authorial voices and building a community of women writers through weekly live video sessions.

Soon, high-school students from Iowa might be able to trade places with those in Japan. Kim Heidemann, the executive director of Iowa Sister States, is in Yamanashi, Japan, to discuss the possibility of a high-school student exchange program beginning in the spring of 2016. Iowa Sister States is a nonprofit organization that promotes programs between Iowa and various “sister states” to foster positive international relationships. These sister states include Yamanashi, Kosovo, and Hebei, China, among many others, and programs range from economic trade to education. “These relationships help give students and professors new opportunities to meet people from another culture and exchange ideas,” said Kassi Wheeler, the international-program manager for Iowa Sister States.

CPH researchers are working with residents of Chuuk, an island state in the pacific, to develop culturally appropriate strategies to improve nutrition.

CPH faculty member Kelly Baker studies the cascade of health issues connected to water, sanitation, and hygiene