Since 2018, the Global Research Partnership Award has existed to combine the University of Iowa’s global mission and research mission, while providing seed funding to help UI departments and faculty initiate new, or expand existing, international partnerships that add value to and help advance research and discovery at the university. In 2021, four projects were awarded funding.

Helen Shen, professor and DEO of the UI Department of Asian & Slavic Languages and Literatures, has been awarded a STARTALK grant for the 2022-23 school year. STARTALK is a program of the National Security Agency, aimed at increasing the number of U.S. citizens learning, speaking, and teaching critical foreign languages.

The Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs offers three prizes for papers written by students - the Percy Buchanan Graduate Prize for graduate students, and the Sidney DeVere Brown Prize and the Mikiso Hane Prize for undergraduate students. MCAA also offers the Jackson and Caroline Bailey Public Service Award for outstanding work in the advancement of Asian Studies. These prizes are awarded at the MCAA Annual Meeting held each fall.

Will Story, assistant professor in the University of Iowa (UI) College of Public Health, and Nema Aluku, research associate at Tangaza University College in Nairobi, Kenya, were recently awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study HIV stigma among adolescents in western Kenya. The study represents a promising international collaboration with significant public health insights. Learn more about this important research project through the Q&A below with Dr. Story and Dr. Aluku.

Daniel Goering was awarded a 2015-16 Fulbright U.S. Student Award, which he will use to conduct a mixed methods interdisciplinary study at a benefits firm in Tokyo, Japan. Daniel, of Agency, IA, is currently a PhD candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business.

Audrey Williams, of West Des Moines, IA, has received a 2015-16 Fulbright U.S. Student Award to analyze Turkish development cooperation with Somalia, Kenya and Sudan. Audrey is a 2013 graduate of the University of Iowa with a B.A. in political science and French. She is currently working as a Program Associate for Partnership for a Secure America in Washington D.C.