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.

Following the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan, China, the UI is tracking health officials’ recommendations for maintaining safety.

In June, Ted Neal, associate professor of science education and former wildlife camp instructor, travelled to São Paulo, Brazil, to present his research on informal learning environments and immersive inquiry. Neal received funding to pursue international education from the University of Iowa’s International Travel Award. The grant supports international travel for research, creative activity, and active participation from university tenured, tenure-track, clinical, or research faculty members looking to travel internationally.

WorldCanvass guests on October 9 will take us inside the groundbreaking history of space research at the UI, describe their research into 'chemo brain' or the cognitive deficits that can occur after chemotherapy, and detail a research collaboration that aims to provide weather and climate information to farmers to help them make key decisions at different times of the year. Join us at the next WorldCanvass for an intriguing conversation about research breakthroughs and the many unexpected but essential discoveries that flow from them. The live event is free and open to the public. The program is held at MERGE, 136 South Dubuque Street, in Iowa City from 5:30-7 p.m., with a pre-show reception from 5-5:30 p.m.

UI associate professor Irina Kostina wins global curriculum development award to teach new course about the North Caucasus.

The twentieth century has been called the American Century, a time when American ingenuity, economic growth, military power, and vibrant cultural expression led to increased prosperity and confidence at home and a stabilizing role in leadership on the international stage. 2018 finds us in a time of shifting alliances, renewed nationalism, unraveling multinational trade agreements, and serious divides at every level of political discourse. On the next WorldCanvass, historians, political scientists, and a former U.S. ambassador will look back over the last century through the prism of foreign policy and explore the interwar period (1918-1939), follow the rise of the post-WWII Western alliance, and assess U.S. foreign policy in a new time of global realignment and instability. Joan Kjaer hosts WorldCanvass, which takes place in downtown Iowa City at MERGE, 136 South Dubuque Street, from 5:30-7 p.m. on Wednesday, December 5, and is free and open to the public. We invite you to come at 5 and join us for a pre-show catered reception.

WorldCanvass starts its ninth season by teaming up with Hancher and its Embracing Complexity project for a multi-layered program exploring the beauty of Islamic art and the diversity within Islamic cultures. Joan Kjaer hosts the program, which moves to a new location in the heart of downtown Iowa City—MERGE, at 136 South Dubuque Street. The live show takes place from 5:30-7 p.m. on Friday, September 29, and is free and open to the public. We invite you to come at 5 and join us for a pre-show catered reception!

Cooking with firewood and other biofuels is one of the most urgent problems in the world today. It affects the health and wellbeing of those inhaling the fumes at close range, relies on increasingly scarce sources of firewood, and contributes over 20% of global black carbon emissions. The harm to individuals and the environment cannot be denied, and yet there’s little awareness of the issue among the general public. WorldCanvass host Joan Kjaer and a panel of experts drawn from multiple fields including engineering, urban and regional planning, public health, anthropology, and geography will discuss the use of traditional wood-burning cookstoves and the complex social and cultural underpinnings of the practice on the April 12 WorldCanvass, a highlight of the UI’s yearly Provost’s Global Forum. The public is invited to attend the April 12 discussion at the Voxman Music Building Recital Hall from 7:30-9:30 p.m. There will be a pre-show catered reception from 6:30-7:30 p.m.

While immigrants have long fueled the American experiment, passionate debate about the pros and cons of immigration are nothing new. The rhetoric of recent national and local elections highlights tensions around changing demographics, inspiring debate about the impact of immigration on employment, on crime, and on community identity, while challenging the citizenry to examine their values and notions of what it means to be an American. On the next WorldCanvass, host Joan Kjaer and a diverse panel of guests will discuss the history of immigration in the Midwest over the past century and a half, as well as current questions about bilingualism, multiculturalism, and belonging and exclusion in times of international and domestic conflict. The public is invited to attend the free WorldCanvass discussion on Wednesday, March 8, from 7:30-9:00 p.m. in the Voxman Recital Hall.