Asia and the Pacific

As part of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats program, the PREDICT project at UC Davis made significant progress in understanding what’s going on in wildlife with regard to different viruses that could spill over and cause disease in humans, like coronaviruses. As the sister project of PREDICT, the One Health Workforce — Next Generation project is now underway and dedicated to training One Health practitioners to prevent future pandemics through connected global networks—thanks in part to a USAID award of $85 million.

Pamela Ronald, distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis, and with the UC Davis Genome Center, has been named a 2020 World Agriculture Prize laureate by the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences, or GCHERA. She becomes the first woman whose work is recognized by the award.

UC Davis’ Seminar Abroad in Nepal recently earned “highly commended” status in the category of Progressive Education Delivery, as judged by Professionals in International Education, or PIE, an independent media, recruitment and events company.

IIE and UC Davis created the Future of International Education: Leadership Perspectives from Around the World as an online series for candid discussion among senior university leaders, to facilitate region-specific and global insights about how the pandemic is reshaping global engagement for higher education. Based on the series, this briefing paper covers four key themes for the future of international education.

In July 2020, the University of California, Davis, and UNSW Sydney signed a new partnership in food and nutrition science and engineering. The relationship will focus on student exchange, research collaboration and the pursuit of joint funding opportunities, with an emphasis on food systems.

UC Davis has been named a finalist for two PIEoneer Awards, which celebrate innovation and achievement across all components of international education, by The PIE News, a leading independent media company for a global community of professionals. For the 2020 awards, UC Davis has been selected as a finalist of the Progressive Education Delivery Award and the Sustainability International Impact Award.

For the second time in the past three years, UC Davis has been recognized as a top producer of Gilman Scholars for the 2018–19 academic year—with the university producing the third highest number of Gilman Scholars, at 51, among all U.S. universities with over 15,000 undergraduates.

When the Yolo Food Bank began running a new delivery service to meet the increased need for food in Davis and its surrounding communities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic, UC Davis delivered volunteers, including staff members, undergraduate students, and visiting Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows Issam Chariag of Tunisia, Fabrice Inkonkoy of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zuomei Ning of China.

Biochemistry & molecular biology major Jonathan Ho recently secured over $50,000 in funding for the Knights Landing Community Garden project. Learn more about his UC Davis #GlobalAggies story, which starts with him addressing food insecurity among fellow Singapore soldiers.

This June 18- July 16, the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the University of California, Davis, presented The Future of International Education: Leadership Perspectives from Around the World, a five-part series of leadership conversations about the future of international education, including the role internationalization has in advancing university missions.