Asia and the Pacific

During the 2019 International Education Week at UC Davis, Global Affairs featured short films by UC Davis students describing their study, research, and service experiences from 10 countries around the world. From studying GIS in Bhutan, to protecting sea turtle eggs in Taiwan, to treating elephants in Thailand, and studying fashion design in France, students shared from their wide array of experiences and provide a vision for what is possible for other students at UC Davis.

Professor John Harada, Department of Plant Biology, was recently recognized by Japan’s Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) with an honorary doctorate of science. The honor comes after over a decade of fruitful collaboration between the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences and NAIST.

Ladson Hinton is a geriatric psychiatrist, social scientist and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the UC Davis School of Medicine. With over two decades of interdisciplinary and intercultural research under his lab coat, he has become an expert on the sociocultural dimensions of dementia-related illness—and the caregiving this calls for.

Calling her an “institutional cornerstone,” the Middle East Studies Association of North America recently presented its annual Jere L. Bacharach Service Award to Distinguished Professor Suad Joseph. U21 recently announced Professor Diana Farmer, a pediatric and fetal surgeon, as the recipient of a 2020 U21 Award for advancing global perspectives in her field.

Qin Qin came to the U.S. as an international exchange MBA student and discovered new skills in leadership and collaboration.

Researchers from eight countries and nine institutions gathered at the International Center at UC Davis on October 8 and 9 for a two-day workshop, “Food Security and Food Innovation.” The event, organized by UC Davis and the University of Sydney, was designed to strengthen existing partnerships and build upon complementary scientific expertise to address critical global challenges around food.

According to the 2015 World Alzheimer’s Report, over the next 40 years the number of older adults with dementia in Vietnam and other low and middle-income countries will nearly triple. The five-year grant from the National Institute on Aging aims to address these changes. The project is the first of its kind in Vietnam and builds on preliminary work conducted over the past five years with seed funding from UC Davis Global Affairs.

These small-scale farmers have been working with researchers from the University of California, Davis, and Cambodia’s Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) to test new methods, like the packinghouse, for growing and selling produce locally. Their work is part of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture, a global network focused on fruit and vegetable research that is led by UC Davis and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Melanie Montoya, a design major at UC Davis, shares her global learning experiences while on campus and abroad—two UCEAP study abroad programs; creating a KDVS radio show centered around design and intercultural learning; joined multiple global on-campus student orgs; a member of the Chancellor’s Job Leadership Shadowing Program; and more!

This July, three UC Davis students expanded their global leadership skills while staying in country by attending the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) Undergraduate Leaders’ Program at the University of Oregon.