Global Aggies

Global Aggies are members of the UC Davis community who are living the Global Affairs mission: to inspire global curiosity, understanding, and engagement.

 

Studying in Nepal: Students Find Adventure, Friendship and Purpose

UC Davis professors with a longstanding connection to Nepal, along with their Nepalese colleagues, lead a learning exchange program that offers students a profound immersion in the country’s vibrant culture, environment and history. Through hands-on projects designed with a small rural village, students gain a unique perspective on global citizenship and community engagement while creating special bonds with new friends.

A Backpack to Help Refugees

This month’s guest on Face to Face With Chancellor May is a student who came to UC Davis to help refugees preserve their access to higher education — all while completing her own studies.

Dheera Dusanapudi is a junior studying international relations and religious studies, and works as the student lead for the Article 26 Backpack, a program that offers refugees face-to-face counseling and a cloud storage platform to preserve important records like transcripts and diplomas.

Global Aggies Blog: Aggie Compass Provides Resources to All

UC Davis’ actions toward promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on campus have become more apparent on a student level over the years as students find opportunities to contribute to addressing global challenges on a local level. One example of these actions is how student volunteers engage in the SDGs at the Aggie Basic Needs Center.

Global Aggies: Extraordinary Abilities Lead to Permanent Residency for a World-Renowned Surgeon and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UC Davis Health

Bob Kiaii, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at UC Davis Health, is an international expert in robotic heart surgery who leads a surgical team that treats complex diseases of the chest using minimally invasive techniques. Born in Iran, Kiaii immigrated to Canada as a child with his family. His path in medicine eventually brought him to UC Davis Health, a relocation feat that was not without its challenges.

UC Davis Researcher Represents Early Career Scientists at 2022 Summit of the Americas

From June 6–10, 2022, representatives from 23 countries convened in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, focusing on “Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future.” The summit brought together government leaders as well as civil society and social actors—including Paulina Carmona-Mora, a research scientist in the Department of Neurology at UC Davis Health, who studies how gene expression changes after a stroke.

Global Aggies: Designing Global Classrooms for Real-World Challenges

In June 2020, Universitas 21 (U21) named UC Davis among the winners of its inaugural Global Education Enhancement Fund. Through this grant, UC Davis partnered with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico to create a framework for teaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Global Classroom modules.

Global Aggies: Amplifying Global LGBTQ History in the Classroom and Across East Asia

Howard Chiang, an expert in East Asian studies with a dedication to advancing LGBTQ history through international collaborations, joined the faculty of UC Davis in 2017 and is now an associate professor in the College of Letters and Science’s Department of History. His pioneering three-volume Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, for which he served as editor-in-chief, won the 2020 Dartmouth Medal thanks to its merging of global LBGTQ history into one resource. Born in Taiwan and raised in Canada, Chiang says that throughout the cross-cultural editorial and research process, he thoroughly appreciated working with experts in fields different from his own area of specialization.