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South Centers

College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

CFAES

OSU, ACIE support Academic, Research, and Extension programs abroad

Dr. Rafiq Islam
Soil, Water and Bioenergy Resources  
 
A three-member delegation from The Ohio State University’s College of Food Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CFAES), including Dr. Rafiq Islam from OSU South Centers, Professor Renukaradhya Gourapura from Food Animal Health Research Program, and Beau Ingle from the International Program in Agriculture (IPA), visited Kazak National Agrarian University (KNAU) Almaty, Kazakhstan, as part of the grant from the American Councils of International Education (ACIE). 

The purpose of the visit was to help develop academic, research, and Extension programs to improve the KNAU faculty members’ and scientists’ professional capacity. The delegation was led by Ingle. 

As part of the program, the delegation met with the KNAU administration, faculty members, scientists, and students. Dr. Islam and Professor Gourapura both delivered two presentations to faculty members and students. 

Dr. Islam delivered his first presentation on current research and Extension activities of the Soil, Water, and Bioenergy Resources program at the OSU South Centers followed by another presentation entitled “Climate-smart Agriculture for Kazakhstan.” Moreover, Dr. Islam delivered a professional presentation entitled “Sustainable Agriculture” at the international conference held at the Institute of Plant Protection and Quarantine in Almaty.

Likewise, Prof. Gourapura delivered a presentation on innovative vaccines for veterinary use and using a pig model for universal flu vaccine studies. In addition, Prof. Gourapura visited the Central Reference Laboratory of Kazakhstan located in Almaty. It is a branch of the National Biotechnology Center (Ministry Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan) and delivered a seminar on vaccines against bioterrorism agents and biosafety procedures, and interacted with scientists working in a biosafety level 3 laboratory, which was built by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Dr. Islam also conducted a day-long brain-storming and grant writing workshop for the agriculture faculty members, scientists, researchers, and PhD students. The grant writing workshop initially covered a brain-storming session to identify the important current and existing agricultural, environmental, and animal science research problems in Kazakhstan, followed by in-depth discussion on team-building procedures. The grant proposal session included discussion on Request for Proposal (RFP), budget and budget justification, rationale, goal/objectives, methodology, outcomes/outputs, data management, Extension outreach, project evaluation, and title and abstract. 

The workshop was well attended and accepted by the participants of the university. With an active support from the ACIE and KNAU, Dr. Islam and Professor Gourapura developed a sandwich program to train two short-term scholars from the KNAU to work on climate-smart agriculture and the evaluation of immune correlates using modern immunological tools at OSU South Centers at Piketon and the Food Animal Health Research Program.