RISE Scholar’s Princeton Visit Yields Novel Research Experience for 20 Makerere Undergrads
by Joelia Nasaka
Makerere group with MRC Executive Director Dr. Dino Martins (center; holding dog) and Ms. Joelia Nasaka (center; in yellow)
August 16, 2016
When I met with Prof. Daniel Rubenstein in his office at Princeton University in November 2014 to talk about training opportunities at Mpala Research Centre (MRC) in Kenya for my wildlife ecology students at Makerere University, it seemed like a long shot. But when I visited Mpala the following July at Prof. Rubenstein’s invitation to see the center and identify potential research projects for my students to work on there, and to discuss the costs of their week-long stay and training, it started to sound possible.
I was advised by SIG to write a short proposal and budget for student training and then lobby for funding. In May 2016, Prof. Rubenstein wrote to me to inform me that our proposal would receive funding worth $5,000 from Princeton University and SIG, with Makerere University expected to contribute $500. That was the most amazing news. It meant several things to me: opportunities for my students to appreciate ecology and wildlife conservation, to improve research quality at Makerere, and to expand our networks at Mpala and Princeton; and capacity building for these future leaders and policymakers and for the two faculty members accompanying them.
On the evening of Saturday, July 23rd, twenty Makerere University undergraduates and two faculty members — Dr. Sente Celsus and me — left for MRC in northern Kenya, a drive of about 18 hours. The students kept their spirits high and unwavering. We reached MRC by the evening of Sunday the 24th and the students were as excited as I was to be at Mpala. Members of the Mpala administration, led by Mr. Cosmas Nzomo, had been waiting for us; they helped us settle in and gave us a very hearty and tasty dinner, which was more than welcomed after 18 hours on the road. Ms. Padukone Anchal, a Princeton in Africa fellow, was also very helpful, patiently planning our training.
The next morning the students attended talks by Prof. Rubenstein on the ecology of the wildlife species in Mpala and on grazing succession and facilitation and territoriality in different species. The students paid the utmost attention. They knew that now that they were finally at Mpala, they had to use every opportunity to the best of their abilities, and they asked as many questions as they could and participated fully throughout the different talks.
Makerere students and faculty listening to Prof. Dan Rubenstein (center; in orange)
Mrs. Nancy Rubenstein gave an introductory talk about the invasive species Opuntia stricta and how it’s being biologically controlled. Later, Dr. Ray Schmidt introduced the students to Ewaso Nyiro River’s aquatic community ecology, and Kimani Ndu’ngu gave a general plant ecology talk. This brought the students up to speed, and they were now in a position to design, plan and start on their research projects.
Students working to determine whether the biological control (cochineal bugs) is effective on the invasive species Opuntia stricta (cactus)
Students were randomly allocated to four working groups that produced amazing results. These results were presented on the last day of our stay at Mpala. The students were excited about their findings, and the fact that these came from hard work gave them a sense of ownership. The four research groups were working on dik-dik territoriality, vegetation diversity (related to dik-dik territoriality), invasive species (Opuntia and its control) and the aquatic insects in Ewaso Nyiro River. The students’ experiences — data collection under the hot sun, dik-dik observations, making transects for the vegetation surveys — will improve the quality of their research at Makerere University.
Students making transects and laying quadrants in the dik-dik territories
The students skipped meals in order to be able to collect data during those times — a major sacrifice, because MRC meals are delicious.
It was not all work and no play; the students also visited the mobile clinic, went for several game drives, went climbing, and visited pastoral communities where they participated in conservation education.
Students enjoying Mpala scenery from atop the Clifford rocks
Students participating in a conservation card game at the campsite in the evening
The Makerere University students made presentations about parasites to Musul Primary School pupils and Kimanju Secondary School students. The secondary school students welcomed us with overwhelming joy. They interacted with the university students, learning about their inspiration for their studies, what university life is like and what it takes to get to university. It was another great experience for the Makerere students.
Makerere students presenting at Kimanju Secondary School
At the end of each working day, the students and faculty gathered at the fire pit for feedback sessions. Everyone shared about the day’s activities and discussed how to improve their work. They also made comparisons between Uganda and Kenya. For some students, it was their first time they had traveled outside Uganda. How amazingly this trip touched twenty students’ lives, and how their attitude towards research changed! You only had to listen to these future leaders and policymakers narrate their experiences at Mpala to know how much it meant to them. We only hope and pray this training can receive more funding to make it an annual summer training opportunity for Makerere students, and ideally also for students from other East African universities.
We wish to thank Dan and Nancy Rubenstein for the wonderful talks and the training opportunities; Arlen and Sarah from SIG for making it all possible; Makerere University; Mpala Research Centre; Dino Martins; Anchal Padukone; Kimani Ndu’ngu; Ray Schmidt; Dedan Ngatia; Stephen Ekwanga; Tyler Kartzinel; Mike, Julius, Akoyit, and all of the security personnel; Lawrence and Eunice (kitchen); Cosmas Nzomo; Gikenyi and all of the other Mpala staff who made our training so productive and enjoyable; and the conservation clubs of Musul Primary School and Kimanjo Secondary School. We are forever indebted to you.
Intrigued by this initiative? Want to get involved by sponsoring future exchange programs to bring East African ecologists to Mpala? Please contact [email protected]!
Can Bioslurry Replace Some Synthetic Pesticides? (AFNNET)
by Alan Anderson
December 14, 2015
Cliffson Zakaria Maro is a RISE-AFNNET MSc student at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. His year of coursework, completed in November 2015, included an astounding range of topics: research methodology, statistics and data management, pharmacognosy (the study of medicinal drugs derived from plants or other natural sources), public health, microbiology, biopesticides, entrepreneurship, project management, analytical chemistry, and the biological interaction of drugs in the body.
The subjects that most strongly caught his interest, he said, were pharmacognosy, followed by entrepreneurship and project management. Entrepreneurship interests him partly because it emphasizes small and medium-sized enterprises, especially those in which farmers and others make or sell traditional medicines, expanding their horizons beyond common low-margin crops such as sorghum and maize.
“When I came to SUA,” he said, “I wrote in my proposal that I wanted to find a natural product to study. I was prepared to start my studies on ants, because they are very destructive to farmers. But my professor found some difficulties I might have in my project. He advised me to look into another question, which he had discovered in southern Tanzania, in the Njombe region. There he had heard that farmers were applying a bioslurry to vegetables as fertilizer. This is an area with many insect pests, and the farmers told him that the inserts were no longer eating the vegetables that were fertilized by the bioslurry. Naturally he wanted to know why, and I agreed that it sounded very interesting as a project.”
The term “slurry” refers to a fluid mixture of small particles—usually containing water—that offers a convenient way of handling large amounts of solids, such as dirt, clay, pulverized coal, cement, or manure. In the region Cliffson chose to explore, bioslurry is the principal byproduct of biogas digesters, which are used to extract methane from cow manure. Many users simply discard the bioslurry after the methane is removed, which both pollutes the environment and wastes useful organic material. Cliffson planned to investigate whether or not bioslurry is a more effective fertilizer than raw manure, and also whether it has the ability to reduce crop damage caused by pests.
In preparing for his master’s fieldwork, Cliffson drew up a proposal with four objectives. He has already completed some sections of it, though important parts are still awaiting answers.
Cliffson intends to administer a questionnaire to farmers who are using bioslurry. He wants to ask them exactly which pests it has reduced, how the farmers make and use the slurry, how long they store it before use, and whether it actually kills pests or simply repels them. He also wants to understand the farmers’ attitudes about bioslurry and its value.
He also plans to hold a field trial to demonstrate what the farmers are doing. He has already tested spinach, a vegetable that is commonly grown in the region, as his experimental crop. He tested it both in the field and in a greenhouse. On one portion of the crop he applied no pesticide, and found that caterpillars ate about a third of the leaves. On a second portion, he applied only bioslurry, and on the third portion he applied the synthetic Farmguard pesticide. The best outcome was seen in the bioslurry portion, second best in the pesticide portion, and the worst in the portion without protection.
Using techniques of microbiology with the help of a lab technician, he has examined the bacterial content of the bioslurry. He has found references in the literature to the presence of Bacillus thuringiensis, a common bacterium used as an alternative to synthetic pesticides, but has not yet found it.
He has explored the biochemistry of the bioslurry using thin-layer chromatography to identify the constituents. Using samples from the biogas plants of five farmers, he found, first, 1,2-dicholoromethane; then hexane; then methanol; then a combination of methane and hexane. “I came to realize,” he said, “that the chromatographic profile was the same in all five. Now I want to compare this profile with profiles published in the literature.”
With these results, Cliffson is partway through his four goals, with some important answers still to come: how much the farmers really know about bioslurry, its specific effect on pests, and its microbial contents. Depending on the answers to these and related questions, he may have an opportunity to exploit the power of both the entrepreneurship and pharmacognosy he enjoyed most during his coursework.
“These are important questions to answer,” he said, “because there is a big market for organic products here in Tanzania. The market is growing fast. People don’t want to use synthetics anymore because they are aware of the harm chemicals can do. People have been spraying so much to get rid of pests, and they have found that the vegetables are full of pesticides. Whether the slurry is killing the pests, or whether it is more of a repellant, it seems to be working, and this can be part of a new solution.”
Peregrine Sebulime, a PhD student at Makerere University, has been working on a project since 2009 that differs substantially from those chosen by his AFNNET peers. He is looking not primarily at questions of health care or environmental sustainability, but at the effects of a plant on meat production—specifically, the effects of capsicum, a diverse genus of tropical pepper plants, on chicken meat.
He came across this idea at the beginning of his RISE scholarship when he was looking through the scientific literature in search of a research topic. He found abundant evidence that capsicum goes well with chicken, as a glance at numerous Chinese and Indian cooking websites makes clear. But these home recipes are interested only with using capsicum (most often ordinary bell peppers) to improve the flavor of the food, like any other kind of chili pepper. What Peregrine came across in his scientific reading, however, was the possibility of feeding dried and powdered capsicum to live chickens to improve the quality of the meat.
Could it really be true that ingested capsicum could improve food value? He found that people living near Kampala who raise large numbers of chickens were already feeding their animals a variety of plant products to improve meat quality. He also found that consumers preferred local birds because they thought its meat quality was superior to imported chicken. But there had been no scientific demonstration of whether either assertion was true.
As he dug deeper into the literature, he found that capsicum has been used for many centuries for physical disorders ranging from indigestion to ulcers to migraines. It has also been found to lower blood cholesterol, boost circulation, and serve a general antibiotic. It is used topically to reduce muscle pain, arthritis, or other ailments in which “heat” is desired. Some species are so spicy as to be inedible; one is the active agent in the pepper spray used for riot control and personal defense.
Most intriguing of all to Peregrine were claims that capsicum is a powerful antioxidizing agent. One of the liabilities of chicken is that the meat has high concentrations of unsaturated lipids, or fats. These lipids are chemically unstable, tending to oxidize quickly during and after slaughter, which degrades the quality of the meat. If capsicum could reduce the lipid content of the chicken meat, both slowing the oxidation process and reducing the dietary fat content, it could be a boon to chicken producers and consumers alike.
While these beneficial effects seemed likely, they had not been demonstrated, which is what Peregrine set out to do. He focused his testing on the species Capsicum frutescens, both because it had been described in the literature as a meat quality enhancer and because it was locally abundant and inexpensive. It had also been tested as an antibiotic, with good results, and had been found to reduce lipid content in another food—rice.
For his testing, Peregrine made use of the Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute in Kabanyolo, which has extensive chicken raising facilities. He began with 500 chicks of a strain of “exotic chickens,” one of the world’s common broiler varieties called Ross 308. This variety is bred to sit still, eat voraciously, and gain weight rapidly, reaching a market weight of four or five pounds in as many weeks. He fed the Ross 308 chicks a common starter diet and later, at the age of four weeks, capsicum was included as a dietary supplement. During the supplementation phase, he divided the birds into different groups, each receiving a different amount of the pepper for varying amounts of time. During supplementation, the live weight of the chicken was measured at seven-day intervals.
At slaughter, Peregrine measured the weights of the carcass and other organs including the heart, gizzard, liver, and intestine of each chicken. He found that the supplementation with capsicum had an effect on the carcass and intestine weights as well as on the lipid content of the chickens. The chickens that received the supplementation for longer durations weighed less than those receiving it for shorter durations and the control group. In addition, shorter duration supplementation appeared to improve feed conversion; chickens on the short duration supplementation had higher carcass weights and lower intestine weights, despite no major differences in live weights and the feed intake for both categories of chickens. Just as he had hoped, capsicum was reducing the amount of lipids in the meat.
Peregrine then tested the effects of capsicum on local chickens, choosing for this batch 1,000 birds. The local birds are slow-growing and can take four times longer to reach market size than the exotic birds. Dietary supplementation was done between the ages of seven and eight months. In one batch of local birds, the dietary supplement was given with a high fat source whereas a low fat source was used in the other. In each batch, different groups of chicken received varying amounts of capsicum. After slaughter, Peregrine conducted organoleptic tests, which are standardized methods to measure taste and quality. Analysis of the results for the local chicken is yet to be fully completed.
Peregrine is most enthused by one result in particular: reducing lipids reduces the number of calories in the meat, which raises the possibility that capsicum-fed animals will appeal to dieters wishing to reduce the risks of obesity and cardiovascular disorders. Peregrine is already thinking about the larger importance of his work. “If we can show the value of this supplement,” he said, “we can create demand for local producers of the chili peppers. When chicken producers in developed economies appreciate the fact that they can use chili to grow more healthful chickens containing less saturated fat, Ugandan farmers can potentially be mobilized to produce capsicum for companies involved in global trade. This is one way to generate new income, replacing aid with sustainable trade opportunities and shortening the path for our people out of the ‘bottom billion.’ We can be a supplier to other countries and build sustainable trade.”
Across the Ocean to Meet a Neighbor: Princeton Visit Connects Scholars in Uganda and Kenya (AFNNET)
by Joelia Nasaka
Joelia is currently pursuing her PhD at Makerere University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biosecurity (COVAB) through RISE-AFNNET. She is also a lecturer at COVAB.
L to R: Mpala Research Centre Director Dr. Dino Martins, RISE-AFNNET PhD Student Joelia Nasaka, Princeton University Prof. Dan Rubenstein
August 13, 2015
Five hours away from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, I found myself at Mpala Research Centre, anxious about what the next three days would hold for me. The security guards welcomed me to the guest house, making me feel right at home. I was ready for my tired body to rest after a warm shower.
At 7:30 am, I was up for breakfast and at the dining area found many students from the USA and Kenya with their advisors, preparing for the day’s work ahead. They all smiled warmly and shook hands with me as we exchanged pleasantries. Some stole side glances at me, maybe wondering how I would manage to carry out research in my condition, but some friendly ones reached out to me and asked how long I was staying, whether my family would be joining me anytime soon… and I understood why they were concerned, as I have this huge belly in front of me (7 months along!) and the research center is very hot—no place for the weak, with lots of action-packed research being carried out. Both outside my house and in the dining area, I observed plenty of wildlife, ranging from birds, monkeys, and butterflies to dik-dik running around.
Prof. Rubenstein in the dining area, which doubles as a classroom space
At around 8:30 am, a gentle man with a warm smile approached me and called me by name, “Joelia, you are most welcome, sorry you got here late last night and we had already retired for the day,” and while I was not sure yet who the man was, I already felt very welcome in this place. It was actually Dr. Dino Martins, the research center’s new director. Later on Prof. Dan Rubenstein (Princeton University) arrived, and I was so happy to see him; at this point I felt like my students’ research dreams and mine could be realized. He introduced me to everyone, including his graduate students. We joined Dr. Martins in his office where we planned out my next few days’ activities.
Day 1: I set out for the field with Kaia Tombak, a graduate student working with Prof. Rubenstein on Grevy's zebras. She is doing nutritional studies on the zebras as well as identifying individual zebras by their stripe patterns to understand their social behavior. We also conducted vegetation (grass) surveys with the help and experience of Josephat, who has been working with Prof. Rubenstein for the last seven years and knows Mpala very well. On the way, I was treated to a tour of the research center’s ecosystem. Later I joined Tyler Kartzinel, a Princeton postdoc who is carrying out nutritional studies on the goats and sheep in neighboring communities to determine their foraging patterns and plant preferences.
Joelia in the field with Mpala researchers
Day 2: Two of Prof. Rubenstein’s students, Tyler and Ryan, took me along to their experimental plots. They are working on elephant selective nutrition of some epiphyte species in and outside the Uhuru experimental plots. It was amazing to see how they set up camera traps in addition to taking vegetation surveys. We visited the Uhuru experimental plots with four different treatments set aside for feeding trials of ungulates in Mpala.
Joelia with Mrs. Rubenstein (and her camera-shy granddaughter) in front of Mpala Academy
In the afternoon, I joined Mrs. Nancy Rubenstein to carry out conservation education at a nearby local school called Mpala Academy. Here my heart melted, the schoolkids were so cute and passionate about conservation programs as well as the activities that we gave them for the day. We had so much fun. I also went to the nursery class where kids were playing with the flash cards that had been donated to the class. They were really excited to see me, and I remember the headmaster telling them how I was from Makerere University, one of the best in Africa, from which their former President Mwai Kibaki had graduated. I expressed my gratitude to Nancy and the school administration for giving me the time to interact with their kids. I asked the kids to be good stewards of the environment as an example to their parents and the rest of the community. What a day! I rode back to the research center with the schoolkids on their school bus, and as we approached the center, they sang me farewell songs. How nice to be a part of these innocent souls’ lives for even half a day!
Snapshots from Mpala Academy
Day 3: After breakfast Ms. Chloe Cipolletta, East African Grant Program Director from National Geographic, gave a talk. What a way to crown this trip; she came to talk about funding as one of the biggest limiting factors for successful completion of research in Africa. We caught up after the talk to share contacts and GUESS WHAT? Yes, you guessed right, Chloe is coming to Uganda and to Makerere, specifically to my department and college (COVAB), to share the news with the researchers and the students about potential funding for research in the East African region. National Geographic now has a link to Makerere University, all thanks to this visit. The researchers at the Center were asked to share where they were from and a bit about their work. At this point I realized how much work is being done at Mpala and that it is the perfect place for my ecology students to pursue internships and research opportunities.
Joelia with Chloe Cipolletta
Later I went with Chloe and Dan to the student campsite to look at what facilities are available in case we bring a class from Makerere University to Mpala. The campsite is great, with a fire pit, view of the wildlife and River Awasanyiro, and tented facilities—not to mention the meals offered. In an earlier meeting, Dr. Martins mentioned that he was working on getting the East African student rate to be about 30 USD full board for the classes that stay at this campsite. This is part of an effort to attract more regional researchers to Mpala, and I feel that this will work in our favor.
Student tents at Mpala
I was invited to a special dinner at the Ranch House with the student advisors—all great scientists, from Princeton University (Dan and Nancy Rubenstein, Rob Pringle); Columbia University (Dustin Rubenstein); UC Davis (Prof. Truman P. Young); Mpala Research Centre (Dr. Dino J. Martins); and National Geographic (Chloe Cipolletta). What an evening! The Ranch House has a breathtaking view of the site. This crowned my visit for networking, relationship building, and “scouting” at Mpala.
My stay at Mpala would never have been possible if it were not for my meeting with Dan at Princeton University’s Indaba. SIG invited me to Princeton while I was a visiting researcher at Mississippi State University through CIMTRADZ-HED.
I wish to thank Prof. Dan Rubenstein for giving me that first PowerPoint presentation about Mpala in his office at Princeton University. It caught my attention, and since we teach almost the same subjects, it was inevitable that I wanted to see more of what he does while in neighboring Kenya. Thank you for inviting me to Mpala and for having me at the Ranch House.
I also wish to thank Dr. Dino Martins and all of the staff at Mpala for giving me the best care while I was at Mpala. I look forward to seeing you all again next year. I also wish to thank the graduate students for sharing their work with me; I wish you well in your projects and look forward to keeping in touch.
To SIG/RISE, particularly to Sarah and Arlen, I am forever grateful for your commitment to your scholars. This trip would never have taken place without your help. The invitation to Princeton University was from SIG and this trip was a spin-off from that visit. Thank you for funding me to travel to Mpala. Prof. Rubenstein has even offered to give guest lectures to my students when they come to Mpala and also hopes to come to Uganda sometime in the future. My students will hopefully go to Mpala next summer, and the network I’ve gained from connecting with Mpala will better my teaching and my research.
From Kampala to New York: A Poultry Scientist's Incredible Journey (AFNNET)
by Joelia Nasaka
December 15, 2014
Aboard KLM, I left Uganda for Mississippi State University (MSU) on September 13th 2014 for three months of training under the Capacity Building in Integrated Disease Management of Transboundary Diseases and Zoonoses in Eastern and Central Africa (CIMTRADZ). I was received at the Columbus airport and taken to MSU, where my three-month journey started. We had an ice cream social—which I had never heard of in Uganda—where we got to meet the entire Faculty in the College of Veterinary Medicine and our matched mentors. After our first week, I traveled to California for a policy training workshop with the other junior faculty who came with me from Uganda. This workshop addressed how to translate scientific research into policy in a manner that is easily understandable to legislators and politicians. It made for an action-packed week that left us appreciating how policies in the USA are formulated and how we can take that back to Uganda.
My PhD research is focused on evaluating the performance of game birds on commercial and non-commercial feeds in Uganda, which placed me in the Department of Poultry Science and later in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at MSU for the rest of the training period.
In Poultry Science, I worked at the poultry farm, designing feeding trials, bleeding the birds after the trials, and extracting tibias for mineral analysis in the laboratory. At the feed mill, I was trained in formulating and mixing feeds, at USDA, in pelleting the feeds, and back in the laboratory, in analyzing feeds for nutrient content and determining feed pellet quality.
In the Food Science and Nutrition Department, I was trained in feed quality, food safety, and extending the shelf life of poultry meat. It is important to note that all these areas of training add value to my research, as they all in one way or another contribute to my PhD research objectives.
I also attended workshops on scientific writing, academic integrity, EndNote referencing, publishing in reputable scientific journals, as well as use of statistical packages in sample size determination and data analysis at the MSU Main Library and the College of Veterinary Medicine.
At Princeton University!
Along the way, on the 18th of November, I was invited by the Science Initiative Group (SIG) to the Institute for Advanced Study to present a paper at nearby Princeton University on how my work contributes to science in Africa. My PhD is funded through RISE-AFNNET, which is a network within SIG’s current project, RISE (Regional Initiative in Science and Education), so it was an honor for me to represent RISE at Princeton. This visit opened many new doors for me.
On Wednesday morning I was at the Indaba presenting with SIG Program Associate Sarah Rich and Executive Director Arlen Hastings. I presented on how my game bird production research will create future employment opportunities and improve food security in Uganda. The audience included Princeton University professors, researchers and graduate students. Arlen and Sarah had planned my two-day visit to New Jersey in the best way possible. I had a great meeting after the presentation with Professor Dan Rubenstein, who runs a program in Uganda’s neighboring country of Kenya. Now that was one Professor that I really had to meet! He teaches ecology, just as I do at Makerere University. What I needed from Prof. Rubenstein was his experience, to tap into his wisdom and get a working opportunity with him in the future, and guess what? I got an invitation to Mpala Research Center next summer to work with Prof. Rubenstein in Kenya. I can’t wait! I also arranged an internship program at the same research center for my ecology students at Makerere University.
Visiting the Mini Einstein Museum, Landau, Princeton
Later on, I met Professor David Wilcove, another professor of ecology. These meetings were aimed at capacity building for my university as well as individual career and academic growth. Prof. Wilcove gave me books to help with my teaching, for which I thank him. I later went on a tour of Princeton University, and I had never seen a university campus as beautiful. Wow! I must be lucky you know, Joelia at Princeton looking at these beautiful buildings with their rich history and the culture. Oh my God, I am truly lucky. Then I visited Fuld Hall at the IAS, where the great physicist Albert Einstein worked, and at this point the excitement was too much for me. I saw memorabilia about his great works, and I was speechless.
With SIG Chair, Professor Phillip Griffiths
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, at the end of the day, Arlen and Sarah had a big surprise for me. I had dinner with Professor Phillip Griffiths, the founder and chair of SIG, which funds my research. This was a humbling experience. Prof. Griffiths was actually unwell that day, but he managed to come out and have dinner with me. I shared with him a little about my work and I expressed my gratitude to him and to RISE for the funding and networking opportunity given to me.
The next day, Sarah drove me to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, where I was scheduled to meet Professor Brooke Maslo, an ecology professor who shares my teaching dreams. This meeting resulted in future prospects of working together after both of us agreeing to collaborate and improve study experiences for our students. Prof. Maslo and I exchanged curriculum content and books for teaching. I left feeling like it was the beginning of a new working relationship which I plan on keeping.
With Rutgers University Professor, David Ehrenfeld
As I left Prof. Maslo’s office, she introduced me to Professor David Ehrenfeld, a founding editor of the prestigious journal Conservation Biology. Prof. Ehrenfeld invited me to tap into his networks in the United States and in Africa for wildlife research funding. What better day could I ask for? After this meeting, we drove back to Princeton where we had lunch and later visited a farmer’s market. This was a good opportunity to experience American culture, and I am grateful for the opportunity.
After some serious business in Princeton, I wasn’t about to go without seeing the fun side of the USA. New York City was about an hour away from Princeton, and I wasn’t about to let this opportunity for fun and sight-seeing slip away when I was this close. Again, Arlen and Sarah made my greatest dream of visiting New York City come true. Mr. Paul Brown volunteered to take me to on a dream tour of Times Square in New York, but that wasn’t all. I had dinner in Brooklyn with Mr. Brown and his friends. Now this was what I call fun, taking the train and subway for the first time, being in New Jersey in the morning, Times Square by 5:30 p.m., dinner in Brooklyn, and back to IAS for a night’s rest, all in the same day. That is what I call the USA, the place where anything is possible.
Times Square, New York City!
I wish to thank RISE-AFNNET and the SIG Secretariat (Arlen and Sarah) for inviting me to IAS and for organizing amazing experiences for me. I thank CIMTRADZ for inviting me to the USA and USAID for funding my three-month training. I also wish to thank all of the professors and graduate students that trained me in laboratory and farm skills, which I hope to reproduce at Makerere University through my research.
An initiative to train science lecturers and boost collaboration among researchers at African universities is likely to be renewed and expanded next year.
The final installment of a US$5 million grant for the period 2011–2013 for the Regional Initiative in Science and Education (RISE), launched in 2008, will be provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, United States, in March next year.
But a third phase, from 2014 to 2016 — to focus on building partnerships for expansion and increasing the visibility of academic networks and their activities — is now likely to take place.
RISE plans an expansion into Francophone Africa, and possibly North Africa, according to Lori Mulcare, a RISE administrator based at the Science Initiative Group, the US science institute coordinating the initiative alongside African partners.
"The original competition [for RISE grants] in 2007 was open to universities in research institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa but, because of the linguistic limitations of our small secretariat, only English-language proposals were accepted and, as a result, very few proposals came from non-Anglophone countries," she told SciDev.Net.
RISE is yet to secure funding for the expansion, but it has formed a partnership with the African University of Science and Technology in Nigeria to host an African-based co-secretariat and add multilingual capacity as needed.
RISE works with PhD and MSc-level scientists and engineers in Sub-Saharan Africa, through university-based research and training networks, in disciplines such as biochemistry, environmental science and pharmacology. Its main purpose is to train new faculty members to teach in African universities, and to upgrade current faculty qualifications.
Five academic networks, including the African Materials Science and Engineering Network (AMSEN) and the Western Indian Ocean Regional Initiative, each received US$800,000 for the 2011–2013 phase.
Mulcare told SciDev.Net that the grant money mainly covers fees, bursaries, travel between network sites, student conferences and purchasing educational equipment.
"RISE’s primary goal is to use the network structure to provide comprehensive research and training for master’s and PhD students in science and engineering disciplines," said Mulcare. "RISE graduates are well prepared to contribute to and strengthen universities in their home countries or regions, as teachers, mentors and researchers," she added.
Mulcare said RISE is currently supporting 63 master’s and 67 doctoral students, of whom around a third are women.
Patrick Okori, Dean of the School of Agricultural Sciences at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, said the initiative could boost the number of African scientists working on the continent.
"Most of our scientists have gone to work outside the continent so we need a replacement for them," Okori said. "We will need students with analytical capacities and high level skills to drive new innovations and research, which can lead to the development of our continent."
The Ambitions of AFNNET: Natural Products and Beyond
by Alan Anderson
November 13, 2009
Sub-Saharan African countries desperately need to develop products that can meet local needs, preserve the environment, provide jobs, and drive the economy. John David Kabasa of Makerere University in Uganda thinks that he and his colleagues in AFNNET have found an answer to this need in the hot new field of natural products.
Natural products, or NP, is a new term for a centuries-old custom – the use of natural plant materials to provide food, medicines, cosmetics, stimulants, energy sources, and other marketable products. What is new for NP is the strategy of linking it with modern science, management, and entrepreneurship in ways that add value to such products. Stephen Kiama of the University of Nairobi sees these materials as sources of “alternative wealth” that are accessible to people of few means, ecologically adapted to local conditions, and sustainable.
Scientifically, the field of natural products has both depth and breadth, requiring many overlapping skills to discover useful products, analyze them, and apply the quality controls required by the modern marketplace. For this reason, NP is well suited to a networking approach, and the RISE network for NP – AFNNET – is one of the most diverse and collaborative. For example, the participants from Makerere, Nairobi, and Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania have jointly developed a common curriculum that will allow students to move freely among partner institutions. Plans call for participants from not only analytical, environmental, and bio-prospecting fields, but also from the areas of economics, business, patenting, ethics, and value chain management.
The development of an NP industry, however, is hindered by a shortage of trained personnel, especially at high levels of academic and professional expertise. This arises primarily, according to Prof. Kiama, from limited funding to train graduate students and high-level technicians. He and his team have found AFNNET funding to be a significant help. “Carnegie support has enabled us to move quite fast,” said Prof. Samuel Okello of Makerere. “In most of our activities we interact as much as we can. Everything we do is interdisciplinary. A single project may include chemistry, pharmacology, and botany.
“At the PhD level we have recruited all 10 of our candidates – five at Makerere, three at Nairobi, and two at Sokoine. We have a good gender balance. We have co-opted many of our colleagues to be mentors, so students have three or four, in different fields. They all enjoy mentoring, because it involves them in research, brings new contacts, and gives them co-author credit on papers.
“Some of our students get short, specialized courses on subjects they need. One is studying statistics. Another went to Addis Ababa, which has one of the best analytical labs. A third went to France for practical analytical training. All of them get training in communication, writing.”
Makerere has also developed the first master’s program in the region in NP, which was planned as a joint program among the three nodes giving students the ability to transfer credits from one to another. The graduate school accepted the program in August, and it is now awaiting Senate approval, with an estimated February launch. A “great innovation” of this program, said Dr. Okello, is that students may join at any time instead of awaiting the next semester.
Included in the plan is the private sector. According to Prof. Okello, “At the moment, a lot of NP are exploited for claimed pharma value, nutritional value, etc. We want to learn from the herbalists and others and help them at the same time to improve their investment. The traditional people don’t really know what’s in their products. We plan short courses for these people to help them purify, standardize, package, and market their products, which is what they want. We’ve worked hard to win their trust, and I think it is working. They want to add value, and improve their business. We envision an association with them that brings this about.”
Prof. Kabasa has even more ambitious plans. “We want to transform Makerere from just an academic institution to a societal institution,” he said. “The RISE announcement came just as we were developing this. We have engaged the government for four years about delivering changes to society. The government is very interested in helping us. We want to blend intellectual skills with vocational, managerial, and entrepreneurial skills to form an interdisciplinary, holistic institute. You have to help me find a name for it.”
Links to the private sector are being built through the Makerere University Private Sector Foundation, whose director is head of the Bank of Uganda; the Uganda Investment Authority, whose director, Maggie Kigozi, is a member of the Private Sector Forum; and other investors and associations, such as the Uganda Veterinarian Association.
Some of the activities envisioned for this institute are “value addition along value chains of natural products,” improving the productivity of NP through biotechnology, enhancing biosecurity by studies of disease and public health, and entrepreneurship for young people as well as small enterprises. They also want to link the institute’s activities to curricula in primary and secondary schools, working closely with the Ministry of Education.
“This program,” concluded Prof. Kabasa, “can be so important to this region. The Maasai are bringing natural products into Kampala and selling them. We want to help organize this group, boost the quality, standardize the product, help with packaging and marketing. When the people need to analyze something they can come to our labs which can be a reference lab and a resource center where people can learn through e-learning and training – a one-stop shopping center."
“We’re already sensitive to the needs of the private sector,” he concluded. “This is not the traditional model. The institute will be an NGO without bureaucracy or disciplinary walls. We want it to be a showcase, where people from the region can demonstrate what they have and what they are doing. We want to train the trainers in new ways, and at the same time return to a cultural model of collaboration that is very old. What we are doing is repackaging knowledge to address new needs in society. In veterinary medicine, you get a degree when you solve a problem, not when you sit for passive instruction the old way. We will have a lot of non-degree training, a lot of youth and community support. The President supports us, the university supports us, the private sector supports us.”
