What is the Moon Festival? A scholar of Chinese religions explains
09/27/21

Source: The Conversation

With the arrival of September and hints of cooler temperatures also comes one of the most important traditional festivals in the Chinese calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Zhongqiu jie (中秋節), also known as the Moon Festival.

At this time of the year, the Chinese store down the road from our home in Gainesville, Florida, is stocked with mooncakes, known in Chinese as yuebing (月餅). The same is true of Chinese stores around the world. There is even the option these days of buying these desserts from online retailers such...

Hispanic Heritage Month Highlight: Dr. Gladys Velarde
09/20/21

Source: American College of Cardiology

The need to help others in a country with scarce resources, my love for science and the image of my older brother Carlos as a medical student were my initial inspirations to be a doctor.

At the age of 9, I lost my father to vascular complications. I never really knew the cause of his death; he was a heavy smoker and died shortly after an aorto-femoral arterial bypass.

I remember my father would take me for walks and at...

Cody Case Accepts Fulbright Hayes Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship
09/20/21

The UF School of Music is delighted to announce that Cody accepted the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship to conduct fieldwork research in Salvador, Brazil for twelve months beginning in 2022. The U.S. Department of Education manages the national annual competition to offer these awards for conducting doctoral research with a non-western area studies focus. Reinforcing UF’s strong reputation for earning Fulbright-Hays awards among graduate students and faculty, Cody is the first doctoral student to become a recipient from the College of the Arts in over 20 years.

Academically, Cody weaves together interdisciplinary coursework in Latin American studies...

Dr. Ian Tebbett's International Impact in Forensic Science
09/13/21

For over 20 years now, Dr. Ian Tebbett has led the largest Forensic Science program in the world and has over the years established numerous international collaborations with the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, universities in Australia, Europe, South America, and across Asia. His work has been impactful in growing not only the graduate online Forensic Science programs but also other initiatives across the UF campus and at the College of Pharmacy. Dr. Tebbet's leadership, vision, and expertise helped many other faculty in building their own in-person and online programs alike. He paved the way for additional...

UF-led study explores differences in COVID-19 severity internationally
09/13/21

The question kept coming up: Why are some countries in the grip of COVID-19 while others appear less affected?

“It’s fundamentally curious,” said Rhoel Dinglasan, Ph.D., M.P.H., a professor of infectious diseases with the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, part of UF Health, the university’s academic health center. “It seems like COVID-19 is not affecting people in Africa as severely as it has in North America. But why?”

Dinglasan suspects the answer is connected to people’s exposure to various infectious diseases in specific geographic regions.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently awarded a $10 million grant to a team led...

New International Student Numbers are Up!
09/08/21

The International Center is pleased to welcome a higher number of new international students this semester!

International students play an important role in the advancement of our university's research and teaching mission. Their presence is key to enhancing UF’s tradition of global learning.

Given the high number of new students who deferred from Fall 2020 to Spring 2021, the sum of those two semesters is a better indicator of international student interest in UF for our last academic year. In comparison with previous semesters, as of 8/31/21, 52% of F1 International Students who received an I-20s checked in, in contrast with 47% in Spring 2021, and 31% of check-ins in...

Jordan Fulbright Scholars and One Health
09/08/21

On August 26th, Jordanian Fulbright Scholars in the Junior Faculty & Development Program visited virtually via Zoom with members of the One Health Center team to discuss possible avenues of collaboration. Dr. Ilaria Capua gave a short presentation on the Center and our current research projects, followed by a conversation with the Scholars.

Topics included the need for more organizational and national recognition of One Health in Jordan, possible overlaps and collaboration between the Scholars' research and the Center's initiatives, and possible future steps to advance the mission of One Health.

"Through meeting the leaders of the One Health Center in UF, I could more...

Fulbright 75th Anniversary Art Exhibition Features Prof. Anna Calluori
09/08/21

2021 marks the 75th anniversary of the Fulbright Program. This virtual exhibition presents work made by past Fulbright recipients and is mounted in connection with the Virtual 44th Annual Conference, Fulbright at 75: Celebrating a Legacy of Global Friendships. All participants contributing to this exhibition are members of the Fulbright Association, the alumni association of the Fulbright Program.

Professor Anna Calluori Holcombe was a Fulbright Scholar at Anadolu University in Turkey and will be included in this year's exhibition. Her work explores the juxtaposition created by taking natural objects and using them in digital form.

For more information about the exhibition...

Virtual Exchange Initiatives Continue Expanding with Outreach and Training
08/30/21

Source: UF LATAM

Boosted by the vital role of technology during the pandemic, UF has continued growing its virtual exchange outreach and training initiatives during the last year. Using virtual exchange enables educational programs to connect students around the world from different backgrounds for sustained interaction and collaboration.

At UF, this innovating teaching and learning method has already been implemented by faculty in multiple colleges and is led by the UFIC Office of Global Learning (OGL) as a method of internationalizing the curriculum. The OGL...

Ben Hebblethwaite Pens Column on Language Inequality in Haiti
08/30/21

Source: UF LATAM

Affiliate professor Dr. Benjamin Hebblethwaite (Languages, Literatures and Cultures) has published an op-ed shedding light on the role of language policy in Haiti's struggle for advancement, in the context of the country's history as well as current events.

"Even today [...] Haitian children are still subjected to a school system that largely operates in a language few Haitians speak with competence—let alone can read or write. It is estimated that roughly 5 to 10 percent of Haitians are functionally bilingual in French and...

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