On March 4, the sixth annual International Connections Reception, hosted by Global Affairs, brought together the UC Davis community in an online forum to celebrate globally engaged faculty, staff, and scholars. The event included the announcement of this year’s Academic Federation and Academic Senate honorees for the Excellence in Teaching in Study Abroad Awards, conferred jointly between the Academic Senate and Global Affairs.

The 2020-21 UC Davis Global Education for All Fellows are working together and with others across and beyond UC Davis to advance Global Education for All, a campus goal aiming to provide 100% of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students with global learning opportunities that change their lives and our world. In addition to providing input into the Global Education for All Steering Committee work – such as future course development – the fellows are leading projects of their own based on their backgrounds and interests.

After completing her undergraduate and graduate degrees at UC Davis' College of Engineering, Nisha Marwaha accepted a job at the nonprofit WorldFish, based in Malaysia, to help improve fisheries and aquaculture. Read on to learn about her water scarcity research and how local partnerships help support the global UN Sustainable Development Goals.

A friendly global rivalry between undergraduate biochemistry students at UC Davis and at University College Dublin, Ireland, is being launched in memory of plant biochemist Eric Conn (1923-2017), a UC Davis professor emeritus of molecular and cellular biology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nina Forest, who graduated in June 2020, is headed toward graduate studies and a future career in the U.S. Foreign Service with the support from a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship

Global Affairs launched an internship opportunity focused on strengthening UC Davis's engagement with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UC Davis Professor Beth Rose Middleton, chair of the Native American Studies Department in the College of Letters and Science, has long had an interest in the Caribbean. A 2020 Global Affairs Seed Grant has allowed Professor Middleton to develop courses on the Indigenous Caribbean and to develop exchanges and collaborations with Garifuna leaders.

When COVID-19 dashed plans for international research, six UC Davis students who focus on Latin America, North America, and the Caribbean immersed themselves in language training. Funded by the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas and the College of Letters and Science, two students studied Haitian Creole and four students studied Indigenous languages, Embera (Colombia), Nahuatl (Mexico), Quechua (Peru and Ecuador), and Unangam Tunuu (Unangax language, Alaska).

Although this year has brought unprecedented challenges, Global Affairs remains proud to welcome the world to UC Davis and connect UC Davis with the world, albeit virtually at the moment. As we leave 2020 behind, we celebrate the Global Affairs news and announcements featured this year with this top 20 of 2020.

From all of us in Global Affairs at the University of California, Davis, we are sending our warmest wishes to you this holiday season. In times like these, we are reminded of how interconnected our world is and how we grow together from every challenge. We hope you’ll read our UC Davis Global Affairs 2019-20 Annual Report, which this year focuses on global leadership in a dynamic and interconnected world, featuring UC Davis global learning, research, service, and partnerships in a time of COVID-19.