Issue link: http://catalog.e-digitaleditions.com/i/60088
The most pressing issues facing the world today are too complex for individual institutions or even nations to solve alone. At Purdue University, we are addressing these challenges through strategic collaborations around the world. From partnerships with Columbian researchers on life sciences technology to climate-change studies with Chinese ecologists, our researchers are enhancing knowledge on a global scale. MEETING GRAND CHALLENGES Culture, crops and cyberspace Imagine sitting with a netbook in a café in Capetown, compiling a presentation for local officials on the effects of drought on South Africa's sorghum crops, and simply running an analysis and pulling a map from a HUBZero® site without having to download massive amounts of data. That's the vision of Tom Hertel, who, along with his col- league, Nelson Villoria, is working with the British govern- ment on Geoshare, a cyberinfrastructure that will share data on agriculture, forestry and climate and interactions between the three. Hertel, a distinguished professor of agriculture, was one of four researchers that received $30,000 grants in 2011 from the university's Global Policy Research Institute (GPRI) in partnership with Purdue's Center for Global Food Security. "The researchers were selected for these project start-up funds because their work shows promise of informing pol- icymakers of viable options for addressing international food security issues," says Arden Bement, director of GPRI. "This series of grants makes it possible for faculty experts from several disciplines to work together in addressing a significant global challenge." Tom Hertel Geoshare The Geoshare project addresses critical gaps in analyzing the effects of climate change on agriculture and food supplies. Because different institutions and governments collect data from limited geographic areas, and because their measurements are often specific to their own needs, Gebisa Ejeta (right), Distinguished Professor of Agronomy and a 2009 World Food Prize laureate, leads the Center for Global Food Security, which has partnered with the Global Policy Research Institute to support researchers aspiring to improve food sources around the world.