URBANA, Ill.  – Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa use fertilizer well below recommended rates, contributing to consistently low agricultural productivity. Farmers in Tanzania and Kenya, for example, apply just 13 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare, compared with 165 to 175 kilograms in India and Brazil. Low use directly affects cereal yields, which average 1.2 to 1.7 metric tons per hectare, compared to 4 to 4.5 metric tons in South America and Asia.

While students wait eagerly for study abroad programs to open back up, the ACES Global Service Learning course is proving to be a fulfilling alternative. 

Learning to adapt and overcome challenges are central competencies that can be learned through studying abroad, and 2020 has spurred a need for even more creativity and flexibility within the field. Given that travel restrictions have limited in-person experiences for students and institutions over the past nine months, virtual project-based programs have become increasingly present with opportunities for students to still connect around the world and develop global competencies in an innovative and resourceful way.

URBANA, Ill. – Careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are one of the fastest-growing areas of work in the United States, yet racial and gender disparities remain in STEM occupations.

URBANA, Ill. – For individuals looking to improve their health in 2021, strengthening your couple relationship may be part of the answer, according to findings from a recent University of Illinois study.

The study examined long-term changes in partners’ health after participating in a new program for two-parent African American families.

URBANA, Ill. – Walking rows of soybeans in the mid-summer heat is an exhausting but essential chore in breeding new cultivars. Researchers brave the heat daily during crucial parts of the growing season to look for plants showing desirable traits, such as early pod maturity. But without a way to automate detection of these traits, breeders can’t test as many plots as they’d like in a given year, elongating the time it takes to bring new cultivars to market.

College can be difficult – any student knows that. What many students may not know, though, is how dedicated their teachers and advisors are to helping them navigate what can be a stressful and confusing time, especially now.

The 13th cohort of the ACES Global Academy “International Partnerships for Digital Agriculture Research and Applications in BRAZIL” is building collaborations with Brazilian colleagues in spite of the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic.

URBANA, Ill. – An aging U.S. population is rapidly increasing the demand for nursing care. The number of U.S. citizens aged 65 and over is expected to almost double from 43.1 million in 2012 to 87.5 million by 2050, while the workforce is shrinking. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the need for health care professionals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant disruptions and complications with regards to the College of ACES (and everyone’s) international activities. ACES faculty have engagements in 76 countries, but since March 2020, representatives of ACES have not traveled for official business, and the college has hosted no international guests.