Congratulations to Dr. Ivana Parker and Dr. Ana Maria Porras, who were selected as 2022 Global Fellows from the UF International Center.

The International Center’s theme of learning without borders extends to our faculty and research community. Through the Global Fellows Program, UF faculty can kick-start their international research program. A seed grant of $5,000 provides faculty an opportunity to lay the groundwork for conducting international research. Faculty can use these funds to cover expenses to travel to collect field data, to meet with international scholars, to access resources not available at UF, and to support any activity that advances research abroad.

Ivana Parker, Ph.D., Assistant Professor: Research in Ghana
Mentor: Awewura Kware, M.D., Professor, Infectious Diseases, College of Medicine

Parker is excited to expand her international research in HIV prevention to Ghana, under the mentorship of Dr. Awewura Kwara within the Department of Global Health and Infectious Disease. She proposes to develop ex vivo, predictive models that will inform novel treatment strategies for risk factors known to increase HIV transmission in vulnerable populations of women.

Ana Maria Porras, Ph.D., Assistant Professor: Research in Latin America
Mentor: Peter Kima, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Microbiology and Cell Science, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

Porras is interested in applying her tissue engineering expertise to the study of tropical parasitic diseases. In collaboration with her mentor, Prof. Peter Kima, her lab will design in vitro disease models to better understand changes in liver vasculature that occur during visceral Leishmaniasis. She will leverage the Global Fellows program to launch this exciting new area of research and build partnerships with tropical infectious disease experts in South America.

Parker and Porras were two of fourteen selected from UF and will be recognized at the Annual International Education Week reception in November.