As President Obama touched down in Kenya early on Friday
July 24, 2015 Carmella Tal
Tomey, Assistant Research Professor at the University of Michigan School of
Public Health, had only recently returned from Nairobi herself. Ella studies complex
links between age, place, social and psychological factors, and physical
impairment. She has recently expanded from research into what makes for healthy
communities here in the U.S. to work within scientific communities overseas.
She is developing video and
slide materials to complement intimate, face to face workshops where she
enables U.S. students and younger scholars to train with their international
counterparts for more focused and effective writing, more responsible conduct
of research, and more collaborative and productive careers.
Our interview with co-hosts Jennifer Johnson and Sam Molnar
was peppered with upbeat recent Kenyan dance tracks (playlist here),
and great stories of her adventures there with colleagues and friends. We honed
in on Ella’s collaboration with Professor Jesse Njoka, who directs the Center for Sustainable Dryland
Ecosystems and Societies (CSDES) at the University of Nairobi (UoN). Other
UoN faculty Judith S. Mbau and Stephen Merithi collaborated with Ella to
facilitate the workshop. They are pictured here in a peer review writing
exercise they plan to continue using within their own curricula and
communities.
UM will host a “Metaworkshop” with African colleagues from Gabon,
Kenya, and Ethiopia in October under the auspices of UM’s STEM-Africa
initiative (Science, Technology, Environment/Engineering and Medicine/Math),
African Studies Center and International Institute, and with support from
colleagues at UCLA and Tulane working on a National Science Foundation PIRE
grant in equatorial Africa. The meeting will review models for academic bridge building
that can offer a next generation of scholars in sustainability and global
health fields more integrative and collaborative training from early in their
careers.
Previous Afro-optimist broadcasts on our show abound and the
playlists range unapologetically across regions and eras. Our STEM
Africa Partnerships broadcast starts with complex polyphonic pipe
orchestras from Central African Republic, reflecting on the intricacies of
African indigenous knowledge and practice. Then it takes us through Gil Scott
Heron’s angry “Whitey on the Moon” poem set to rhythm, reflecting on asymmetric
access to science within racist U.S. systems. It ends with Naeto MC singing
“Things are Not the same…Ten over Ten” announcing positive change from his
platform as the Nigerian “only MC with an MSc.”
In terms of talk, that hour we quote from the vision of STEM
Africa leaders here on campus, Mechanical Engineer Elijah Kannety Asibu and Mathematician
Nkem
Nkumba who have engaged African scientists working internationally in
considering scientific needs and strengths on the African continent. We also hear
from Dr. Heather Eves, founding
Director of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, who has taught in higher ed
settings from the DC metro area to the Caribbean, and mentored many conservation
professionals from Cameroon to Kenya. Heather’s persistent constructive engagement
parallels the care Ella Tomey takes with her curricular materials. Dr. Eves
also address radio as a tool for scientific and policy awareness and debate in
African settings, and creative writing as a vehicle for better connections
among and between scholars from varied disciplines and the wider publics they
seek to engage.
Another Afro-optimist broadcast from 2011 tackled the Africa-Asia
Nexus, with a mix of Indian and African music. A lively discussion blazed in
studio between Anthropologist Omolade Adunbi
about his work on oil extraction where his family and friends live and work in
the Niger Delta, Geographer Dr.
Bilal Butt working in his native Kenya on pastoralism in national parks, and
the School of Information’s Dr.
Joyojeet Pal who hails from Mumbai but has worked on installing high speed
wifi cables in rural Rwanda, and studying uptake of laptop technology in rural primary
schools in India. You think you know the globalized green academy? Think again…
…and again. Just last year, Dr. Pete Larson led us on an audio
tour of really heavy metal African rock, while talking about his own metal
band and his research on malaria in Kenya. Hot indeed! We updated that broadcast with this week's where we played more dance tunes from the techno and hip scenes in contemporary Nairobi, including artists like Just a Band and Wangechi, who is, according to recent interviews, completing university level studies in economics so who knows, maybe one day we can workshop with her too!
These days Pete Larson can be
found blogging in English about the
interfaces of epidemiology, development and culture, and teaching in
Japanese as an Assistant Professor at University of Nagasaki, based in their Institute
of Tropical Medicine Kenya Field Station. Pete also holds down an Adjunct Professor
position right here at the UM’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, mentoring
UM masters students like Mike Burbidge, pictured below. Mike and others are seeking
better field understandings of pastoralism, wildlife management, and spatial
and social aspects of zoonotic disease transmission. They live with families
and work with Kenyan field research teams, as pictured below where Pete Larson and Mike Burbidge celebrate eid, the end of the Ramadan period, with neighbors and hosts in Kwale, Kenya.
Pete figured in today’s interview with Ella--especially in
her tales of Nairobi nightlife, to which she was introduced right off the
plane! Unlike President Obama, Pete and the
Michigan Difference team did not have a heavily armored and defended vehicle.
But they did and do make a lot of impact on the lives of students and teachers
at UoN (Nairobi), UN (Nagasaki), and UM (that’s right, Michigan). Welcome to
the future. The revolution will not be televised. But if Ella Tal Tomey has her
way, it will be collaboratively thought out, and carefully written about. Go
Blue!
