To UM System President Mun Choi
Written by Rodney J. Uphoff
Feb. 21, 2025

For the past six years, I have provided you a report summarizing the activities and outputs of the UMSAEP for the prior year. As in past years, I reached out to 140 past UMSAEP awardees and requested updates on 2024 activities with a UMSAEP collaborator. I received a response from 103 awardees. It is likely that some of the people did not respond because they left UM or UWC, retired, or passed away. Indeed, I know that at least 17 of the 140 have retired or left either the UM System or UWC. This report only reflects the significant outputs of those responders still working at UWC or for the UM System. I suspect a few of the non-responders may still be involved in an active collaboration, but I believe I have captured most but probably not all of the 2024 outputs. Moreover, a significant number of the respondent’s specifically mentioned that it had been many years since they received an UMSAEP grant and were no longer in any contact with their former collaborator. Thus, is not surprising that they had no outputs to report. 

Publications 

UM System and UWC faculty reported that one book was published in 2024 and two more were in press. Two book chapters were published in 2024, and another submitted for publication. 22 manuscripts or articles were published during 2024. Four more were accepted for publication and eight additional articles have been submitted for publication and were under review or revision. In addition, UMSAEP participants reported 15 manuscripts were in progress. 

Conference papers/ presentations

UMSAEP participants reported 20 international or national conference presentations based on their collaborative work. 

Grants

UM System and UWC faculty reported submitting six grant applications last year that were not funded and five more that have been submitted and are under review. Another two grant applications are in progress and should be submitted soon. The following grants were awarded in 2024 based on their UMSAEP funded work:

  • Antionette Landor (MU) received a grant of $30,000 from the Center for Social and Behavioral Science, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign.
  • Enid Schatz (MU) received a $25,000 grant from Brown University Center for AIDS Research to work with a former UWC collaborator now at the University of Cape Town.
  • Schatz (MU) also received a $100,000 grant from the Fogarty International Center for the Advanced Study in the Health Sciences.
  • Jennifer Chipps (UWC) received $100,000 from the SA Medical Research Council and UMSL’s Umit Tokac is the co-PI.
  • Marshall Keyster (UWC) received a Centre of Excellence in Food Security grant for 2024 of ZAR 365,272. This work package is related to the UMSAEP collaboration with co-PIs Mendoza-Cozatl and Heese (both from MU) and is a continuation of the initial joint Centre of Excellence in Food Security grant. 
  • Keyster (UWC) received a grant of ZAR 500,000 from UWC’s Sibusiso Bengu Fund as a result of his new position as research chair. This work package is also related to the UMSAEP collaboration with co-PIs Mendoza-Cozatl and Heese (both from MU).
  • Keyster (UWC) and Ashwil Klein (UWC) received an industry-linked grant from GrainSA for 2024 - ZAR 534,408. This work package is also related to the UMSAEP collaboration with co-PIs Mendoza-Cozatl and Heese (both from MU) as well as with another UMSAEP collaborator co-PI Walter Gassman.
  • Lisa Wegner (UWC) received a grant of ZAR100,000 from the Cape Higher Education Consortium and the City of Cape Town Research Program. MU’s Wilson Majee is a co-PI.
  • Wegner (UWC) received a grant from UWC of ZAR 900,000 for 20024-26. Majee is also a co-PI on this grant.
  • Wilson Majee received two grants from the Carnegie Foundation in 2024 - $1500 from the CADFP Supplemental Funds and $18,936 for a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship South Africa to work with his multiple UWC collaborators.
  • Martina Lembani (UWC) received a three-year for ZAR 200,000 a year from the SA Medical Research Council to work on a project with Wilson Majee (MU).
  • Mongi Benjeddou (UWC) received a three-year grant of ZAR 180,000 from the SA Medical Research Council to work on two projects with UM System collaborators.
  • Verona Mathews (UWC) received a grant of ZAR 181,400 from the National Research Foundation for 2024-26 to work with MU’s Iris Zachery to develop a skills and competencies framework on health data analytics.
  • Haitao Lee (UMSL) reports that his UMSAEP funded work at UWC led to a grant of $158,867 sponsored by the Missouri Agricultural Small Business Development Authority, which in turn led to an invention disclosure in November 2024. According to Lee, his work at UWC also indirectly led to his five-year $4.5 million UTC grant funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. 

Creating student research opportunities/capacity building

The UM System has played a major role in helping to build capacity at UWC since the inception of this partnership. This continued in 2024.

  • Two of Mongi Benjeddou's Ph.D. students, Keenau Pearce and Samantha Cairncross, learned valuable skills and worked on research while being hosted by UMKC’s Jerry Wyckoff and MU’s Greg Biedermann. Based on their work in Missouri, they collaborated with Benjeddou on a paper that was published in 2024 and led to Pearce earning his Ph.D. Ms. Cairncross submitted her thesis in 2024 and is awaiting the results.
  • MU's David Mendoza-Cozatl co-supervised two of Marshall's Keyster students, Adele Barker and Kacey Hattingh, in his lab in the fall of 2024.
  • UMKC's Jerry Wyckoff hosted Nicole Keuler, a UWC Ph.D. student, who made significant progress on her thesis based on her work in Kansas City.
  • Former UWC student Etienne Nkongolo successfully defended his thesis in December 2024 and will receive his Ph.D. from UMKC in May. This will be the second UWC student who UMKC's John Kevern has supervised and helped earn a Ph.D. A third UWC student, Evral Ntsa, is currently in a Ph.D. program at UMKC.
  • Rucia November, a UWC Ph.D. student, has just about completed her doctorate in Sports Science. UMSL's Haiyan Cai and UWC's Lloyd Leach are co-supervising Ms. November.
  • UMKC's Thiagarajan Ganesh worked with UWC collaborators to help UWC grad student Kiran Palakurthy finish his Ph.D. dissertation.
  • MU's Michelle Teti worked with UWC's Brian Van Wyk to develop a training program entitled Photovoice Training for Researchers in South Africa. Two of Van Wyk’s current Ph.D. students, Yolanda Mayman and Charne Petinger,  completed their photovoice projects based on that training last year and are in the process of writing up publications from this work.
  • Sajal Das (S&T) is co-supervising one of Antione Bagula’s Ph.D. students, Ferdinand Kahenga.
  • UWC’s Kim Lategan helped one of Maria Fidalgo’s honors students complete a thesis based on the research she and Fidalgo are working on.
  • MU Antionette Landor took four MU students with her on a research trip to UWC in 2022. One of those students, Jasmine Godwin, was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research fellowship of $159,000. A second student, Jessica Marmolejos, was selected as an alternate for a U.S. Student Fellowship by the U.S. Department of State.

Special projects

As noted last year, MU's Katina Bitsicas and her collaborators UWC’s Cherith Sanger and MU’s Abby Blenk used UMSAEP funding to produce a powerful documentary “Aliens from the Sky.” Bitsicas reports that the film was shown at four film festivals around the U.S. and one in Spain.

Faculty promotion/awards

UWC’s Marshall Keyster was appointed the Sibusiso Bengu Research Chair in Sustainable Agriculture.

Conclusion

This report highlights the major outputs of the UMSAEP in 2024. Find that describe the broad range of UMSAEP-funded projects across a variety of academic disciplines.