For 14 straight years, Robert Sites has led University of Missouri students to Thailand for an educational study abroad experience focused on biodiversity and conservation. The 3-week program, which takes place over winter break, coincides with Thailand’s dry season – the best time of the year to be in the country for biodiversity and conservation projects. When Sites, a professor…
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Feeding the Future
From Kentucky to Thailand and across the globe, MU Chancellor Brady Deaton improves agriculture and education
Brady Deaton crouched down as his bus passed through the barrier and police were drawing their guns. His ride had just passed through a police barricade. Fortunately, no shots were fired—the police had been paid off – as asserted by a Thai colleague. “Boom there you are,” said Deaton, the 21st Chancellor of the University of Missouri. “We were just…
Making a Difference and the News
Efforts to Rebuild a Damaged Reef Gains Attention of National TV
It’s hard enough for a scuba diving newcomer to plant coral seedlings in a seabed on the other side of the world. It is harder still when a NBC TV news camera follows your every move. During Winter Break, 15 MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources students spent three weeks studying conservation and biodiversity in Thailand.
Biting Discovery: MU Entomologist Finds Host of New Aquatic Insect Species in Thailand
“It’s much, much worse than a bee or wasp sting,” said Robert Sites, an entomologist in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “It’s actually not a sting; it’s a bite. You’ll be thinking about it a half hour or an hour. I was bitten in the pad of my little finger, and I felt intense pain all the way to my elbow for a good 30 minutes.” Working with researchers from universities in Thailand, Slovenia and the United States, Sites discovered more than 50 new insect species over a three-year period.