UNF Civil Engineering Professor Thobias Sando is working in Tanzania along with Festo Mjogolo, a UNF graduate student, in order to conduct a 12-week Infrastructure Management Research Clinic at the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology, according to a UNF press release.

This fellowship was awarded as part of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, a program where scholars of African origin are matched with African host universities to build partnerships between universities and work towards solving the needs of the host country.

His project, “Conducting an Infrastructure Management Graduate Student Research Clinic: A Holistic Approach Aimed at Training‚ Mentoring‚ Facilitating‚ and Revamping the Thesis Course,” seeks to train and mentor graduate students, as well as to inspire long-term research collaboration between the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology and UNF.

“I want to use the skills I have gained through educational and professional opportunities that were presented to me in the U.S. and give back to the people of Tanzania,” Sando said.

The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship has funded 274 fellowships from 2014 to 2017, through which scholars have collaborated with 102 African institutions in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa.

According to a Carnegie Corporation-commissioned external review of the program, “these short-term, intense diaspora models hold the promise of providing a quick jolt of energy and connectivity into what is often a long-labored endeavor of institutional development.”

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