K-State communications professor receives Carnegie fellowship to collaborate with Kenyan university
MANHATTAN — A Kansas State University professor of communications has been awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to collaborate with a Kenyan university on research, graduate training and mentorship in communication studies.
Nancy Muturi, professor of communications in the College of Arts and Sciences' A.Q. Miller School of Media and Communication, was awarded the fellowship to collaborate with Daystar University's School of Communication in Kenya.
Muturi, who grew up and was educated in Kenya, researches the country's health and risk communication around such topics as HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases, excessive alcohol consumption and its impact on reproductive health, HPV vaccination, climate change and COVID-19.
As a Carnegie Fellow, Muturi will mentor graduate students who are writing their master's theses and doctoral dissertations. She will also coordinate research seminars for faculty and graduate students, so they can share their projects and get feedback.
Muturi and her host, Evonne Mwangale, Ph.D., a lecturer at the school, will facilitate a workshop on health communication in the African context. It will bring together scholars and practitioners from other institutions and local organizations to discuss ongoing projects in the country. Muturi and Mwangale hope to feature some of the projects in a proposed health communication case studies book.
"It is an honor to be invited by Daystar University, one of the top media and communications programs in the country," said Muturi. "This is a great opportunity for me to collaborate with colleagues in African institutions, and it is fulfilling to share my African-based research where it matters most and know that I am making a difference."
This is Muturi's second fellowship of this kind. In 2017, she did curriculum development and graduate training and mentorship at the United States International University-Africa and established ongoing research collaborations.
"African students are very hardworking, and they like to know how they compare with American students and to learn American slang," said Muturi. "I learned a lot from them, too, so I'm sure it will be an exciting visit."
The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program is designed to strengthen capacity at the host institutions and develop long-term, mutually beneficial collaborations between universities in Africa and the United States and Canada. Host universities are matched with African-born scholars for project visits between 14 and 90 days.
The program is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education in collaboration with the Association of African Universities. Nearly 600 fellowships have been awarded since the program's inception in 2013.
