Seeding a Partnership

Professor Morgan Ruelle with Teferi Abate, a senior research anthropologist at Yale and an expert on agrarian practices in Ethiopia’s Wollo region.

As part of a research project with Professor Morgan Ruelle of Clark’s School of Climate, Environment, and Society (CES), Marshall Fredericksen, M.S. ’26, spent last summer interviewing farmers who have proven resilient in the face of drought, famine, and conflict in Ethiopia’s Wollo area.

Funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, the two researchers and their partners in the U.S. and Ethiopia are investigating whether farmers’ traditional practice of growing grain mixtures could offer a climate-resilient solution to food insecurity in Ethiopia and other parts of the world.

Now, Ruelle and his CES colleagues are expanding their collaborations in Ethiopia. In October, Clark signed a three-year agreement with one of the project’s partner institutions, Wollo University, to “support collaborative research, teaching, and student engagement between our two institutions, with the intention to renew and deepen our partnership over time.”

The agreement also allows for faculty and student exchanges and “a streamlined application pathway for Wollo students pursuing graduate study at Clark,” along with “shared seminars, workshops, and short-term programs, staff development, and exchange of academic resources.”