This interdisciplinary initiative, organized by UNM's Nepal Study Center, is designed  to promote experiential learning through community engaged research. UNM students have the opportunity to make a difference by collaboratively working on small to large-scale community based projects in Nepal. Building on its success with graduate research opportunities and an undergraduate study abroad, the UNM’s Nepal Study Center is starting  YOGDAN (contribution), an interdisciplinary global undergraduate research club. Collaborating with their Nepali counterparts, UNM students will  work as a team to tackle economic, environmental, health  issues in Nepal.  

As the first project, students will use citizen science data to monitor, visualize, and analyze  air, water, and bio-diversity in the urban town of Bhairahawa, Nepal.  Using these scientific data, we hope to better understand the relationships between various stakeholders as a social-ecological system within the urban-rural setting of Bhairahawa.  Students are then encouraged to come up with project ideas as solutions that are sustainable, cost-effective, socially acceptable, and scalable.  Importantly, proposed student projects should provide opportunity for interdisciplinary engagements.  This initiative --YOGDAN-- is also designed to generate opportunities for independent research, study abroad, community engaged research projects, and graduate student mentoring.   Lessons learned from this can open up new challenges and opportunities across the geo-culturally diverse Himalayan landscape.