Meet your instructors
David Lefevre
David is the Director of the EdTech Lab at Imperial College Business School. He is also the course leader on the Business School’s Pre-study module in Maths. David holds an MSc in Computing Science and a PhD in the field of instructional systems from Imperial College London and, perhaps most importantly, a BSc in Mathematics from the University of East Anglia (UEA). David and his EdTech Lab team launched the Global Online MBA program in 2015 and have received awards along the way including a Gold award at the IMS Learning Impact awards in 2010 and an Effective Practice Award at the Sloan-C Blended Learning Conference in 2011.
Catarina Sismeiro
Dr. Catarina Sismeiro is an Associate Professor at Imperial College Business School where she teaches on the Full-Time and Executive MBA programs. Catarina’s research has been published in The Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, and The International Journal of Research in Marketing and has won several awards. Previously she was an Assistant Professor at Marshall Business School, University of Southern California. She holds a PhD in Management from the Anderson School, UCLA, and a Licenciatura in Management from Faculdade de Economia do Porto (Portugal).
About MIT horizon
MIT Horizon is an expansive content library built to help you explore emerging technologies. Through easy-to-understand lessons, you’ll be guided through the complexities of the latest technologies and simplified expert-level concepts. Designed for both technical and non-technical learners, you can examine bite-size content that can lead to maximum career outcomes.
For a limited time, gain access to the complete MIT Horizon library.
Register today for exclusive entry.
Program overview
The Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration (CVTI) supports excellence and innovation in transition programming for current and former members of the armed forces.
As a service member in transition, you may face barriers reaching your potential in accessing higher education and beginning meaningful careers, despite the many effective programs offered to this population by the Department of Labor, Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program, and other programs offered by the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. With this in mind, the CVTI is dedicated to creating free courses that will help to break down those barriers to your successful transition. Currently we are offering three courses to meet these demands, with more courses on the way. While these courses are created for veterans and active duty service members, they are free and available for all.
Attaining Higher Education is a course designed to facilitate the successful transition of active duty service members and veterans to postsecondary education, whether at a two- or four-year college for an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, or even graduate school.
University Studies for Student Veterans helps orient veterans to the norms and expectations of the college classroom, along with offering strategies to ease the transition, to help achieve academic goals, and to allow students to optimize their college education.
Find Your Calling: Transition Principles for Returning Veterans will focus on the development of interpersonal, intrapersonal, and intellectual character strengths as they relate to making a successful career transition from military service to the civilian workforce. The course content is meant to provide you with a framework for an iterative process of self-reflection and the development of practical skills that enables you to make career choices that better align with your values, ambitions, and continued service. Ultimately, this course helps you answer the question: What should I do next?
What will you learn
- General and detailed information about colleges and universities.
- Foundational academic and study skills for achieving academic success in college.
- Strategies for more effective reading, writing, test preparation, and time management.
- Practical tips and strategies for making a successful military-to-civilian career transition.
- A framework for how to begin thinking about and exploring new career opportunities.
Program Class List
1Attaining Higher Education
Course Details
1
Prepare to transition to college using intentional decision-making. Aimed at active duty service members and veterans, with this course you will learn about the college admission process, including financial aid, to help you choose a right-fit college.
2University Studies for Student Veterans
Course Details
2
This course helps veterans transition smoothly from military service to college, and helps them maximize their success once they arrive.
3Find Your Calling: Career Transition Principles for Returning Veterans
Course Details
3
This course provides military veterans with a useful roadmap to transition more smoothly from military service to a new and meaningful civilian career.
Meet Your Instructors
Beth E. Morgan
Director of Higher Education Transition and Partnerships at Columbia University
Born in Quantico, Virginia, Beth grew up in a Marine Corps family and was raised around the world, living for periods of time in Hawaii, Germany, and Korea. Professionally, Beth has worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, for several non-profits, as a consultant, and on staff at major universities throughout the United States, including Colgate University, Princeton University, and the University of Southern California. Prior to joining the Center for Veteran Transition and Integration at Columbia University, Beth worked most recently with the non-profit Service to School as Executive Director and previously directed the Marine Corps Leadership Scholar Program (LSP), both of which assisted transitioning service members and veterans with admission to undergraduate and graduate programs. Beth has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia and a Master of Arts degree from Stanford University.
R.J. Jenkins
Curriculum Designer at Columbia University
Before joining the Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration as a Curriculum Designer in 2016, R.J. served as an Associate Dean of Students at Columbia University’s School of General Studies where he directed the Academic Resource Center and served as the lead instructor for University Studies, a transition course for first-year, non-traditional students. An award-winning teacher, R.J. has advised college students at Columbia, Cambridge, and Harvard Universities, and has taught courses in English and American literature, literary history, close reading, academic skill-building, and English for Speakers of Other Languages. R.J. holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and anthropology from Columbia University (2003), a Master of Letters in English literature from the University of Cambridge (2005), and is currently pursuing doctoral work in English literature.
Skip Bailey
Senior Advisor to the Director of Educational Financing at Columbia University
William ”Skip” Bailey has been a financial aid administrator for more than 34 years. He has been managing financial aid for non-traditional students at the School of General Studies (GS) for over 20 years. Previously he administered financial aid at multiple colleges including the University of San Diego and the University of Michigan. A degree in education from Michigan State University and lots of experience has provided Skip with the tools he uses every day to assist students at GS with the myriad issues involved with college financial aid.
Tanya Ang
Vice President of Veterans Education Success at Columbia University
Tanya is the Vice President of Veterans Education Success and has more than 17 years of experience in higher education. She has worked at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and also served as the Director of Veterans Programs at the American Council on Education. Prior to joining ACE, Tanya worked at two universities including working as an Administrative Analyst for the Vice President of Student Affairs Office at California State University - Fullerton and as Associate Registrar at Vanguard University where most her work focused on the non-traditional student including military and student veterans. She was the certifying official at her institution for student veteran GI Bill benefits and worked hand-in-hand with the various offices on-campus to ensure students received the benefits and the support they needed to successfully navigate their academic career. In her current role, she works to ensure military-connected students have access to high-quality education to achieve their long term career goals. Tanya is the first in her family to graduate from college, and earned her BA in Communications at Biola University and an MA in Organizational Leadership at Vanguard University.
Sara Remedios
Associate Dean of Students at Columbia University
Sara is Associate Dean of Students at Columbia University’s School of General Studies where she directs the Academic Resource Center and oversees all academic and learning initiatives. Before coming to Columbia, she worked to restructure the CUNY Pipeline Honors Program, a program dedicated to assisting exceptional undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds in gaining admission to doctoral programs. She is also an accomplished teacher. Dean Remedios holds a B.A. in English and political science from Washington University in St. Louis (2009), an M.Phil. in English literature from the City University of New York (2014), and a Ph.D. in English literature from the City University of New York (2016).
Josh Edwin
Senior Assistant Dean of Students at Columbia University
Josh is Senior Assistant Dean of Students at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. His teaching experience at Columbia includes University Studies, academic writing classes, one-on-one writing support, and creative writing workshops for veterans. He has also taught at a public high school in Atlanta and an English language school in Seoul, South Korea. In addition to teaching, he has published widely as a poet, translator, and reviewer. He holds a B.A. in English and creative writing from Emory University and an M.F.A. in poetry and literary translation from Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
Michael Abrams
Executive Director - Center for Veteran Transition and Integration, Marine Corps Veteran at Columbia University
Michael Abrams joined the Marine Corps shortly following the September 11, 2001 attacks and served on active duty for eight years, which included a deployment to Afghanistan with an infantry company as the artillery forward observer. After leaving active duty, Michael attended New York University’s Stern School of Business graduating with an M.B.A. in Finance and Entrepreneurship & Innovation. While attending business school, he founded FourBlock to help bridge the gap between returning service members and the business community. The program is a university accredited, semester-long course that educates and prepares transitioning veterans for meaningful careers in corporate America. FourBlock is in nearly twenty cities across the country, educating and serving hundreds of transitioning veterans each semester. Michael is now serving as the executive director of the Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration. The newly established center of excellence is dedicated to creating and supporting evidence-based programming that enables returning service members with reaching their academic and career potential.
William Deresiewicz
Best-Selling Author, Award-Winning Essayist at Columbia University
William Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic, a frequent speaker at colleges and other venues, and the best-selling author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. He taught English at Yale and Columbia before becoming a full-time writer in 2008. Bill has published over 250 essays and reviews. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper's, The Nation, The New Republic, The American Scholar, and many other publications. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and a Sydney Award; he is also a three-time National Magazine Award nominee. His work has been translated into 17 languages and anthologized in more than 30 college readers. He has spoken at over 80 colleges, high schools, and educational groups and has held visiting positions at Bard, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna Colleges. Bill’s previous book is A Jane Austen Education. He is working on a book about how artists are making a living in the new economy.
Sheena Iyengar
World-Renowned Expert on Choice, S. T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia University
Professor Iyengar has taught courses in leadership and entrepreneurial creativity. Her research addresses the implications of offering people, whether they be employees or consumers, choices. She has examined choice in a multitude of contexts ranging from employee motivation and performance in a global organization, Citigroup, to chocolate displays at Godiva, to the magazine aisles of supermarkets, and to mutual fund options in retirement benefit plans. Professor Iyengar received the Presidential Early Career Award for her ongoing work in examining cultural, individual, and situational factors that influence people's choice-making preferences and behaviors.
Sebastian Junger
NYT Best-Selling Author, Documentary Filmmaker at Columbia University
Sebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of THE PERFECT STORM, FIRE, A DEATH IN BELMONT, WAR and TRIBE. As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world, and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award. Junger is also a documentary filmmaker whose debut film "Restrepo", a feature-length documentary (co-directed with Tim Hetherington), was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
MicroMasters® Program in Business Management
Master the essentials of managing a successful business
Operations Management
People Management
Corporate Finance
Strategic Management
Accounting for Decision-Making
Marketing Management
Meet Your Instructors:
P D Jose
P D Jose is an professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, where he teaches core courses on Business and Corporate Strategy and several electives on sustainability. He is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He also has a Post Graduate Diploma in Forestry Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and Bachelors in Physics from the Institute of Science, Bombay. He has taught classes on strategy and/or sustainability at a number of schools including Cardiff University Business School (UK); the School of Economics and Business at the University of Goteborg, Sweden; Indian Institute of Management at Kozhikode and Ahmedabad. He has also consulted with several government agencies, non-governmental, private sector and international organizations.
Rejie George Pallathita
Rejie is an Associate Professor in the Corporate Strategy and Policy area at IIM Bangalore. He is a Ph.D. from Tilburg University in The Netherlands. Professor Pallathitta’s interests are in the areas of Corporate Governance, Strategic Management and International Business. He has published papers in the Strategic Management Journal and the Journal of Business Research and has presented his research work at several international conferences.
Sai Yayavaram
Sai Yayavaram is an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, where he teaches Competition & Strategy and Strategy Content. He also conducts executive education programmes on strategic management and management of innovation for senior managers. He is a Ph.D. in Strategic Management from McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His research focuses on technology management, complexity and strategic rents and has been published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, and Organization Science.
Who can take this course?
Unfortunately, learners from one or more of the following countries or regions will not be able to register for this course: Iran, Cuba and the Crimea region of Ukraine. While edX has sought licenses from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to offer our courses to learners in these countries and regions, the licenses we have received are not broad enough to allow us to offer this course in all locations. edX truly regrets that U.S. sanctions prevent us from offering all of our courses to everyone, no matter where they live.
MicroMasters® Program in Business Management
Master the essentials of managing a successful business
Operations Management
People Management
Corporate Finance
Strategic Management
Accounting for Decision-Making
Marketing Management
Meet Your Instructor:
Vasanthi Srinivasan
Vasanthi Srinivasan is a Professor in the Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management Area.
Her research interests are in the field of HRM. She has been extensively involved in designing and delivering Leadership Development Programs for Indian and international companies.
Her prior experience in offering the MOOC course - Introduction to People Management motivates her to effectively harness technology for learning impact.
Who can take this course?
Unfortunately, learners from one or more of the following countries or regions will not be able to register for this course: Iran, Cuba and the Crimea region of Ukraine. While edX has sought licenses from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to offer our courses to learners in these countries and regions, the licenses we have received are not broad enough to allow us to offer this course in all locations. EdX truly regrets that U.S. sanctions prevent us from offering all of our courses to everyone, no matter where they live.
What you will learn
- Understand that food security depends on food availability, food access, food utilization and stability
- How we can produce enough food for everyone
- How sustainable different food production systems are
- How to assure access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food for everyone
- About actors and activities to achieve food security at international, national, local, household, and individual level
Program Overview
Get involved: let’s find a way to feed 9 billion people in 2050
What are the biggest environmental issues we face? Pollution? Climate change? True. But among these environmental topics, feeding the growing population, 9 billion in 2050, is one of the most pressing issues we have to find a solution for.
To solve this problem, we need people to gain knowledge, do research, and explore the options. You can be a piece of the puzzle, help find a solution, and start now by gaining knowledge about food production systems, food security, sustainable development in agriculture and livestock, and systems thinking.
XSeries sustainable food security
How is it possible that the world currently produces enough food for everyone, but still people suffer from hunger and nutrient deficiencies? How can we produce sufficient food in an environmentally sustainable way to feed the increased world population in the future?
This Environmental Studies XSeries, developed by Wageningen University, consists of 3 courses:
The value of systems thinking
Learn about systems thinking and its application to improve the environmental sustainability of food production systems. The main topics are:
- Complexity and diversity of food production systems
- Principles of system analysis
- Evaluation methods for the environmental impact of food production systems
- Strong and weak points of different food production systems
Crop production
Learn the basics of crop production to feed the world and preserve our planet’s resources. The main topics are:
- Basic concept of plant production
- Issues related to global food production and consumption
- Influences of water (scarcity and availability) and other measures on crop production
- Processes that cause major problems for the environment
- Measures to solve and prevent those problems
Food Access
Learn about the basics of food access decision-making from a multilevel perspective. The main topics are:
- The basic principles of food access
- Choices influencing food access
- Dilemmas at household, local, national and international levels
About Wageningen University & Research
At Wageningen University and Research, we are dedicated to exploring the potential of nature to improve the quality of life. Studies and courses train (future) professionals from all over the world in sustainable food systems and help consumers make informed choices about what they eat, how it is produced and the impact of their decisions on the environment and society.
Course structures and certificates
The duration of each course (or MOOC: Massive Open Online Course) is flexible: study any time and place you want. You decide how to spend your time during a course. Gain the knowledge offered in each course free of charge through dynamic modules filled with video, syllabus, and assignments for practice and grading. Obtain your verified certificate for $ 49,- each. After successful completion of all 3 courses, you can obtain an overall certificate.
About course dates
EdX keeps courses available, even if the recent course date has expired. Enroll nonetheless, and allow yourself to explore content and continue learning. However, not all features and materials may be available. Check back often to see when new start dates are announced.
Scroll down to find more information about each separate course and join the Wageningen University XSeries about sustainable food security.
Courses in this program
1Sustainable Food Security: Crop Production
Course Details
1
Learn the basics of crop production and find out how to feed the future world population without depleting our planet’s resources!
2Sustainable Food Security: The value of systems thinking
Course Details
2
Learn how to solve the 'Rubik's cube' of systems thinking and how it's applied to improve the environmental sustainability of food production systems!
3Sustainable Food Security: Food Access
Course Details
3
Learn the basics of food access decision-making. In other words, who decides what ends up on your plate. Spoiler alert: it’s not just you!
Meet your instructors
Eddie Bokkers
Eddie Bokkers holds a PhD in Animal Sciences from Wageningen University. He is an associate professor at the Animal Production Systems group of Professor Imke de Boer. Eddie Bokkers teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students including the course ‘Systems Approach in Animal Sciences’. That is why we could not find a more suitable person for explaining the systems approach in this MOOC. Eddie Bokkers manages several research projects contributing to our knowledge of sustainable development of animal production systems. He is especially interested in trade-offs and synergies between animal welfare, environmental impact and economics.
Martin van Ittersum
Martin van Ittersum holds a PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Science from Wageningen University. He is a professor at the Plant Production Systems group of the same university. His research and teaching focus on research concepts and methods for the analysis, design and integrated assessment of agricultural systems from field to farm, at regional and global levels. He applies these concepts to investigate opportunities for sustainable intensification of local and global food production. He (co-)developed and applied several of the concepts taught in this MOOC. He is currently co-leading the Global Yield Gap Atlas project that aims to map where and how much food production can be increased on existing agricultural land. He is also involved in research on resource use efficiency and environmental effects of different agricultural systems.
Ken Giller
Prof. Dr. Ken Giller is an outstanding expert in the field of Plant Production Systems. He leads a group of scientists with profound experience in farming systems analysis to explore future scenarios for land use with a focus on food production at Wageningen University. Ken’s research has focused on smallholder farming systems in tropical regions with special attention for sub-Saharan Africa. In particular problems of soil fertility, the role of nitrogen fixation in tropical legumes, and the temporal and spatial dynamics of resources use within crop/livestock farming systems have this interest. He leads a number of large initiatives such as N2Africa (Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa), NUANCES(Nutrient Use in Animal and Cropping Systems: Efficiencies and Scales) and Competing Claims on Natural Resources.
Harrie Lovenstein
Harrie Lovenstein holds an MSc in tropical agronomy. He has specialized in arid land agriculture and gained hands on experience in o.a. runoff farming, agroforestry systems, and tree propagation techniques. All with common goal: "more crop per drop."
He is presently affiliated to the Centre for Sustainable Development and Food Security at WageningenUR and involved in distance learning projects.
Gerrie van de Ven
Gerrie van de Ven holds a PhD in Agricultural Science from Wageningen University. She is employed at the Plant Production Systems Group. Gerrie van de Ven combines teaching and research with a focus on farming systems analysis and optimisation of land use systems. Nutrient cycling, environmental impacts and the interaction between crops and livestock, both in the western world and in Africa, have her special attention. Her scientific work has built on systems analysis and modelling approaches, mainly at the farm and regional level, as taught in this MOOC. She teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students on these subjects.
Marrit van den Berg
Marrit van den Berg is associate professor at the Development Economics group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. She studied tropical land use and development economics and obtained her PhD from Wageningen University in 2001.Her research concentrates on the livelihood of rural households in developing countries with special attention for food and nutrition security, (off-farm) diversification, technology adoption, and microfinance. She is involved in several projects assessing the impact of development interventions as project leader and senior researcher. Her teaching concentrates on methods, techniques and data analysis for field research. Her own toolbox includes mainly quantitative methods, such as econometric analysis of large scale surveys, behavioural experiments, and randomized controlled trials . She predominantly works with primary data and has research experience in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Hilde Bras
Hilde Bras (1968) is full professor and chair of the Sociology of Consumption and Households Group (SCH) at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Utrecht University/ICS. She has published extensively on demographic and life course outcomes, including marriage, fertility, migration and status attainment, on social changes in families and households, and on sibling differences and effects. She received prestigious grants for her work on siblings (VENI, Medium Investment) and for her research on family influences on fertility (VIDI, ASPASIA). She is co-editor-in-chief of The History of the Family: An International Quarterly. Her current research focuses on inequalities in food and nutrition security within and across households, and particularly on the causes and effects of inadequate food access in the life courses of women, children and adolescents.
Jeroen Candel
Jeroen Candel finished a bachelor in Public Administration and Organisational Science and a master in Public Governance (cum laude) at Utrecht University before completing his PhD research entitled 'Putting food on the table: the European Union governance of the wicked problem of food security' at the Public Administration and Policy Group (PAP), Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in April 2016. He currently works as assistant professor at the PAP group. He is interested in emerging forms of food policy and governance and studies these by applying public policy and governance theories. By doing so, he both contributes to theoretical debates and provides concrete suggestions for policymakers and stakeholders. Beside his research, Jeroen coordinates and teaches introductory courses on Public Policy and Governance and European Union politics.
Jessica Duncan
Jessica Duncan is an Assistant Professor in the Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University. She holds a PhD in Food Policy from City University London and is the author of the book Global Food Security Governance: Civil society engagement in the reformed Committee on World Food Security (Routledge, 2015). She is an Associate Editor of the journal Food Security and the co-chair of the ECPR Food Policy and Governance Research Network. Her research focuses on the social-political dynamics of global norm setting for food security and the ways in which non-state actors participate in policy making processes. She is motivated by transformative governance mechanisms that support pathways to just and sustainable food systems.
Ewout Frankema
Ewout Frankema is professor and chair of Rural and Environmental History at Wageningen University and elected member of the Young Academy of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on a deeper understanding of the long-term economic history of developing regions (Africa, Latin America, Asia). His work is based on a holistic conception of historical evolutionary processes in which he aims to link the distinctive fields of economic and social history, colonial history, rural history, neo-institutional economics, political economy and environmental history. Frankema is a board member of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, the African Economic History Network (AEHN) and the Center for Global Economic History (CGEH), research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and editorial board member of the Economic History of Developing Regions (EHDR).
Peter Oosterveer
Peter Oosterveer received his PhD in 2005 at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His research and teaching is in the field of globalization and sustainability of food production and consumption. His interests are in particular on global public and private governance of food towards sustainability, including labeling and certification of food. Increasing globalisation of food raises difficult challenges in promoting sustainability as distances between producers and consumers are increasing and supply chains are becoming more complex. Conventional national government-based regulation is no longer sufficient and therefore the roles of private and civil society based actors are becoming more important. His research is focusing on these shifts and their consequences for the organisation of the supply chain and the roles of different social actors therein.
Maja Slingerland
Maja Slingerland holds a PhD degree in farming systems (2000), at Wageningen University. She worked for 10 years in research and development in west Africa. She initiated and coordinated large interdisciplinary research programmes: micronutrients (China, Benin, Burkina Faso); competing claims on natural resources (southern Africa, Brazil) and sustainable oil palm (Indonesia, Thailand). She is member of the steering committee of WU strategic funded interdisciplinary programmes "Scaling and Governance" and "Smart and Sustainable Food production" and of two interdisciplinary research programmes on conflict and climate change of the Dutch Science Foundation. She supervises PhD and Master studies, participates in public debates and published over 100 articles and book chapters in scientific and popular journals. She teaches a global food security course.
Sietze Vellema
Sietze Vellema is associate professor at the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation group, Wageningen University, and senior researcher at the Partnerships Resource Centre, Rotterdam School of Management, the Netherlands. Sietze’s interest is to understand why and how different actors collaborate in solving organisational, managerial, and technical problems related to inclusive development and sustainable food provision. He studies partnerships, certification, and institutional arrangements in agri-food chains and supervises PhD candidates in different fields: collective action in oil palm, shea, and sesame in West Africa; trading practices in East and West Africa; food safety and consumer practices in Southeast Asia; labels, governance and service delivery in global commodity trade; coordination and diversity in banana production in Asia. He leads action research focusing on value chains, partnerships, poverty, and food security in Africa.
I.J.M. de Boer
Professor Imke de Boer holds a PhD in Animal Sciences from Wageningen University. Since 2011, she leads the Animal Production Systems (APS) group at Wageningen University. This chair group uses system analysis to scientifically underpin sustainable development of animal production systems. They focus on exploring the multi-dimensional, and sometimes conflicting, consequences of innovations in livestock systems across the world, with special focus on their impact on the environment, animal welfare and livelihood of people. Imke de Boer teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and supervises many PhD students in this knowledge domain.
Carolien Kroeze
Professor Carolien Kroeze is personal professor in the Environmental Systems Analysis Group at Wageningen University, specialized in pollution management. She has also been professor at the Open University of the Netherlands. Her research includes scenario analyses and evaluation of environmental policies aiming at reducing multiple environmental problems simultaneously. Carolien Kroeze co-developed environmental models studying environmental problems caused by food production, and options to reduce these problems. These models typically integrated information from the natural and social sciences.
About This Course:
This health course will focus on the mental health issues of people with intellectual disability.
You will learn about the complexities of diagnosing mental health issues in people with intellectual disabilities and the types of disorders, assessments, screenings, and treatments used. There will also be a special focus on the legal and ethical complexities in health practice with patients who often require substituted consent.
This course is open to anyone, but will be of particular relevance to those in the field of advanced medical, allied health, and disability. It can also be used as workforce education for professionals who are interested in mental health.
What You’ll Learn:
- mental health issues and disorders
- mental health assessments and screenings
- challenging behaviors
- treatments
- legal and ethical issues
XSeries Program in Intellectual Disability Healthcare
Understand the barriers and enablers
Through My Eyes - Intellectual Disability Healthcare around the World
Well and Able - Improving the Physical Health of People with Intellectual Disability
Able-Minded - Mental Health and People with Intellectual Disability
Meet Your Instructors:
Nicholas Lennox
Nick is the former Director of the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability at the University of Queensland. He is a researcher, educator, advocate and clinician and has specialised in the health of adults with intellectual disability since 1992. He is trained in general practice, and has developed interventions to improve the health of people with intellectual disability.
Miriam Taylor
Miriam is the former Education Coordinator at the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability in the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland. She has a wealth of educational design experience for multi-users including people with intellectual disability, their families, disability organisations and health practitioners. Miriam has established an ongoing international collaboration with and is an invited contributor to the first World Disability Report for the World Health Organisation.
About This Course:
This health course will examine the specific physical health issues that affect people with an intellectual disability including, oral health, syndrome specific health issues, health communication, especially for non-verbal patients, sexual health, and interactions between tertiary and primary healthcare systems. There is a special section on complex care including issues associated with aging and spasticity, and the health impacts of epilepsy.
This course is open to anyone, but will be of particular relevance to those in the field of medical, allied health, and disability. It can also be used as workforce education for medical professionals in this field.
What You’ll Learn:
- common health conditions
- health assessments and health promotion
- oral health
- syndrome specific health issues
- complex care associated with aging, epilepsy and spasticity
XSeries Program in Intellectual Disability Healthcare
Understand the barriers and enablers
Through My Eyes - Intellectual Disability Healthcare around the World
Well and Able - Improving the Physical Health of People with Intellectual Disability
Able-Minded - Mental Health and People with Intellectual Disability
Meet Your Instructors:
Nicholas Lennox
Nick is the former Director of the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability at the University of Queensland. He is a researcher, educator, advocate and clinician and has specialised in the health of adults with intellectual disability since 1992. He is trained in general practice, and has developed interventions to improve the health of people with intellectual disability.
Miriam Taylor
Miriam is the former Education Coordinator at the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability in the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland. She has a wealth of educational design experience for multi-users including people with intellectual disability, their families, disability organisations and health practitioners. Miriam has established an ongoing international collaboration with and is an invited contributor to the first World Disability Report for the World Health Organisation.
About This Course:
This health course focuses on the stories of people with intellectual disabilities around the world, as well as their families and supporters.
You will learn about the challenges and aid received in healthcare for people with intellectual disabilities, including their experience of specific syndromes and communication difficulties, and how they stay healthy.
Learners will also hear from family members as they discuss complex care, rare syndromes, early death, and planning for independence. The end of the course will focus on the history of treatment, the impact of rights’ movements on healthcare delivery, common health conditions, and health promotion.
This course is open to anyone, but will be of particular relevance to those in the field of advanced medical, allied health, and disability. This course can also be used as workforce education for medical professionals in this field.
What You’ll Learn:
- Insights into the daily life of those with intellectual disabilities and their families
- Challenges and obstacles experienced and how these are overcome
- Specific healthcare needs and how to promote good health for people with an intellectual disability
XSeries Program in Intellectual Disability Healthcare
Understand the barriers and enablers
Through My Eyes - Intellectual Disability Healthcare around the World
Well and Able - Improving the Physical Health of People with Intellectual Disability
Able-Minded - Mental Health and People with Intellectual Disability
Meet Your Instructors:
Nicholas Lennox
Nick is the former Director of the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability at the University of Queensland. He is a researcher, educator, advocate and clinician and has specialised in the health of adults with intellectual disability since 1992. He is trained in general practice, and has developed interventions to improve the health of people with intellectual disability.
Miriam Taylor
Miriam is the former Education Coordinator at the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability in the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland. She has a wealth of educational design experience for multi-users including people with intellectual disability, their families, disability organisations and health practitioners. Miriam has established an ongoing international collaboration with and is an invited contributor to the first World Disability Report for the World Health Organisation.
About This Course:
Professional Certificate in Data Science for Executives
Learn the foundations and power of data science
Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics
Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics
Enabling Technologies for Data Science and Analytics: The Internet of Things
Meet Your Instructors:
Ansaf Salleb-Aouissi
Ansaf is a Lecturer in discipline of the Computer Science Department at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. She received her her BS in Computer Science in 1996 from the University of Science and Technology (USTHB), Algeria. She earned her masters and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Orleans (France) in 1999 and 2003 respectively.
Cliff Stein
About Me
His research interests include the design and analysis of algorithms, combinatorial optimization, operations research, network algorithms, scheduling, algorithm engineering and computational biology. Professor Stein has published many influential papers in the leading conferences and journals in his field, and has occupied a variety of editorial positions including the journals ACM Transactions on Algorithms, Mathematical Programming, Journal of Algorithms, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics and Operations Research Letters. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and Sloan Foundation. He is the winner of several prestigious awards including an NSF Career Award, an Alfred Sloan Research Fellowship and the Karen Wetterhahn Award for Distinguished Creative or Scholarly Achievement. He is also the co-author of the two textbooks. Introduction to Algorithms, with T. Cormen, C. Leiserson and R. Rivest is currently the best-selling textbook in algorithms and has sold over half a million copies and been translated into 15 languages. Discrete Math for Computer Scientists , with Ken Bogart and Scot Drysdale, is a new text book which covers discrete math at an undergraduate level.
David Blei
About Me
David Blei joined Columbia in Fall 2014 as a Professor of Computer Science and Statistics. His research involves probabilistic topic models, Bayesian nonparametric methods, and approximate posterior inference. He works on a variety of applications, including text, images, music, social networks, user behavior, and scientific data. Professor Blei earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Brown University (1997) and his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley (2004). Before arriving to Columbia, he was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. He has received several awards for his research, including a Sloan Fellowship (2010), Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2011), Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2011), and Blavatnik Faculty Award (2013).
Itsik Peer
About Me
Itsik Pe’er is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. His laboratory develops and applies computational methods for the analysis of high-throughput data in germline human genetics. Specifically, he has a strong interest in isolated populations such as Pacific Islanders and Ashkenazi Jews. The Pe’er Lab has developed methodology to identify hidden relatives — primarily in such isolated populations — that involves inferring their past demography, detecting associations between phenotypes and genetic segments co-inherited from the joint ancestors of hidden relatives, and establishing the exceptional utility of whole-genome sequencing in population genetics. With the arrival of high-throughput sequencing methods, Pe’er has focused on characterizing genetic variation that is unique to isolated populations, including the effects of such variation on phenotype.
About this course
This course focuses on conventional technologies for drinking water treatment. Unit processes, involved in the treatment chain, are discussed as well as the physical, chemical and biological processes involved. The emphasis is on the effect of treatment on water quality and the dimensions of the unit processes in the treatment chain. After the course one should be able to recognise the process units, describe their function, and make basic calculations for a preliminary design of a drinking water treatment plant.
The course consists of 4 modules:
- Introduction to drinking water treatment. In this module you learn to describe the important disciplines, schemes and evaluation criteria involved in the design phase.
- Water quality. In this module you learn to identify the drinking water quality parameters to be improved and explain what treatment train or scheme is needed.
- Groundwater treatment. In this module you learn to calculate the dimensions of the groundwater treatment processes and draw groundwater treatment schemes.
- Surface water treatment. In this module you learn to calculate the dimensions of the surface water treatment processes and draw surface water treatment schemes.
This course in combination with the courses “Introduction to Water and Climate” and “Introduction to the Treatment of Urban Sewage” forms the Water XSeries, by DelftX.
What you’ll learn
By the end of this course you will be able to:
- Recognize the process units in urban water services, focusing on basic drinking water technologies
- Describe the function of these process units
- Describe the physical and chemical processes involved
- Make simple design calculations on drinking water treatment plants
XSeries Program in Water Management
Explore water management concepts and technologies
Introduction to Water and Climate
Drinking Water Treatment
Urban Sewage Treatment
Meet Your Instructors
Luuk Rietveld
Professor of Urban Water Cycle Technology at Delft University of Technology
Luuk Rietveld is professor of Urban Water Cycle Technology at Delft University of Technology. After finalizing his studies in Civil Engineering at Delft University of Technology in 1987, he worked, until 1991, as lecturer/researcher in Sanitary Engineering at the Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique. Between 1991 and 1994, he was employed at the Management Centre for International Co-operation, and since 1994 he has had an appointment at the Department of Water Management of Delft University of Technology. In 2005, he defended his PhD thesis entitled "Improving Operation of Drinking Water Treatment through Modelling".
Doris van Halem
Associate Professor, Sanitary Engineering at Delft University of Technology
Doris van Halem is Associate Professor within the Department of Water Management, section Sanitary Engineering of Delft University of Technology. Her research has an international orientation with an emphasis on understanding natural processes for development of innovative, sustainable water technologies. As Scientific Director of TU Delft Global Drinking Water Programme, Dr. van Halem is in charge of drinking water research with and in the Global South.
She graduated from Delft University of Technology in Civil Engineering and Geosciences with a cum laude MSc degree (2007). In 2011 she completed her PhD research (with honours) on subsurface iron and arsenic removal for drinking water supply in Bangladesh. Currently she supervises BSc, MSc and PhD students, in their studies towards development of new, smart drinking water solutions.
