Taiwanese students at Hagerman
by Marlene Fritz
For a few months each year, graduate students from Taiwan’s National Chiayi University enjoy the opportunity to study in the exceptional research and learning environment of the Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station.
Accompanied by their fisheries professor, Chien-Hsien Kuo, they develop quantitative polymerase chain reaction assays for sex-determining genes in the laboratory of animal scientist Madison Powell. The object of their study: tilapia, a warm-water species that thrives in Taiwan and is being grown in Idaho’s geothermal waters. In return, doors are opening on Taiwan for University of Idaho students to gain important experience in tropical and marine species.
“We want our students to be well rounded,” says station director Ron Hardy
of the agreement signed with Chiayi University in 2006. He is also negotiating
an agreement with the University of Chile, a nation with its own coastal aquaculture
industry. “Our students are not necessarily going to end up working in the Pacific
Northwest trout industry, so we want them to have a wider exposure to multiple
fish species.”
Contact Ron Hardy at rhardy@uidaho.edu.
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