Rafael Muñoz-Carpena Named International Achievement Award Recipient for 2008
Dr. Rafael Muñoz-Carpena is one of the most internationally active young faculty members in the UF/IFAS Agricultural and Biological Engineering department. He has collaborated with scientists in Europe, Latin America, and Africa for many years. Educated in the U.S. and Spain, he is naturally comfortable in multiple cultures.
Muñoz-Carpena collaborates on research projects and co-
publishes with international colleagues. For example, a recent book on an integrated approach to soil-water-solute characterization was co-authored with a professor in Spain and included 53 contributions from across three continents, receiving 
international recognition in peer-reviewed journals such as Vadose Zone Journal, Cambridge’s Experimental Agriculture, and the European Journal of Soil Science.
His dedication to international engagement began early in his career, when he worked for the government of Spain to develop and deliver short courses in South and Central America, such as his series of intensive 7-day “train the trainer” courses, delivered over three years in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and
Guatemala.
At UF/IFAS, Dr. Muñoz-Carpena created a program that brought undergraduate students from EARTH University in Costa Rica to UF/IFAS to complete internships required for their degrees, with a view toward attracting them as graduate students. That grew into a well-established CALS short-term scholars program that helps recruit top Latin American students to UF.
Working with Dr. Michael Dukes, also of UF/IFAS Agricultural 
and Biological Engineering, Muñoz-Carpena expanded that program in 2007 to launch an undergraduate/graduate pilot exchange program that teams up EARTH undergraduates with UF graduate students. They develop joint research that is carried out in both the U.S. and Costa Rica. The students also create Extension programs delivered in Costa Rica that benefit local communities.
This pilot program has been given continued funding by UF for three years and Muñoz-Carpena expects to upscale the project through federal competitive grants. Those grants will allow him to add Zamorano University in Honduras, the other leading international university in the region, to the joint student exchange program and will allow him to open the program to other UF/IFAS faculty.
Dr. Muñoz-Carpena also teaches graduate level courses in Spain and Mexico on hydrological modeling and regularly receives graduate students from European countries to conduct research. To provide teaching internationalization for undergraduate students, UF/IFAS and Virginia Tech joined forces to compete for a U.S. Department of Education FIPSE/CAPES program with Brazil and were awarded a project for the next four years. The project will send UF students interested in water resources to Brazil for a July term of study. For those who wish to continue beyond the July term, a full semester of coursework can also be arranged. Curricula will be exchanged between universities in Brazil and the U.S. and Brazilian students who participated in the July term can subsequently be hosted in the U.S. institutions during a full semester.
Muñoz-Carpena says that water resources and planning in
Africa offers critical research opportunities for UF/IFAS faculty and students. He currently chairs a Ph.D. student whose 
work is focused on assessing the impact of uncertainty in the transboundary management of the Okavango Delta, a Ramsar Wetland of International Significance. The future of this environmentally sensitive site depends on collaboration between three countries with different goals and needs: Botswana (conservation), Angola (post-war reconstruction) and Namibia (agricultural development). Muñoz-Carpena traveled to southern Africa during the summer of 2008 to establish contacts and gather information for the three-nation project.
While there, Muñoz-Carpena established other collaborations in the region, with two new projects now under development. One is a NASA project for the larger Okavango region, in cooperation with the University of Florida’s Department of Geography that seeks to understand land-use change in the region. The other new project is the evaluation of an environmental model developed by UF/IFAS faculty Clyde Kiker to study the interaction between vegetation and elephants in the Kruger National Park of South Africa.
Additionally, Muñoz-Carpena is working on a unique opportunity to participate in a technology/knowledge transfer with European companies and institutions. The European Union is working on development of a new European Directive on Pesticide Use. Based on the published research of Muñoz-Carpena’s group, BAYER CropScience in Germany and its U.S. division are now working on adopting Muñoz-Carpena’s design modeling system for vegetative filter strips (VFSMOD) to develop pesticide pollution control management plans. The European company funded participation of Muñoz-Carpena’s group at a European Union stakeholder’s workshop (AIM) in October 2008 in Brussels to inform the European Union on the use of this technology as part of the new Directive development.
During the last 10 years, Muñoz-Carpena has been a member of the Scientific Committee and Editor of the Unsaturated Zone Study (ZNS) group of Spain. The group engages scientists in countries beyond Spain and Europe, particularly in the Spanish-speaking regions. As a result, researchers from Latin America and Northern Africa regularly attend biannual meetings and peer-reviewed articles in Spanish are regularly published by the organization and made freely available via the internet.
Muñoz-Carpena serves as an excellent international ambassador, actively promoting UF and IFAS throughout the global agricultural and biological engineering community.
Dr. Rafael Muñoz-Carpena is the winner of the UF/IFAS International Achievement Award for 2008.
Left: Dr. Larry Arrington, Interim Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources, reads the award citation at a January 15, 2009 ceremony prior to the presentation of the UF/IFAS International Achievement Award for 2008.
Left: Rafael Muñoz-Carpena receives International Achievement Award at January 15, 2009 ceremony. Left to right: Dr. Rafael Muñoz-Carpena, Associate Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering; Dr. Dorota Haman, Chair, Agricultural and Biological Engineering; Dr. Walter Bowen, Associate Director, UF/IFAS International Programs.
Muñoz-Carpena conducts wetlands research in Costa Rica, as part of a student exchange program he set up.
Bridging a wetland and bridging worlds: Muñoz-Carpena connects undergraduate students from Costa Rica's EARTH University with UF/IFAS graduate students. They conduct original research together.
Left: Muñoz-Carpena, in the center of the photo, teaches while conducting wetlands research with students in Costa Rica. The joint program benefits Costa Rica's residents through Extension programs developed by EARTH students. It benefits Florida through bringing global perspectives on resource management to the young professionals who will manage those resources after earning advanced degrees.
Brazilian undergraduate student Faelen Tais Kolln, who is enrolled at EARTH University, came to the U.S. to conduct research with Muñoz-Carpena and UF/IFAS graduate student David Kaplan. Kaplan and Muñoz-Carpena then traveled to Costa Rica to continue the joint wetlands hydrology research project.
Muñoz-Carpena traveling by raft in Costa Rica.
Muñoz-Carpena in the lab, assembling wetlands hydrology research components.
Ramsar Wetlands:
A “Ramsar Wetland” is one covered under The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat, adopted on February 2, 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar. The “Ramsar Convention” was the first modern global intergovernmental treaty on the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, specifically covering conservation of wetlands.
