As an innovative, action-oriented leader, Dr. Ana Maier is ahead of a myriad of change initiatives within the structure of Zamorano. During her tenure since 2021 as Vice-President and Academic Dean, she has been focused on enhancing the student experience, improving research opportunities, and shifting the curriculum to put emphasis on agricultural food systems in order to better serve Latin America and beyond by preparing students to be ready to contribute to sustainable, resilient and inclusive agrifood systems.
Maier, who is currently serving as Zamorano’s Interim President, is leading the charge for core curricular reform, updating Zamorano’s academic programs to better fit students and the market’s current needs. In addition, she is encouraging faculty to pursue world-class research and to make impactful contributions through meaningful outreach projects.
Core curricular reform
Zamorano launched a program of curricular reform in 2021, the main premise of which was to put sustainable, inclusive and equitable agrifood systems at the center of the Institution’s undergraduate and graduate programs. This process began by defining the competencies that a Zamorano graduate should have, and this in turn helped inform what the new academic offerings should include. A considerable number of stakeholders’ opinions were collected and considered, including Zamorano’s strategic partners, faculty, directors, and the Board of Trustees, all of this in order to identify the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will lead to the definition of the new competencies of a Zamorano graduate.
Maier’s team is working on the curricular design, taking into consideration several relevant aspects such as a competency-based approach, student-centered learning, the incorporation of contemporary trends in higher education, and flexibility to mention a few. Quite an undertaking, all while keeping the 4 main undergraduate programs of study and adding the possibility of choosing interdisciplinary majors and specializations.
Highlighting Research
Under Dr. Maier’s guidance, 2022 bore 45 faculty-produced academic publications, the majority of which included a Zamorano professor as the primary author. Today, almost 50% of Zamorano’s research programs do not receive any type of outside financial support. The main source of financing has been from research and outreach projects executed by Zamorano.
Other initiatives to promote research within the faculty include the reactivation of the Zamorano Academic Press, which incentivizes the faculty’s training in data and is a driver of Zamorano’s Ethics Committee.
Zamorano hand-in-hand with outreach partners
Thanks to exhaustive outreach endeavors, during 2022 Dr. Maier’s team submitted 53 proposals of which 24 projects were approved that same year and nine are set to launch in 2023. The leading department in outreach programming is our Environmental Sciences and Development Department, whose work comprised 60% of the total proposals developed. These projects are carried out with partners includi
