CATIE (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza) is one of Latin America’s most well-respected institutions for education and applied work in sustainable agriculture, tropical natural resource management and rural development. CATIE has the oldest graduate program in agriculture and natural resources in Latin America (since 1946), and a training program with multiple course options, including the Cooperative Study Abroad Program. The institution has programs and professors studying a wide array of topics in sustainable agriculture and livestock, agroforestry, forest ecology and management, protected areas, value chains, watersheds and water resources, development practices, climate change science and planning—and it is home to dozens of programs that are putting this research to work to train professionals and improve the livelihoods of people throughout Central America.
Yale F&ES has a Memorandum of Understanding with CATIE. Under the CATIE-Yale F&ES agreement, interested students can: (1) Take a semester of graduate level courses at CATIE in any of the above topics (in Spanish); (2) Design and conduct research projects under the supervision of CATIE experts; (3) Propose an internship with one of CATIE’s dozens of applied programs throughout Central America or at headquarters in Turrialba, Costa Rica; or (4) Take advantage of CATIE’s facilities, which include laboratories, experimental farms and livestock operations, long-term permanent forest research plots, a botanical garden, tropical seed bank, and living facilities.