Frances Vavrus (professor),  Heidi Eschenbacher (deputy project director and OLPD alum-Ph.D. CIDE, 2011), and Ferdinand Chipindi (doctoral graduate student-CIDE) from the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development (OLPD) were in Zambia in January working on an ongoing USAID-funded project, STEP-UP Zambia, designed to strengthen the capacity of higher education institutions to conduct policy-relevant research. They worked with officials from the national Ministry of Education, faculty and graduate students at the nation’s flagship university, the University of Zambia (UNZA), and the Zambia Institute of Special Education. In addition Vavrus and Matthew Thomas (OLPD alum-Ph.D. CIDE, 2013), gave lectures at UNZA to the master’s students in the School of Education.