In May of 2009, curator Gary Williams and collection manager Bob Van Syoc traveled to Egypt and the Red Sea with a delegation including scientists from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Florida and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.  The delegation was organized by the U.S. State Department to establish collaborative ties between the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the U.S. State Department’s Science and Technology Development Fund, to establish a cooperative agreement between the two countries for university level research and education in marine science.  The proposal includes plans for Academy scientists to return to Egypt to train Egyptian university students in various aspects of marine biology, including the collection and curation of marine organisms in the Red Sea.