ED31B-01
Towards Successful Models of International Cooperation in Graduate Education and Research in Ocean Sciences: The Role of Local Developments for Successful Memoranda of Understanding.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for enhancing Higher Education and Research in Ocean Sciences signed by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA (WHOI) and the University of Concepcion, Chile (UDEC) was signed in 1999 at a time when the University of Concepcion had already committed significant resources to enhance its graduate education and research efforts in ocean science. The combined efforts build human capacities in ocean sciences within Chile and the agreement between UDEC and WHOI and the associated activities became attractive for both parties because both gained in intellectual and practical terms. UDEC graduate students and faculty have the opportunity of conducting part of their research in Woods Hole, interacting with WHOI scientists, and using new approaches, it has resulted in joint publications. WHOI scientists have a base of operations and Chilean colleagues in research for investigating important and interesting oceanic phenomena in the Eastern South Pacific Ocean. The MOU inaugurated an Austral Summer Institute that provides interesting teaching opportunities for WHOI scientists by bringing them into contact with enthusiastic students from around Chile and South American countries. Furthermore, UDEC had ongoing interactions with colleagues at European Universities and in Japan and is a focal point for multinational cooperative ocean research. New initiatives emerged in Chile that required international support such as the creation of the Center for Oceanographic Research for the Eastern South Pacific, a 10-y research initiative funded by CONICYT (Chile Science Agency) and based at University of Concepcion. The Center hosts about half the graduate students of the UDEC's graduate program in Oceanography.
ED31B-02
Enhancing Graduate Education and Research in Ocean Sciences at the Universidad de Concepcion (UDEC) and in Chile: Cooperation Between UDEC and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA (WHOI) and the University of Concepcion, Chile (UDEC) entered into an MOU to enhance graduate education and research in ocean sciences in Chile and enhance research for understanding the Southeastern Pacific Ocean. The MOU was drafted and signed after exchange visits of faculty. The formulation of a five year program of activities included: exchange of faculty for purposes of enhancing research, teaching and advising; visits of Chilean graduate students to WHOI for several months of supplemental study and research in the area of their thesis research; participation of Chilean faculty and graduate students in WHOI faculty led cruises off Chile and Peru (with Peruvian colleagues); a postdoctoral fellowship program for Chilean ocean scientists at WHOI; and the establishment of an Austral Summer Institute of advanced undergraduate and graduate level intensive two to three week courses on diverse topics at the cutting edge of ocean science research co-sponsored by WHOI and UDEC for Chilean and South American students with faculty drawn from WHOI and other U.S. universities with ocean sciences graduate schools and departments, e.g. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Delaware. The program has been evaluated by external review and received excellent comments. The success of the program has been due mainly to: (1) the cooperative attitude and enthusiasm of the faculty colleagues of both Chilean Universities (especially UDEC) and WHOI, students and postdoctoral fellows, and (2) a generous grant from the Fundacion Andes- Chile enabling these activities.
ED31B-03
e-Science and climate applications : The EELA (E-Infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America) Project.
Several international projects and collaborations have emerged in the last years due to the increasing demand for computing resources. One important aspect of these initiatives deals with the gridification of computing intensive scientific applications otherwise difficult to run efficiently. The EELA Project (E-Infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America) is a collaboration of diverse Latin America and Europe Institutions, funded by EU commission under the FP6 which has developed a performance e-infrastructure for e-Science applications in the fields of Biomedicine, High Energy Physics, e-Learning and Climate. Nowadays all the groups have already ported their applications on the EELA Grid and are obtaining first results. This presentation describes EELA, the objective and progress of the climate application, related to regional modeling of El Niño impacts, as well as the intentions for earth sciences applications.
ED31B-04
MicroMAPS: Leveraging Federal and Universities' Resources for Atmospheric Sciences Research and Education
NASA Langley Research Center approached the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, a NASA-sponsored coalition of universities, NASA research centers and state agencies with the opportunity to develop a scientific mission and flight opportunities for an un-flown atmospheric composition remote sensor, MicroMAPS. The resulting partnership led to new life for this instrument from a space-borne carbon monoxide remote sensor to an high altitude airborne instrument that measures tropospheric carbon monoxide in the near infrared portion of the spectrum. The five year effort to date has leveraged the existing instrument with work by student teams overseen by faculty and NASA advisors, with both NASA and industry contributions. The result is a viable instrument system that has flown in four international scientific field campaigns aboard the Scaled Composites Proteus aircraft, generating 300 plus hours of CO data to date over North America, Italy, the Mediterranean, England, the North Sea, Darwin, Northern Australia, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean between Australia and California. A relatively small investment by NASA and contributions by 56 students and nine faculty members, both active and retired NASA engineers and scientists, as well as a Canadian aerospace research company (which designed and built the MicroMAPS instrument) yielded successful results that go well beyond the instrument and data retrieved. The effort provided a valuable educational research experience for students from three universities whose work included contributions in: 1) Development of the instrument system and pod design for the Proteus flights; 2) Development of assessment strategy and analysis of instrument performance; 3) Development of the operations and data management strategy; 4) Contributions to development of design, implementation, and analysis of sensor calibration at Resonance Ltd., Barrie, Canada 5) Development of a new data reduction strategy for the airborne configuration over northern mid-latitudes and tropical regions. 6) Development of the instrument system and pod design for possible flights on Altair (a unmanned airborne vehicle managed at the NASA Dryden Flight Center) and 7) Geo-referencing of MicroMAPS data. An overview of the MicroMAPS project partnership will be presented and the potential for collaboration between federal laboratories and industry with National Space Grant Consortia and their Space Grant universities on similar partnerships will be described.