August 12, 2007

Annual reports from years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Chicago students in Chile June-August 2006

Seven students accepted internships in Chile after video meetings with their prospective advisors. One of these dropped out to take a better-paying job, and we were not able to find a suitable replacement in time. One student continued his research and has submitted the work for publication, as detailed below.
• Charles Greenberg had completed his second year as a Chicago undergraduate when he came to work with Prof. Melo at the University of Santiago. His project involved the mechanics of an axon of a neuron cell. The apparatus measures forces on the axon by means of a thin, bendable glass tube. Charles measured the response of the axons to a pulling force to see how mechanical changes in the cell altered this force over time.
• Katherine Huff worked with Prof. Mujica at the University of Chile before starting her 3rd undergraduate year at Chicago. Her project concerned pattern formation in a vibrating monolayer using a laser beam detector. Under certain conditions, the monolayer is bistable and capable of forming either of two different patterns. Their work was reported that September at a workshop in Vina del Mar.
• Michael Leblanc came to work with Dr. Eugenio Hamm at the University of Santiago after completing his second undergraduate year at Chicago. His project concerned the tearing of a thin sheet. The tearing singularity follows a path dictated by distant boundary conditions on the paper. Leblanc worked with Hamm to study the effect of a nearby edge on the tearing path.
• Jessica Millar, a rising second-year undergraduate, worked with Carlos Orellana, a graduate student of Nicolas Mujica. They studied pattern formation in a fluidized bed in which a bed of granular material is suddenly forced upward by a rapid injection of air from beneath. The bed, in the form of a vertical channel between two glass plates, falls back nonuniformly after its upward flight. It often forms a row of fingers several times wider than the width of the channels. Jessica's job was to take data with a fast camera and determine the conditions of pressure when patterns formed and the precursors of these patterns.
• Luka Pocivavsek is an advanced PhD. student whose thesis research on molecular monolayers is supervised by Prof. Ka Yee Lee at Chicago. In order to gain background in continuum mechanics, Luka chose an internship with Prof. Cerda on wrinkling and buckling in a biological context. They focused on the periodic wrinkling that occurs when a solid sheet floating on a liquid surface is compressed. Using theory and macroscopic experiments built by Luka, they identified a gravity-wrinkling mechanism that may explain buckling patterns seen in his thesis research on lipid monolayers. On his return from Chile, Luka observed: "This is an amazing program and more graduate students should take advantage of it. There are some inrcredible people here at USACH and U. de Chile. I've learnt so much." His paper with Prof. Cerda has been submitted for publication.
• Adam Weis did a simulation project with Prof. Rodrigo Soto on completing his second undergraduate year at Chicago. The simulation represents a slurry of sedimenting particles undergoing hydrodynamic interaction. Adam gathered data on the motion of individual particles and determined their self diffusivity. They found a dependence on time during the simulated experiment and also spatial anisotropy.

  Results from Chicago-to-Chile program 2006

  At a debriefing session on October 10, the returned students expressed satisfaction and enthusiasm about their work. The students valued their expatriate experience in Chile. Despite some bouts of loneliness and the expatriate syndrome, they got to know their Chilean counterparts at the university and made excursions to the mountains organized by Prof. Cerda. The Chilean hosts also arranged for these students to participate in the Southern Workshop on Granular Materials, held in Vina del Mar, Chile September 13--16. Several of the interns gave talks and posters at this meeting.

  Housing arrangements were much improved over last year. The students shared two commercial furnished apartments in Santiago. They arranged these with the help of Prof. Mujica and a real-estate search service. Still, they believe these arrangements can be improved next year. There were some rocky dealings with a landlord. Next year they will plan to spend a few days at the beginning of their stay to line up apartments identified by Prof. Mujica.

  The Chilean supervisors were satisfied with the experience. They thought they gave significant pedagogical benefit and received some degree of benefit to their research. The professors recognized that the Chicago students who come to them are academically less advanced than the Chilean students they send to us. This year's internships were ten weeks long instead of eight weeks. This led to a noticeable improvement in the level of satisfaction with the projects on all sides. We plan to make ten weeks the norm for internships in both directions.

  Funding changes

  As in the previous year, the Chileans anticipated a shortfall in funding support these students adequately for a ten week term. The supplemental funding granted the previous year by the Consortium for the Americas was no longer available. Accordingly we made these funds available from the supporting NSF grant. These funds were provided to the students in the form of a travel advance for $750 against documented living expenses, as was done the previous year. Thanks to the vigilance of Program Administrator Pegg Anderson, this process worked smoothly, and we plan to continue it.

Chileans in Chicago: January-June 2007

We received six students from Chile this year, identified in the table below. This year one PhD. student, Javier Contraras participated. Without the usual constraints of classes, it proved easier for him to come in the Spring quarter rather than the usual winter quarter. As before, each student was introduced to their prospective supervisor via a video meeting, and an agreement was reached on a project. Each student made good progress on a project, and several were quite successful. In some cases the progress was hampered by the language barrier, as discussed below.

student	supervisor(s)
Carlos Bolvaran	Collar
Javier Contreras	Jaeger (spring, Cheng, Thu)
Alejandro Jara	Nagel, Sarah Case
Sebastian Johnson	Lee, Pocivavsek
Loreto Oyarte	Jaeger, Royer
Adan Ramirez	Guyot-Sionnest

The students and their projects are described in more detail here.

Changes and lessons learned

• clerical errors. Naming errors due to Spanish surname conventions had previously bedeveled visa, social security, registrar and payroll processing. These were virtually eliminated this year.
• Delayed start. This year the process of identifying students started late. As a result, we began the visa request process before we had paired students with supervisors. This arrangement seemed workable and we plan to do it again next year.
• visa delays. Visa delays greatly exceeding those announced by the American Embassy in Santiago led to an emergency situation last December. The students who applied were given visa screening appointments a week or more after they were supposed to arrive here. These problems were only resolved via the intervention of the NSF office of international affairs and the scientific liaison staff at the Santiago Embassy. We shall know not to trust the announced delays this year and we shall start the visa process earlier. We now have needed phone numbers in hand in case an emergency arises again.
• English language problems. Because the recruitment of students in Chile started late, there was less time than usual to find students with adequate English skills. As a result, three of the students did not have adequate skills. Despite their hard work, their research suffered and the graduate students supervising them were overly burdened. We recognize that we must maintain a stronger standard of English preparation next time. We must also emphasize to prospective employers before their remote meeting with the students that they need to assure that they can communicate with these students. We expect that the number of accepted students may well be smaller on account of these tightened language standards.
• recruiting visit. In order to encourage qualified interns, the Chicago co-ordinator, Prof. Witten will visit our Chilean partners in early November, 2007.

Chicagoans in Chile, June-September 2007

Seven students are currently performing their internships in Chile. All are Chicago undergraduates. The students and their supervisors are as follows.

Alexander Moore	Prof. Cerda
Weiyi Ng	Prof. Soto
Lee Walsh	Prof. Hamm
Ivan Teo	Prof. Rodrigo Hernandez
Elliott Brannon	Prof. Mujica
Michael Miller	Prof. Melo
Kanika Jhunjhnuwala	Prof. Denardin

Reports from both the students and the two program co-ordinators in Chile say that the students are doing well.

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