June 13, 2011

Annual reports from years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Chicago students in Chile June-August 2010

Seven Chicago students accepted internships in Chile for 2010.  

student	institution	supervisor(s)	topic
Michael Baumer	UCHILE	Prof. Mujica	Upgrading experiment on interfacial instability in a rotating fluid
David Blair	USACH	Prof. Bernal	Optimimising micron scale indenter imaging rheometer
Kyle  Felker	UCHILE	Prof. Soto	Transient relaxation of mobile layer in numerical granular fluid in chute flow
Trent German	USACH	Prof. Cordero	Mechanics of fruit cuticle layer measured by speckle interferometry.
Ned Lieb	USACH	Prof. Paez	AFM nanoindenter measurements of corrosion-protecting composite coatings.
Nikita Nangia	USACH	Prof. Hamm	Optimal perforation pattern for tearing a sheet
Paul Wyatt	UCHILE	Prof. Falcon	Upgrade experiment on localization of water waves in a bumpy channel.

• All these students were undergraduates
  

  Results from Chicago-to-Chile program 2010

• The supervisors of these students all gave their impressions to the Chicago co-ordinator. All the supervisors expressed satisfaction with their intern's work.  Four of the seven students got enthusiastic praise for the value they brought to the labs.  Their work played a significant role in the development of their experiments.  In the past, this level of contribution has earned interns co-authorship of the eventual paper on the experiment.   About half the students were asked to report on their work to the researh group.  Prof. Falcon organized a small symposium to show the work of the interns.  The students also expressed satisfaction in a debriefing meeting held October 7 2010.  Several praised their supervision and the warm atmosphere of their research group.  All gave a clear account of their projects. 
  

The students seemed pleased and satisfied with the broader aspects of their visit.  All found suitable housing, e. g. sharing furnished apartments organized for foreign students.  All but one made a sojourn to the Atacama Desert and other outings.  One had many adventures and made many friends. 
As in prior years, the students did English language conversation with Chilean students who wanted to do internships in Chicago.  Some students ended up participating strongly, meeting semi-weekly with their counterparts for several weeks.  The sessions were less formally organized than in the past; participation was uneven particularly at UCHILE. 
Four of this year's students were first-years.  We were happy to see that these students were not notably disadvantaged by their inexperience.  Indeed, two of the four highly-praised students were first-years. 

Chileans in Chicago: January-March 2011

We received seven students from Chile this year, identified in the table below. As before, each student was introduced to their prospective supervisor last autumn via a video meeting, and an agreement was reached on a project. One student and supervisor realized that they were not a good match and decided not to work together.  Each student made good progress on a project and several supervisors found their work beneficial to the group's research.  One student contributed especially strongly to a paper in preparation and was chosen to return to the States this summer to present his work at a national meeting.  

student	institution	year*	supervisor(s)**	project
Ignacio Calderon	USACH	5	Dr. Lin	rheology of nanoparticle skins at an air-water interface
Sergio Correa	USACH	4	Dr. Abbott/Prof. MacAyel	lab-scale modeling of glacier calving
Cristian Fernandez	UCHILE	5	Prof. Witten	the transition state in a scissoring droplet
Andres Franco	UCHILE	6	Dr. Burton/Prof. Nagel	the contacting ring of a Leidenfrost drop
Roberto Gomez	USACH	5	Prof. Guyot-Sionnest	photoconductivity of infrared-sensitive quantum dots
Carolina Perez	USACH	5	Prof. Bezanilla	limiting proteins' electro-response in ion channels
Estefania Vidal	UCHILE	3	Waitukaitis/Prof. Jaeger	Triboelectric charging of flowing colloidal grains

* 4 means 4th year undergrad, 5 means first year grad.
** first name listed is the grad student or postdoc immediately supervising the intern

The students and their projects are described in more detail here.  Most students presented their work at group meetings and wrote a final report on their projects.  In addition to the interns above, former intern Ruben Meza was so highly valued that he was invited to return to Prof. Lee's group for a year, with independent funding.  This year started in January 2011.

 In a debriefing lunch session  on March 10 and by email the students expressed strong gratitude and satisfaction with their internships.  Likewise, each of the seven Chicago advisors found ways that the intern benefited their research.  (They reported this in response to the co-ordinator's end-of-term query.) In one case the professor wrote that the the intern "did a fantastic job and truly energized our experimental program".    In another case the supervisor said the student's simulation work "informed much of our recent experimental work"   A third supervisor noted that their intern obtained "convincing evidence about a mechanism qualitatively different from what I had thought" 


Changes and lessons learned

• Number of interns.  We accepted seven interns for a second year--one more than the expected average.  Again, the high number did not lead to a reduced student quality or quality of placements: it has proven sustainable.  If the pace of internships continues higher than budgeted, we're prepared to terminate the program early or ask for supplementary funding. 
  
• Student preparation, administrative difficulties.   Again this year we encountered no serious language problems, and administrative arrangements went quite smoothly.
• Communication before arrival.   The co-ordinators stressed the need for ongoing email communication before the intern arrived.  The resulting communication seemed adequate; there were no reported bad surprises. 
  

Faculty interactions

Chicagoans in Chile, June-August 2011

 Eleven Chicago undergraduates wrote extended letters of application for internships.   The eight chosen students will leave for their internships in late June.  The students and their Chilean supervisors are as follows.

name	year	supervisor	probable topic
Brian Dresner	3	Prof Cerda, USACH	nanofilms
Francisco Fonta	2	Prof. Hamm, USACH	forcing stretching ridges by hydrostatic pressure
Arthur Hernandez	1	Prof. Mujica, UCHILE	granular explosion simulations
Michael Malus	2	Prof. Vivanco, USACH	stress patterns in granular flow
Jeffrey Shahanian	2	Prof. M-L Cordero, UCHILE	acoustic interactions between particles in fluid
Peter Choong Hwa Shin	2	Prof. R. Cordero, USACH	fruit integuement micromechanics
Alexander Turzillo	2	Prof. Soto UCHILE	granular explosions
Hillel Wayne	2	Prof. Lund, UCHILE	ultrasonic diagnostics of defected metals

• 
  
• Recruiting events. In addition to publicity via posters and classroom announcements, the program organized two information meetings. In January Prof. Witten spoke to the local chapter of the Society of Physics Students to tell them about the program. In February the program organized an information reception as noted above.

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