June 16, 2012

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

Chicago students in Chile June-August 2011

  Eight Chicago students accepted internships in Chile for 2011. 

• All these students were undergraduates
  

  Results from Chicago-to-Chile program 2011

• The supervisors of these students all gave their impressions to the Chicago co-ordinator.  With the exceptions noted below, the supervisors expressed satisfaction with the students' work, affirming that the students benefitted the lab and that future interns would be welcome to the lab.  Three of the eight supervisors gave enthusiastic reports of significant benefit to their labs.   In the past, this level of contribution has earned interns co-authorship of the eventual paper on the experiment.   The advisors also noted some shortcomings.  One student didn't make much contact with his research group.  Another reported a success that turned out to be wrong.  Finally, one student seemed unprepared and unmotivated, and was a major disappointment to his advisor. 
  

This year's internships were strongly affected by student strikes in Chile.  These strikes greatly reduced the local students' presence in the labs, especially at USACH.  Dealing with the strike's disruptions, uncertainties and confrontations was a major burden on our faculty partners.    The strike also made a strong impression on the interns from Chicago.  They sensed that they were witnessing a historic moment, but they didn't speak of their experience as traumatic.   In former years the interns gave talks on their work at internal and outside meetings; such talks were much reduced this year.  As usual, the students made several side trips to see the country.  One  student wrote a readable chronicle of their experience.

Chileans in Chicago: January-March 2012

We received only three students from Chile this year; these are identified in the table below.  The student strike organization at USACH discouraged students from applying as interns and discouraged faculty from recruiting them.  At UCHILE grad students who were doing full time research were allowed to participate.  As before, each student was introduced to their prospective supervisor last autumn via a video meeting, and an agreement was reached on a project.   

student	institution	year*	supervisor(s)**	project
Baeza, Javier	UCHILE	6	Burton/Nagel	Measurement of oscillations in Leidenfrost drops
Farias, Cecilia	UCHILE	7	Tramm/Biron	video recognition of C-elegans worm body profile
César Parra	UCHILE	5	Aronson	driven orientational diffusion vs. nematic ordering in a liquid of swimming bacteria

* 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.  All three advisors were pleased with their interns' work.  Two out of the three advisors were enthusiastic  and their interns are expected to be co-authors on papers in preparation.  These two students are continuing their involvement with their projects back in Chile.

Changes and lessons learned


• Student preparation, administrative difficulties.   Again this year we encountered no serious language problems, and administrative arrangements went 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, July-September 2012

Seven Chicago undergraduates wrote extended letters of application for internships.   The six chosen students will leave for their ten-week internships in late June and early July.  The students and their Chilean supervisors and topics are as follows.

name	year	supervisor	probable topic
Baker, Kevin	1	R. Cordero, USACH	strength of fruit cuticles
DeJongh, Ethan	2	M. L. Cordero, UCHILE	rapid viscosity measurements via meniscus observations in microchannels
Ezzyat, Taha	2	C. Aliaga, USACH	partitioning of a molecule with the free radical TEMPO in a surfactant solution
Garcia, Steven	1	F. Vivanco, USACH	effect of system size a sheared granular monolayer
Poethke, Sam	2	E. Hamm, USACH	ridge morphology induced by collapsing a plastic membrane over a protruding object
Zarcone, Ryan	2	N. Mujica, UCHILE	escape from the stable vibrational state of granular monolayers: granular explosions

• 
  
• 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.

Publications

Chicago Materials Research Center    contact    webmaster	UChicago