Thanks to support by current and former members of the LASPAU Board of Trustees, the Lewis A. Tyler Trustees’ Fund awards up to $500 each to grantees whose research encourages the exchange of ideas, staff, or resources between institutions in the United States and Canada and those in Latin America and the Caribbean. Following are the 2001 award recipients and their funded activities:
César Abadía Barrero (COLCIENCIAS, Colombia, Ph.D., oral biology, Harvard Univ.) traveled to Brazil to coordinate the first workshop in the state of São Paulo for children and adolescents living with HIV/AIDS. The workshop, which gave children an opportunity to talk about both the physical and social aspects of the illness, is a component of Abadía’s doctoral research project, “Healthy Programs in a Sick Society: An Ethnographic Study of Children and HIV in São Paulo.” It was organized in collaboration with the Brazilian Ministry of Health, faculty from the Univ. de São Paulo and other academics, and Brazilian nongovernmental organizations concerned with childhood epidemics.
As part of a long-term effort to assess and protect the biological diversity of the white-sand forests in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon, José Alvarez Alonso (Fulbright/Amazon, Peru, M.A., ecology, Louisiana State Univ.) traveled to the region to document native bird species. The Trustees’ Fund enabled him to purchase necessary field gear, including photographic equipment. The conservation project is a cooperative effort of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Louisiana State Univ., the Museo de Historia Natural of the Univ. Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, and the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana.
Marcos Andrade Flores (Fulbright, Bolivia, M.A., physics, Univ. of Maryland, College Park) continued his efforts to improve weather forecasting in Bolivia through the acquisition of computer equipment necessary for the implementation of a numerical weather forecast model. An operational model was initially installed at the Univ. of Maryland, College Park, and data and maps were sent over the Internet to the atmospheric physics laboratory at the Univ. Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia, for distribution to the Bolivian national weather forecast agencies. Should the data prove helpful, the model will be permanently installed in Bolivia.
To investigate the influence of mangroves in estuarine and coastal food webs, José Ernesto Mancera Pineda (COLCIENCIAS, Colombia, Ph.D., biology, Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette) traveled to two Colombian mangrove ecosystems to test the utilization of particulate organic matter as an energy source by organisms in the mangrove habitat and adjacent waters. The study is a collaborative effort between the Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette and the Instituto de Estudios Caribeños at the Univ. Nacional de Colombia, San Andrés.
Ana María Oyarce (Fulbright, Chile, Ph.D., anthropology, Univ. of Arizona) interviewed physicians, health care workers, and indigenous patients in rural Chile as part of a study on how symptoms with cultural meaning are misconstrued by doctors when viewed in terms of standard diagnostic categories. She is particularly concerned with individuals who are erroneously diagnosed with somatization. Oyarce, whose home institution is the Univ. de la Frontera, and Mark Nichter, her academic advisor at the Univ. of Arizona, are members of the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN), an organization of health specialists concerned with the availability, effectiveness, and efficiency of health care in their home countries.
The Proyecto de Manejo Forestal Sostenible (BOLFOR) is a USAID-funded project dedicated to the sustainable management of Bolivian forests in partnership with institutions that include the Univ. of Florida. As preparation for her thesis research into the history of the forest ecosystem at the BOLFOR site, Clea Paz Rivera (Fulbright/Amazon, Bolivia, M.A., conservation, Univ. of Florida) traveled to Bolivia to test the hypothesis that the inability of certain timber species to regenerate is related to the activities of former human occupants of the area.
To facilitate his dissertation research on advanced methods for detecting waterborne pathogens, Walter Quintero-Betancourt (Fulbright/FUNDAYACUCHO, Venezuela, Ph.D., microbiology, Univ. of South Florida) purchased the necessary laboratory equipment to monitor the water quality of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. The largest lake in Latin America, Maracaibo is used for both recreational and irrigation purposes. The study is a collaboration between the College of Marine Science at the Univ. of South Florida and the Centro de Investigaciones del Agua at the Univ. del Zulia.
Jackeline Salazar (Fulbright, Dominican Republic, Ph.D., ecology, Cornell Univ.) acquired a handheld computer that can be used in the field and in the laboratory as a device for both inputting and accessing biological data. The computer will assist in the development of an interactive key for the families and genera of flowering trees in the Dominican Republic. The key will be made available at no charge on the Cornell Univ. website for downloading to handheld or desktop machines. The project is a collaborative effort of the L.H. Bailey Hortorium at Cornell and the Jardín Botánico Nacional “Dr. Rafael Ma. Moscoso” in Santo Domingo.
Fall 2001/Winter 2002 Informativo Content: Ecology Initiative | LASPAU and IIE Collaborate | Seminar Addresses Sustainable Development |
FANTEL Program
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New Kellogg Fellowship Program |
Marlene Johnson |
PAEP Offers Multiple Benefits | New LASPAU Board Members | Trustees Award Recipients | Grantee News | Call for Fulbright Alumni | Informativo Contents
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