By Mary Helen Johnson, Program Coordinator, LASPAU
Each year, the Lewis A. Tyler Trustees’ Fund awards research support to LASPAU-administered grantees whose work encourages the exchange of ideas, staff, or resources between institutions in Europe, the United States, or Canada and those in Latin America and the Caribbean. The award—sponsored by current and former members of the LASPAU Board of Trustees as well as by others who support LASPAU’s efforts—allows students to advance their research while strengthening international ties between institutions, two endeavors that embody LASPAU’s vision. This year, five awards were given to grantees conducting research in fields ranging from linguistics to botany.
Diego Gil Agudelo, a Fulbright–COLCIENCIAS–DNP grantee from Colombia, received the award for his research on the decay of coral reefs, currently one of the most endangered ecosystems on earth. Gil has focused his research on coral diseases, which he believes “are one of the most important and least understood agents responsible for the decline of coral reefs.” His work is an integral part of the collaborative research being conducted between the Colombian Institute for Marine and Coastal Research (INVEMAR) and the Laboratory of Coral Diseases at the University of South Carolina (USC). While conducting research for his Ph.D in marine biology at USC, Gil has employed the knowledge base of both institutions to more effectively study the problem of coral decay and the prevention of coral disease. The award allowed him to travel to Colombia in order to implement an innovative technique that will help researchers better assess the differences between healthy and diseased coral.
Luis Gómez Alpizar is a Fulbright scholar from Costa Rica who is pursuing a Ph.D. in botany at North Carolina State University (NC State). As an award recipient, he organized a joint effort between the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) and NC State to study Phytophthora infestans, a pathogen causing a devastating disease that affects tomato and potato crops worldwide. By understanding recent changes in this pathogen, researchers hope to more effectively manage the disease and minimize the damage it causes. The cellulose-acetate gel electrophoresis (CAE) system currently being used at NC State is a fast and effective method of analyzing Phytophthora infestans. With the grant, Gómez has been able to bring this system to the Agronomic Research Center at UCR. Next year, researchers hope to begin using the CAE system to characterize the population of Phytophthora infestans in tomato crops.
CAPES grantee Marcos André Gonçalves is working with researchers from the United States and Brazil on the integration of digital library resources from Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech), where he is completing his Ph.D. in computer science, and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). Researchers at the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) at Virginia Tech and Brazilian researchers from UFMG have recently begun a collaborative effort that is funded by Brazil’s Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). NDLTD currently provides Internet access to student research efforts and other resources. UFMG’s digital library utilizes a highly effective web-based data extraction system. By using techniques and resources from both institutions, researchers will be able to network and strengthen their systems, ultimately providing higher-quality access to a larger number of users. The award allowed Gonçalves to travel with Virginia Tech researchers to his native Brazil to participate in the planning and implementation of this project.
Ricarda Riina, a Fulbright/Amazon Basin Scholarship Program grantee from Venezuela, is creating a database that will allow her to analyze the distribution patterns of plants native to the Guayana Region of South America. The region covers southern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and adjacent areas of Colombia and Brazil. Riina’s study of plant distribution in the region is conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas and the Universidad Central de Venezuela and from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she is currently pursuing a Ph.D in botany. The award enabled her to make visits to plant collections at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. During these visits, she met with leading researchers in the field and gathered data that will aid her in her analysis. By determining the location and frequency of native plants, researchers are able to suggest priorities for conservation efforts. The information contained in her database and analysis will be important resources for ongoing conservation work in the Guayana Region.
With the assistance of the Trustees’ Fund, Fulbright/Amazon Basin Scholarship Program grantee Simoni Benicio Valadares spent her summer on the Uaçá Indigenous Reservation in the Brazil–French Guiana border region. She is conducting linguistic research that supports the current efforts by the Palikur community to revitalize their traditional language. Valadares chose this particular indigenous community because she believes “the language is endangered, with young people shifting to the use of Portuguese and the French-based Creole that serves as a lingua franca between indigenous groups in the area.” Her demographic and socio-linguistic research will provide reliable data for researchers in Brazil and the United States. While completing her doctoral degree in linguistics at the University of New Mexico, Valadares is working to create a database of the Palikur language, which will preserve it for future generations. For more information on her project, see the research report below.
Research Report: Language Use in Palikur Speech Communities in Brazilian Amazonia
During the summer of 2002, I conducted research at the Uaçá indigenous reservation on the Brazil–French Guiana border, in Oiapoque, Amapá State, Brazil. The partial financial support of the Lewis A. Tyler Trustees’ Fund and the Fulbright Program made this project happen.
My research activities included updating the demographic data available, developing a survey on the sociolinguistics of the languages used in the interactions of Palikur groups at the Reservation, collecting old stories told by elderly speakers, and collecting audio-video data. The survey was conducted with the assistance of bilingual teachers through interviews.
The project had the support of the community because they understand the importance of research involving the Palikur language. I made some recordings of a language style that they call “respectable language,” as advised by the old people in the Palikur community who were consultants to the project. Some old men and a woman who could speak a style of Palikur language recorded their expertise so that this style could be documented and described. This style is not part of social interactions in the community anymore but is used only by some speakers who are older than 70 years and then only when they are faced with someone who speaks it. This style is about to become obsolete.
Now all the collected data are going to be organized in a database to serve as the dissertation proposal for my doctorate in linguistics at the University of New Mexico and for the long-term project of language documentation for the benefit of Palikur communities.
—Simoni Maria Benicio Valadares
Universidade Federal do Amapá, Brazil,
and University of New Mexico, United States |
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Mary Helen Johnson coordinated the application and selection process for the 2002 Lewis A. Tyler Trustees’ Fund awards.
If you are interested in further information about this or any other program administered by LASPAU, please see the Programs section of LASPAU's website.
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