 In March 2007, Tania Chávez Náder (Fulbright–PROMEP, Mexico) and Nelly Rocha performed a piano concert of the works of three female composers, Maria Theresa von Paradis, Nadia Boulanger, and Rebecca Clarke, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City’s premier opera house. Chávez and Rocha’s performance was part of a twelve-day music, dance, and visual arts event entitled XI Encuentro Internacional–VII Encuentro Iberoamericano de Mujeres en el Arte hosted by ComuArte, an organization dedicated to promoting female artists and their work. The event, which included performances and exhibitions in Mexico, Spain, and Italy, was a celebration of women’s artistic expression as an agent of change and social development. Chávez is pursuing a doctoral degree in music performance at Arizona State Univ.
In 2006, César Guerrero Santander (Fulbright, Colombia) co-founded a new student organization with colleagues from the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the Univ. of South Florida, Communication Networks Group at USF (CommNet@USF). The organization’s purpose is to promote intellectual exchange, technology transfer, and research collaboration through industry ties and community outreach. CommNet@USF’s activities include a mentoring program for undergraduate and graduate students in the department and a series of informative talks on engineering at local elementary and high schools. Guerrero and his Ph.D. advisor Miguel Labrador also presented a paper entitled “Experimental and Analytical Evaluation of Available Bandwidth Estimation Tools” at the first Local Computer Network Workshop on Network Measurements in Tampa, Florida. The November 2006 event brought together experts in computer networking to exchange information on the latest advances and challenges in the field. In June 2007, Guerrero will travel to Honolulu, Hawaii, with Labrador and Rafael Pérez, to present their paper on enriching the undergraduate engineering student’s research experience, entitled “Enhancing the Global Perspective of REU Site Students,” at the 114th Annual American Society for Engineering Education Conference and Exposition. Guerrero is a doctoral candidate in computer science and engineering at the Univ. of South Florida.
Relationship counselor Paula Llobet Yglesias (OAS, Costa Rica) appeared on a television show called Inside San Diego to discuss ways to address stress in personal relationships. Inside San Diego is a morning talk show on a popular independent television station, KUSI, in San Diego, California. During the interview, Llobet listed some common catalysts for relationship stress and discussed ways in which couples can work together to identify and alleviate their anxieties. As a part of her doctoral program, Llobet is interning at Harmonium, a non-profit agency that offers social service programs and counseling to young people and families. Llobet is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Alliant International Univ., San Diego.
In March 2007, Ana Mojica Bonilla (Fulbright, El Salvador) received the David Woodward Award for Best Electronic Map in the student category in the 2006 ACSM-CaGIS Map Design Competition, a joint effort hosted by the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping and the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. Mojica’s prize-winning map is titled “Lahar Visualization for Nejapa, El Salvador,” and it presents the results of a 2003 study (commissioned by the government of Nejapa) that investigated the potential geological impact of lahars on the city. Lahar is an Indonesian word used by geologists to describe a massive mud slide or water-saturated debris flow. A lahar is most often the result of dramatic natural events such as volcanic eruptions, glacial melting, or earthquakes, and it is capable of damaging or destroying anything in its path. As depicted in Mojica’s animated map, the results of the study suggest that a number of potential lahars could strike the city of Nejapa and isolate both the city and the eastern and western zones of El Salvador by blocking important transportation connections. Mojica’s map was the winner of the Fall 2006 North American Cartographic Information Society’s Student Mapping Competition in the animated mapping category. Mojica is a master’s candidate in environmental geographic information science at Ohio Univ.
In August 2006, Juan Camilo Villegas Palacio (Fulbright–COLCIENCIAS–DNP, Colombia) and David Breshears presented research on the hydrology of tropical montane forests at the 91st Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Memphis, Tennessee. Tropical montane forests are rainforests that grow on mountains at altitudes above 3300 feet; they are among the most endangered types of tropical woodlands. Villegas and his Ph.D. advisor at the Univ. of Arizona, David Breshears, collaborated on the montane forest research with Villegas’s M.A. advisor at the Univ. Nacional de Colombia, Conrado Tobón. Villegas is a doctoral candidate in watershed management at the Univ. of Arizona.
As a part of his thesis work at the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Costa Rica, Oscar Angulo Aguilar (WKKF, Bolivia) worked on a project in the town of Valle de Angeles, Honduras, for FOCUENCAS II, a CATIE watershed management initiative funded by the Swedish International Development Agency. Angulo studied the water needs and capacity of Valle de Angeles, analyzing the factors and parties involved in water resource access and protection. Angulo’s work has provided the FOCUENCAS program with tangible guidelines on how to strengthen local water management institutions. After completing his degree, FOCUENCAS and local authorities requested that Angulo stay on for an additional two months in order to help them implement his recommendations, which, as his project supervisor Cornelis Prins noted, will help “create solid social conditions for the proper management and continuous supply of water in quality and quantity in the municipality of Valle de Angeles.” Angulo received a master’s of science degree in environmental socioeconomics from CATIE in December 2006.
In January 2006, Juan Manuel Jauregui (Fulbright–Univ. Austral, Argentina) presented his paper entitled “The Political Economy of Current Account Reversals: An Empirical Study” at the annual meeting of the Allied Social Sciences Association in Boston, Massachusetts. Jauregui’s article examines the effects of politics and political institutions on international economies and discusses ways in which political upheaval can serve as a barometer for economic crises. Jauregui also presented this study in London at the Emerging Markets Finance Conference in May 2005, an event co-sponsored by the Journal of International Money and Finance and Cass Business School. In November 2006, Jauregui presented another article entitled “The Persistence of the Current Account Surplus Following an External Sector Crisis” at the parallel meetings of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association and the Latin American Econometric Society held in Mexico City. Jauregui received a doctoral degree in international economics from the Univ. of California, Los Angeles, and is currently a professor of economics at Univ. Austral.
Julio Rodríguez Macedo (OAS, Mexico) and his supervisor at the Univ. of Victoria, Afzal Suleman, are filing a patent in Mexico entitled “Aparato para Transformar la Energía de las Olas del Mar en Energía Mecánica” for a wave energy converter they designed together. This type of converter uses the energy created by the movement of the ocean’s surface-waves to generate electricity. Rodríguez notes in his project summary that, although awareness of sustainability and environmental issues is growing, current renewable energy systems are expensive and complicated to operate in comparison to traditional fossil fuel generators. Rodríguez and Suleman’s device offers a practical but straightforward approach to ocean wave conversion that is easier and less expensive to use than other energy conversion tools. According to Rodríguez, ocean wave energy is gaining in popularity because it generates 15-20 times more energy per square meter than either wind or solar energy. Rodríguez received a master’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from the Univ. of Victoria in Canada in August 2006.
Frank Clarke, Luke Victor Rostant (Fulbright, Trinidad and Tobago), and Paul Racey wrote an article entitled “Life after logging: post-logging recovery of a neotropical bat community” that was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology in April 2005. Rostant and his colleagues studied the effects of Trinidad’s periodic block system (PBS) of logging on the region’s microchiropteran bat community. PBS is an ecologically sensitive logging technique that promotes rainforest regrowth and sustains biodiversity through the selective felling of a limited number of trees. The team found that PBS logging seemed to be compatible with bat species diversity and noted in their article that this result “provides evidence that neotropical forests can be managed for timber production in an ecologically sustainable way and that significant biodiversity conservation efforts can occur outside national parks and nature reserves in areas set aside for sustainable development.” They suggest that PBS could serve as a model for sustainable logging in regions that have similar species compositions to Trinidad. Rostant completed a master’s of science degree in ecology through the Fulbright Faculty Development Program at the Univ. of Florida in August 2006 and is now pursuing a doctoral degree there.
|
