Blog Archives

first lab supplies arrive!

7/31/2014

Almost 1 year after John Paul and I thought up of the idea of SciBridge, our first experiment kit supplies have begun to arrive at UT-Austin! Orders have been placed at the major chemical suppliers (Fisher Scientific, VWR, Sigma Aldrich, etc.) and packages delivered to the campus. The process has gone seamlessly with UT's administration of the MRS Foundation account. I am glad to have their purchasing power on our side, as well as the assistance of my research group's administrative assistant, Ms. Lauren Murrah and my postdoc advisor, Prof. Arumugam Manthiram. Dr. Jia Ming Chen, the education director of UCLA's CNSI and SciBridge senior advisor, has been guiding us through the purchasing process to make sure we don't pay more than we have to and thus maximize our kit contents.

Meanwhile, John Paul is busy preparing for the first workshop at Makerere University. Friend and JUAMI member, Dr. Adrian Hightower, has been assisting us by bringing a key "ingredient" for the experiment kits with him on his trip to Uganda this summer. John Paul will update you on Adrian's great visit to Makerere U in a blog post very soon. Many exciting things are happening at SciBridge; thank you for following our journey!

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Scibridge in the mrs bulletin

7/16/2014

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The MRS Bulletin, the monthly publication of the Materials Research Society, lists SciBridge in this month's "Letter from the President," which also details the purpose of the MRS Foundation. We are excited to contribute to the Society's mission of impacting the global materials science community!

In addition, the Materials Research Society recently decided to offer free memberships to students in developing countries. This is an excellent opportunity to join the society and receive free monthly subscriptions to the academic journals MRS Bulletin and MRS Communications.

You can find the full letter below as well as by clicking here.

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scibridge virtual conference recap

7/9/2014

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We had a great discussion today about the goals and direction of the SciBridge project during our first virtual conference! Despite the time zone miscalculation, Nella Vargas (Penn State), Kelsey Hatzell (Drexel University) and Alula Gebresas (Mekelle University) were able to join me in a very fruitful conversation.

Here is a recap:

We are awaiting disbursement of the MRS Foundation award pending agreement reviews from the Foundation & University of Texas. We are learning a lot about the grant proposal/award/administration process to apply for future fundraising opportunities!
We are hoping to begin sending our first kits on dye-sensitized solar cells this fall. As soon as we have access to the funds we should be able to order the supplies and begin packaging and shipping the kits.
The SciBridge project is growing and we need to appoint several central management positions, particularly in Fundraising, Social Media, and Experiment Kit Development. If you are interested, please e-mail Veronica (vaugustyn@utexas.edu).
We discussed the need to keep SciBridge a distributed project with involvement from many institutions in the U.S. and Africa. Kelsey suggested that each campus could form their own SciBridge chapter in order to utilize local resources.
Alula stressed the need for nanoscience experiment kits at his institution as well as Ethiopia in general. He also requested thorough background literature for the instructors as well as a live chat session on experiment tips and tricks. Nella will be the dye-sensitized solar cell experiment expert guide this fall.

We thank everyone for their participation and look forward to future meetings!

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