Visiting professors program seeks funding to continue

By Margeux Clemmons     11/13/08 6:00pm

The International Visiting Fellows Program fosters collaborative work among Rice professors and researchers from diverse communities on environmental and sustainability issues, but the program may not be able to sustain itself if its co-directors are unable to secure future funds. The residence program is in its second year and runs out of Rice's Energy and Environmental Systems Institute. The program invites professors in engineering, the natural sciences and the social sciences to conduct a research project with at least one faculty member for a period of two to nine months, co- Director Carrie Masiello said.

The President's Faculty Initiative Fund originally funded the visiting professor program for the 2007-'08 and 2008-'09 academic years, awarding $80,000 for the two-year period. The $40,000 annual budget goes toward living stipends, travel vouchers for the fellows and research costs. If the program is able to raise adequate resources in the coming months from outside donors, the committee will begin accepting applications this winter for 2009-'10 fellows.

If the program is unable to obtain funding, it will not continue in the 2009-'10 academic year, Masiello said. Still, she hopes the program's goals will continue whether or not the program remains a formal entity at Rice.

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We are promoting the fellows within the Houston community, and the main goal with that is extending the bridges," Masiello said. "We are talking with individual donors and continuing collaboration with the development office, which has helped us with brainstorming ideas for what kinds of events to hold and developing long term planning."

Masiello said the program will not seek foundation support until it is able to demonstrate a three or four year history of success. Achievement will be measured by the program's engagement with undergraduates on an international level, collaborative publications, funding and the quality of scientists the program attracts.

The program facilitates relationships between Rice and international faculty: During the application process each international fellow applicant must write a proposal in cooperation with a Rice faculty member, after which a review board of scientists who are experts in the field of the applicant's research proposal selects the fellows for the academic year.

Upcoming fellows for the 2008-'09 academic year include Erick Bandala, from Universidad de las Americas, Puebla; Hong Lin, Tsinghua University; and Yin-jin Yuan, Tianjin University, who, as the dean of chemical engineering at his institution, listed fostering opportunities for both Rice and Tianjin students as one of his foremost goals in applying for the fellowship, Masiello said.

Each fellow will be working with Rice faculty from various disciplines, including mechanical engineering, earth science, chemical engineering and civic engineering. The fellows are also required to apply for residential college associate positions.

Masiello co-authored the initial grant in 2006 with Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology Joff Silberg and the program's first participant, Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research in Caracas Professor Tibisay Perez. In addition to making connections with the Houston community, they saw the program as an opportunity both to meet a major need for increased communication among scientists from developing and developed countries working on sustainability, environmental and energy issues and to meet goals expressed in the university's Vision for the Second Century, Masiello said. Therefore, preference is given to candidates from developing areas such as China, India and nations in Latin America.

"Dr. Tibisay Perez maintains good relations with farmers and private owners of pristine tropical forest sites in her home country of Venezuela, making it easy for her to generate data on the effects of tropical agriculture on forest ecosystems," Masiello said. "It's much harder for an American scientist to build the kinds of local connections necessary for long field campaigns in the developing world. Conversely, scientists from developing countries sometimes lack the advanced analytical infrastructure necessary to answer some of their research problems."

"At least one of the teams that wasn't funded [by the program] is going ahead with their project with outside funds," said Masiello. "This is just one example of how the outcome of the project goes beyond funded fellows.

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