EARTH SCIENCE
PARTNERSHIP: Pennsylvania State University / AgroParisTech
SUBJECT: Aligning French and U.S. Educational Systems to address the global Nature of Agriculture and Food Systems The primary focus of this partnership will be the exchange of faculty and students in order to develop a shared graduate program as well as research collaboration on Agriculture and Food systems leading to the award of masters and PhD degrees by Penn State and AgroParisTech. This project will be built on a previous relation started in 2003 to move towards integration of international curricula, language training, research and internship experience. The program will exchange an increasing number of students: from 2 to 5 students from each side through the 3 years with a complete credit transfer. In addition to students, 5 exchanged faculty will build joint research collaboration and provide academic advising. For those who will not be part of the mobility, monthly seminars will be provided via distance education technologies. A summer university will be held to recruit and prepare the venue of the students. Thus, the partnership is a true cost-sharing arrangement: the universities will actively recruit students from this program and cover costs related with tuition, credits and stipends.
Full Summary : Aligning French and U.S. Educational Systems to address the global Nature of Agriculture and Food Systems
Contacts:
AgroParisTech
Vincent Brenier, International Coordinator at the Office of International and Corporate Relations
Tel: 01 44 08 16 18 vincent.brenier@agroparistech.fr www.agroparistech.fr
The Pennsylvania State University
Deanna Behring, Director of International Programs
Tel: 814 863 0249
Fax: 814 865 3055
PARTNERSHIP: University of Georgia (Athens) / Université de Pau et Pays de l’Adour – Pau
SUBJECT: Comparative historical ecology of transatlantic mountain landscapes The objective of the partnership between the University of Georgia and the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour is to develop a transdisciplinary reciprocal graduate exchange program in Comparative Historical Ecology between our two institutions. Our proposed program responds to the growing need to prepare a new generation of researchers able to analyze the complexity of our environmental challenges and design that protects essential ecosystem services while meeting human needs.
Full Summary : Comparative Historical Ecology of Transatlantic Mountain Landscapes (PDF)
Contacts:
University of Georgia
Ted Gragson
Professor
Tel: +1 (706)-542-3998
Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour
Philippe Chareyre
Professor
Tel: +33 (0)5 59 40 72 82
PARTENARIAT : University of Arizona / CNRS
SUJET : Water, Environment and Urban Development: US and EU Case Studies The proposed collaborative research and educational project seeks to deepen understanding of the relationships between water and urban society in terms of sustainable development. Urban development will be analyzed in relation to water-resources availability and water supply in the context of varying environmental and climatic conditions. The program focuses on water and urban sprawl and will consider selected U.S. and EU cases, starting with a comparison of approaches employed in the Arizona growth corridor (between Phoenix and Tucson) and the Ile-de-France region. The partnership among the University of Arizona, UMI 3157 Water, Environment and Public Policy (CNRS / University of Arizona), UMR 7619 Sisyphe (CNRS / Paris 6 and Ecole des Mines de Paris), and UMR 8504 Géographie-Cités (CNRS / Universités Paris I and Paris 7) is ideally suited to address the issues that form the subject of this proposed effort: water and urban sprawl. Ph.D. and postdoctoral students will be introduced into the research team at the start of their research. The training and educational goal aims to gradually create a transnational network of students who will contribute to a new generation of researchers working in new fields and using interdisciplinary methodologies and perspectives.
Contacts :
University of Arizona
Juan VALDES
Professeur et Directeur
Tel: +1 (520) 621 87 87
CNRS Graciela SCHNEIER-MADANES
Chercheur CNRS
Tel: +1 (520) 626 19 59
PARTENARIAT : School of Marine Science and Policy – University of Delaware / Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris 6
SUJET : The Carbon Cycle in Two Coastal Marine Ecosystems The specific objectives of the collaboration are to examine biogeochemical cycles in two contrasting coastal marine ecosystems (Mediterranean Sea coast and the Mid-Atlantic Bight) and to enhance the education and research experience of Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scientists. The disciplines involved in this project include marine microbiology, marine molecular ecology, and marine geochemistry. The partners have established coastal observing stations in their respective coastal waters in response to the global need for more data over long time scales in order to understand the response to and the role of these important ecosystems in climate change.
The project would build on this on-going collaboration and would broaden it substantially. It would allow a more thorough and direct comparison of coastal processes occurring in the Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean. The French coastal station is in nutrient-poor waters unaffected by terrestrial inputs, such as from large rivers. In contrast, Delaware coastal waters are nutrient-rich in part because of large inputs from the Delaware River and estuary. A more thorough comparison of these two contrasting sites, which this project would make possible, is likely to yield insights into general processes governing the carbon cycle and other biogeochemical processes in global coastal waters.
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Summary : The Carbon Cycle in Two Coastal Marine Ecosystems (PDF)
Contacts :
School of Marine Science and Policy – University of Delaware
David Kirchman
Professeur
Tel: +1 (302) 645 4375
Université Pierre et Marie Curie
Philippe LeBaron
Professeur
Philippe.lebaron@obs-banyuls.fr
Tel: +33 (0)4 68 88 73 00
PARTENARIAT : Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York University / Université de Limoges / Université de Poitiers
SUJET : OASIS MAJOR The scientific aim of the project « Oasis Major » is to conduct comparative research on two key archaeological sites of the oases of Dakhleh and Khargeh, in the Western Desert of Egypt : Amheida (ancient Trimithis) and El-Deir. The former has been excavated since 2001 by Prof. Roger Bagnall and his team (New York University, ISAW). The latter has been excavated since 1998 under Prof. Françoise Dunand’s direction, and it is now being surveyed under Dr. Gaelle Tallet’s direction, with the sponsoring of the University of Limoges and the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (Project JC09_435461).
As a matter of fact, these sites used to control the major entrances to a common administrative district formed by the two oases from Pharaonic times to the Roman period. It is called the Great Oasis (Oasis major) in ancient sources. The two sites are connected by two important desert routes, running East-West and protected by a chain of Roman fortresses. The fortress located at El-Deir, at the starting point of one of the quickest roads to the Valley, would have been a perfect checkpoint on the tracks leaving the Great Oasis towards the East, to the Nile Valley ; located at the North-eastern edge of Khargeh oasis, it provided the last water point before the 7 days trip to the Valley. On the other hand, the site Amheida, located at the western edge of Dakhleh Oasis, is thought to have been part of a continuum including the neighbouring temple of Deir el Haggar and the archaeological remains of an ancient castrum (el Qasr).
Thus, the settlements of Amheida and El-Deir are to be studied within the frame of Roman fortresses in the Western Desert of Egypt, all of them
surrounded by extensive agricultural landscapes and equipped with sophisticated water systems.
Accordingly, studying the connections between Amheida and El Deir from the Persian period (6th-4th century BCE) to the Christian period (4th-5th century CE) should provide novel insights on circulation across the Western Desert and pave the way for further global studies on the connections between Sudan, North Africa and Egypt, especially under Roman rule. The project especially focuses on the study of the exploitation of desert water resources in the longue durée and investigates the adaptation of agricultural and irrigation techniques to the environmental specificities of the sites, in relation with the monitoring of the economic traffic along the whole network of the caravan routes.
Contacts :
Université de Limoges
Gaëlle Tallet
Maître de conférences
Tel : + 33 (0) 5-55-43-55-67
New York University
Roger S. Bagnall
Professeur et Directeur de l’Institut
Tel : +1 (212) 992‐7833
PARTNERSHIP: Portland State University and Ecole spéciale d’architecture de Paris
SUBJECT: Architecture and human dignity: Haiti, re build The joint ESA/PSU program is a call to action. It addresses an urgent need for architects and engineers to apply their training, competence, and ingenuity to risk-prevention, mitigation, response, recovery, and development. The need increases as environmental degradation and growing poverty put more of the world’s population at risk from natural and human-caused disasters. Few if any academic programs exist to prepare these professionals; the ESA/PSU effort will create programs that begin preparing a generation of trained professionals in France and the US. To create and test much-needed international bonds of collaboration, the program will operate in the hot-spot, Haiti, training architecture students to become critical, relevant partners helping communities rebuild after disaster. It will train students to create resilient solutions ensuring safety of new schools and homes; bring coherence to land-use planning; research innovative building technologies; and employ low-cost, energy-saving, environmentally sound materials and prefabrication methods. By integrating design solutions with infrastructural systems it will help further reduce future risk and promote awareness. In Haiti, repeatedly devastated by earthquake, cyclone, and cycles of decline, it is especially important to work toward prevention and long term resilience. The three-year ESA/PSU program will build national capacity in France and the US to provide long-term assistance through the nations’ institutions of higher learning.
Contacts:
Portland State University
Sergio Palleroni
Professor and Senior Fellow
Institute for Sustainable Solution
Tel: +1 503-725-8318
Ecole spéciale d’architecture de Paris
Marie J. Aquilino
Visiting Professor
Tel: +33(0)6 37 03 03 15