April 10, 2015
Talented overseas researchers head to UOW to tackle real world problems
Talented researchers from around the world head to UOW to tackle real global issues.
UOW's commitment to collaborating with talented mid-career researchers from around the world has advanced with the announcement of the first 10 outstanding academics to visit UOW under the Vice-Chancellor’s International Scholar Awards (VISA) Scheme.
The new scheme will provide funding to support 40 such scholars over the next four years from the UK, USA, Asia and Europe to work at UOW on real world problems for two to six months.
“It will lift our research collaborations globally and build new linkages and connections with high-quality international research institutions,” Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings said.
The first of the VISA recipients are due to arrive at UOW this year.
The successful applicants all have the potential to make a significant contribution to UOW’s research profile, particularly its priority research areas. Hence, topics to be explored by the visitors will range from energy storage programs, climate change, healthy eating and physical activity, developing a new process to manufacture nickel-based superalloys and exploring research opportunities with UOW’s Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research.
The first 10 VISA recipients are: Professor Liming Dai (Case Western Reserve University, USA); Associate Professor Michael Evans (University of Maryland, USA); Professor Yong-Cheng Lin (Central South University, China); Associate Professor Michael Beets (University of South Carolina, USA); Professor Colin Green (Lancaster University, UK); Dr Tavis Potts (University of Aberdeen, UK); Dr Anshuman Mondal (Brunel University London, UK); Professor Romuald Lepers (University of Burgundy, France); Dr AbdouMaliq Simone, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Ethnic and Religious Diversity, Germany); and Professor Kevin Mark Hannam (Leeds Beckett University, UK).
In 2014, UOW launched its ‘Global Challenges Program’ designed to encourage and develop creative and community-engaged research that will help drive social, economic, and cultural change in the local region that would be translatable across the globe.
Director of the Global Challenges Program is Professor Chris Gibson from UOW’s Department of Geography and Sustainable Communities.
Details about the new VISA Scheme follows from the recently announced three-year Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowships, which will see six high-achieving Early Career Researchers also join the UOW research community this year.
See the first 10 recipients and their topics under the new VISA Scheme.