US and African students unite around materials for sustainable energy at second JUAMI
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US and African students unite around materials for sustainable energy at second JUAMI http://juami.ms.northwestern.edu • http://juamiafrica.blogspot.com
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he development of solutions to global sustainable energy needs is fraught with challenges. Save scientific and technological considerations, solutions must also overcome geographic, economic, cultural, and communication barriers among researchers across the world. These are not easy tasks, but they are ones that students at the Joint Undertaking for an African Materials Institute (JUAMI) are hoping to address. For 13 days from
May 29 to June 10, 25 US and 40 African students convened at JUAMI 2016 in Arusha, Tanzania, to explore the current state of global sustainable energy research and identify the materials science challenges associated with meeting future sustainable energy needs. JUAMI was first held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2012. This inaugural event established a foundation for international materials science collaboration and
brought together 20 US and 35 African students. The 2016 institute, like the first, had a diverse class of student participants. US students came from more than 15 universities. The African students were predominantly from the subSaharan African countries of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, with representation from Nigeria, South Africa, and Mozambique. The 2016 institute included an intensive two-week course with lectures, hands-on learning activities, and leading-edge research seminars in the area of renewable energy from top researchers in their respective fields. Every morning, students listened to lectures on topics ranging from batteries and solid-oxide fuel cells to thermoelectrics and polymer photovoltaics. The afternoon learning activities provided students the opportunity to put concepts into practice. Brian Doyle, a doctoral student in Materials Science from Georgia Institute of Technology, appreciated these afternoon sessions: “At times it’s tough to fully grasp physical principles, especially in engineering. Sometimes you just need to see it in person.” One particular afternoon, teams of students built a galvanostat with common electrical components and a breadboard to measure the performance of a battery. Another afternoon, using similar equipment, photometers were made to test the absorbance of nanoparticles. Doyle said, “The genius in Top: JUAMI students test the performance of solar cells in the afternoon Tanzanian sun. Bottom: JUAMI participants these experiments was the simvisit the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania, to tour the campus and plicity in which off-the-shelf to attend the institute’s plenary lecture.
• VOLUME 41 • AUGUST 2016 • www.mrs.org/bulletin Downloaded MRS fromBULLETIN https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 80.82.77.83, on 07 Sep 2017 at 12:02:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2016.176
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