Dear all,
First of all, a big congratulation on winning the 2009 ThinkSwiss Research Scholarships! I'm sure all of us can't wait to embark on a journey to Switzerland, this coming summer.
My name is Yee Hoong Chow, a junior in chemical & biological engineering at Northwestern University. My current research interests focus on energy-related topics, and am now working in the lab of Professor Linda Broadbelt at Northwestern, the the field of molecular simulation. Previously, I worked in tissue engineering and cell culture, under Professor Lonnie Shea on his ovarian follicle culture and maturation project, between 2006 and 2007. My research activities have had a strong connection to biological systems and application of chemical engineering.
This summer, I will be researching with Professor Vassily Hatzimanikatis, in the Laboratory of Computational Systems Biotechnology at EPFL. I do know German - but not French - so going to the French speaking part of Switzerland shall be a different kind of experience to me.
All in all I'm simply excited about this summer, as well as the opportunity to meet up with you all. Looking forward to a great summer in Switzerland.
-Yee Hoong
Northwestern University
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Introductions
Hello to my fellow researchers and to our web readership at large. My name is Erin Turk, and I am entering my final year of undergraduate studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. I'm a biology major and an incurable lab rat. This summer (June 1 - July 31) I will be headed to the Université de Lausanne on beautiful Lake Geneva to study in Professor Jürg Tschopp's lab. I will be working with a post-doc on the UV-induced DNA damage response. I have worked in a couple of different cancer labs, and am excited to tackle the problem from a new angle as a part of a biochemistry lab. So far, I've enjoyed meeting parts of the lab by email and can't wait to see them all in person.
I spent last summer in the MIT Summer Research Program in the Jacks Lab with a fantastic Swiss post-doc, Etienne Meylan. He often told me of the wonderful environment in Lausanne and Switzerland in general, and piqued my interest in working there. Having never been to Switzerland, I am very excited to go, meet new people, and learn a new language. I am a native San Diegan, so the French is very new. I'm hoping I will not arrive and attempt to speak French in a Spanish accent, as would befit my regional background, but we shall see soon enough.
I am very grateful to the ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship for the funding and the forum in which to share a collection of new experiences. So for now, À bientôt tout le monde!
I spent last summer in the MIT Summer Research Program in the Jacks Lab with a fantastic Swiss post-doc, Etienne Meylan. He often told me of the wonderful environment in Lausanne and Switzerland in general, and piqued my interest in working there. Having never been to Switzerland, I am very excited to go, meet new people, and learn a new language. I am a native San Diegan, so the French is very new. I'm hoping I will not arrive and attempt to speak French in a Spanish accent, as would befit my regional background, but we shall see soon enough.
I am very grateful to the ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship for the funding and the forum in which to share a collection of new experiences. So for now, À bientôt tout le monde!
The beginning
Dear All,
Above all, congratulations to the 2009 ThinkSwiss Scholarship recipients! Also, a big thanks to Mr. Lukas Sieber who has been very supportive to us in the application process!
My name is Jason Qian. I am a 2nd year undergraduate student studying biomedical engineering at the George Washington University in Washington D.C.
Around June 1st, I will be heading to Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) to work in the laboratory headed by Dr. Melody Swartz of the Institute of Bioengineering. Dr. Swartz's lab is focused on understanding the fundamental mechanism of lymphatic system. For example, how nano-scale particles can enhance drug-delivery to lymphatic metastasis.
I grew up in French town across the border from Geneva named St. Genis Pouilly (near CERN). Among the many activities I love to do are bike riding, mountain hiking, photography, traveling. I hope I can use my acquaintance with the area to organize various outdoor activities with the others recipients.
I am very very very excited to go back to Switzerland for this summer not only to acquire new research experience and meet the other ThinkSwiss scholars, but also to catchup with family and friends (and the culinary delights!).
Let the fun begin!
See y'all
Congartulations to all the recipients of Thinkswiss2009 scholarship
Hi,
This is Ishita Basu from the University of Illinois at Chicago. I am a phd student here in the electrical and computer engineering department. My research interest is biomedical signal processing and modeling of neurological data. I would be visiting the biomedical image processing lab in EPFL headed by Prof. Michael Unser. I will be working with Dr Dimitri Van De Ville who is heading the Signal Processing Unit of the Centre d'Imagerie BioMédicale (CIBM) at the University Hospital of Geneva (HUG). He is also a senior member of the Biomedical Imaging group at EPFL.
I am pretty excited about this opportunity and I hope to learn newer techniques that I can use on the data I am interested in. This would also be my first visit to Europe.
Ishita
This is Ishita Basu from the University of Illinois at Chicago. I am a phd student here in the electrical and computer engineering department. My research interest is biomedical signal processing and modeling of neurological data. I would be visiting the biomedical image processing lab in EPFL headed by Prof. Michael Unser. I will be working with Dr Dimitri Van De Ville who is heading the Signal Processing Unit of the Centre d'Imagerie BioMédicale (CIBM) at the University Hospital of Geneva (HUG). He is also a senior member of the Biomedical Imaging group at EPFL.
I am pretty excited about this opportunity and I hope to learn newer techniques that I can use on the data I am interested in. This would also be my first visit to Europe.
Ishita
The 2009 ThinkSwiss Researchers
Dear 2009 ThinkSwiss Researchers,
Congratulations on being selected for a 2009 ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship! This Blog is a place for you to share your experiences and for us to provide you with helpful information and let you know about meetings and events. Please keep in touch and be sure to write on the ThinkSwiss Research Blog on a regular basis!
Please introduce yourself briefly and tell us about your expectations and your research project in Switzerland.
The whole ThinkSwiss community is very interested in your research experiences and will read with great curiosity your posted blogs. The exchange of knowledge and the establishment of a network between you and Swiss researchers in your labs is one of the main objectives of the ThinkSwiss research stay.
The following students were awarded and do research at the following Swiss universities/research institutes:
Brett Albert (Harvard University), ETH Zurich
Erin Turk (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), University of Lausanne
Igor Labutov (City University of New York), EPFL
Ishita Basu (University of Illinois at Chicago), EPFL
Jason Qian (George Washington University), EPFL
Jialiang (Julian) Wang (Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University), EPFL
Jonathan Broogard (Northwestern University), University of Lausanne
Kalin Peige (Arizona State University), University of Zurich
Kayla King (Indiana University), EAWAG
Martin Monasteiro (Rutgers University), ETH Zurich
Matan Mayer (Harvard University), EPFL
Nicole Beckage (Indiana University), University of Basel
Rebecca Recker (Johns Hopkins University), University of Geneva
Rob Futia (Loyola College in Baltimore), University of Zurich
Savannah Adams (Emory University Atlanta), ETH Zurich
Tom Stewart (Columbia University), ETH Zurich
Yee Hoong Chow (Northwestern University), EPFL
We are looking forward to reading more about your research and your time in Switzerland.
Kind regards,
Lukas (on behalf of the program committee)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Final Report: ThinkSwiss Research Visit, University of St. Gallen
I submitted my formal "final report' to the ThinkSwiss Program after returning from Switzerland in December (I completed my research visit in October and November). This blog contains a collection of interesting, and diverse research reports. I hope that this one contributes to the general stock of knowledge about the program and provides another example of how a research visit might be constructed and executed. This entry provides an informal perspective on the experience, written primarily for those who plan to apply for a research grant, or have applied and are curious about the experiences of others.
The ThinkSwiss program is extremely well-run, end to end. The administration and logistics related to the application process were smoothly handled, the research grant was generous, and my contacts at swissnex Boston and the Swiss Embassy Washington were great to work with. The application and reporting processes were far from onerous - the output of both processes were a precisely-defined plan for my stay and a set of documents that I could pass on to my advisors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Lally School of Management and Technology) and the National Science Foundation (IGERT Fellowship Program). I also appreciated the fact that ThinkSwiss sent a program officer to visit the University of St. Gallen (my sponsoring institution) to interview those that worked with me about my research stay. In sum, I would say that the way the program is run had a significant and positive impact on my research.
In October and November I based myself at the Institute for the Economy and Environment at the University of St. Gallen. They were great hosts - I was integrated into the activities of the Institute as soon as I arrived, and they had already arranged an office, desk, computing, and research support. Since the Institute is also home base for Oikos International, the office was a hub of activity every day. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen arranged a series of student-led presentations during my visit; near the end of my stay, we presented some of the results from our joint work to the other scholars there, and received great feedback. The research presentations were an important part of my visit, as my engagement with and feedback on the work of others was an opportunity for me to make a positive contribution to what was happening at the Institute. My day-to-day life at the Institute - reading, writing, thinking, and talking - left a strong impression on me.
Everyone I met at the Institute—and I do mean everyone—was focused, productive, organized, and genial: from top to bottom, from the experience getting a network password to arranging lodging, the group did their utmost to ensure that I was capable of being focused and productive from the start of my visit to the end. I can’t say enough about the capability and the hospitality of the entire group.
St. Gallen itself had everything I needed to settle into a routine. It's a walking city - I woke up, groggy, staggered down the hill to get espresso, started my day by engaging in the thuggish, brainless research tasks, occasionally accelerating into actual thinking, and usually writing. In the early afternoon Rolf and I would go for a trail run on one of the endless paths ringing St. Gallen, and then I would return and work until I snapped. After that, dinner, sleep, and repeat. Occasionally, I would break the routine of research and visit other institutions: for example, EAWAG in Dübendorf (Bernhard Truffer) and ETH-SusTec in Zurich (Timo Busch, Volker Hoffmann). Visiting other schools and meeting with visitors to St. Gallen kept things interesting at the time, and in retrospect those conversations created numerous insights and opportunities. One of the nice things about a research visit in Switzerland is that you are two hours by train away from any other university.
My research objectives during my stay were relatively straightforward (especially since the application process clarified for myself and the University of St. Gallen exactly what results they could expect). I was able to extend my existing research collaboration on innovation and the capital markets with Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen. The two of us produced a proposal for the Swiss National Science foundation for research on the behavioral aspects of venture capital investment, using renewable energy technology as a context (does venture capital decision-making differ in the renewables space? how do venture capital investors choose new industry segments?). We also launched a new book project on energy entrepreneurship with the support of Edward Elgar Publishing. And we began work on two new papers, and presented a third (on venture capital involvement in the funding and commercialization of fuel cells) at two conferences.
I had some other, ancillary objectives to accomplish during this trip as well. First and foremost was to introduce my born-in-California, raised-in-California, never-left-California fiancé to life outside The Bubble. For an itinerant scholar, all roads do not end at the Pacific Coast Highway - one takes the jobs on offer. So for the two of us the trip was an experiment to see whether or not Switzerland fell into the No Way This Place Is Too Cold bucket. As it turns out (and much to my surprise) Switzerland (and especially St. Gallen) were a go. She liked the hills and cobblestone streets, remarking that the town felt remarkably like California to her (this is high praise). What sealed the deal: durum kabobs. Did you know that there is a Swiss version of Yelp that lists, and rates, every single kabab shop in town? Neither did I. We visited all of them. The local beer got another big-up. Smoking in the bars, not so much - but that's getting legislated out of existence as we speak. The farmer's markets were completely acceptable, as was the plethora of dark, seedy, intestine-ripping bread available from every local bakery. Other differences crucial to shaping her overall impression of Switzerland were the traditional ice cream break in the middle of feature length movies (initially confusing but good) and the rigorously enforced 10 AM and 2 PM break for espresso at the Institute (also good).
An unexpected outcome of my visit was an additional piece of joint research on solar energy investment and public policy regimes, which I am working on with another PhD student at the Institute. It was enjoyable to contribute to the development of the prestigious and important Oikos PhD Seminar for 2009, providing advice and introductions to Dr. Jost Hamschmidt.
Challenges relating to the stay are probably unsurprising, and one of which—the brevity of the visit—was of my own devising. Although I wish that I could have spent more time at the Institute—optimally, another two months—at this stage of my PhD dissertation a stay of that length would have been unworkable. It was a pleasure, however, to be outside of the United States during the weeks immediately preceding our elections, as this afforded a particularly interesting perspective from which to view the general goings-on inside and outside the United States.
The cost of living was, of course, a challenge; however the financial support provided by the ThinkSwiss grant made the visit possible, and in this sense I am grateful for the opportunity. Through the help of the Institute I secured a house stay with a host family, which helped immensely. I published my final budget to the Institute in December. Two things that I noted at the time were that additional ad hoc travel for meetings (to Zurich, Bern, Geneva, and Basel) turned out to be crucial, and quite expensive; and that staying with a host family changed my cost structure dramatically for the better. ThinkSwiss might consider trying to formalize a host-stay program somehow.
My final thought on the program relates to the oft-raised issue of expenses and activities, and for those considering a research stay perhaps the following might be something to consider. Conducting a research stay - traveling somewhere, staying there, and working - is roughly a fixed cost, minus the travel. Transport (walking) and eating (regional staple foods) are roughly the same everywhere in the world. I enjoyed a three week period in Switzerland where the Swiss Franc was pounding the dollar, and coffee got expensive, and then declined again. No big deal. What is a big deal is when you confuse or mix vacation related expenses (train tickets, eating out, general hi-jinks) with what it takes to conduct research (survive). If you try to take a "research vacation" in Switzerland, your research will be the worse for it and your vacation will suffer because you will fret about what you aren't getting done. My unsolicited advice: shelve the tourism for another time. There's a lot to learn and experience simply embedding yourself in your town, and simply living.
Thanks again to the ThinkSwiss organization, the Swiss Embassy in Washington, and the National Science Foundation IGERT Program for the wonderful opportunity.
The ThinkSwiss program is extremely well-run, end to end. The administration and logistics related to the application process were smoothly handled, the research grant was generous, and my contacts at swissnex Boston and the Swiss Embassy Washington were great to work with. The application and reporting processes were far from onerous - the output of both processes were a precisely-defined plan for my stay and a set of documents that I could pass on to my advisors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Lally School of Management and Technology) and the National Science Foundation (IGERT Fellowship Program). I also appreciated the fact that ThinkSwiss sent a program officer to visit the University of St. Gallen (my sponsoring institution) to interview those that worked with me about my research stay. In sum, I would say that the way the program is run had a significant and positive impact on my research.
In October and November I based myself at the Institute for the Economy and Environment at the University of St. Gallen. They were great hosts - I was integrated into the activities of the Institute as soon as I arrived, and they had already arranged an office, desk, computing, and research support. Since the Institute is also home base for Oikos International, the office was a hub of activity every day. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen arranged a series of student-led presentations during my visit; near the end of my stay, we presented some of the results from our joint work to the other scholars there, and received great feedback. The research presentations were an important part of my visit, as my engagement with and feedback on the work of others was an opportunity for me to make a positive contribution to what was happening at the Institute. My day-to-day life at the Institute - reading, writing, thinking, and talking - left a strong impression on me.
Everyone I met at the Institute—and I do mean everyone—was focused, productive, organized, and genial: from top to bottom, from the experience getting a network password to arranging lodging, the group did their utmost to ensure that I was capable of being focused and productive from the start of my visit to the end. I can’t say enough about the capability and the hospitality of the entire group.
St. Gallen itself had everything I needed to settle into a routine. It's a walking city - I woke up, groggy, staggered down the hill to get espresso, started my day by engaging in the thuggish, brainless research tasks, occasionally accelerating into actual thinking, and usually writing. In the early afternoon Rolf and I would go for a trail run on one of the endless paths ringing St. Gallen, and then I would return and work until I snapped. After that, dinner, sleep, and repeat. Occasionally, I would break the routine of research and visit other institutions: for example, EAWAG in Dübendorf (Bernhard Truffer) and ETH-SusTec in Zurich (Timo Busch, Volker Hoffmann). Visiting other schools and meeting with visitors to St. Gallen kept things interesting at the time, and in retrospect those conversations created numerous insights and opportunities. One of the nice things about a research visit in Switzerland is that you are two hours by train away from any other university.
My research objectives during my stay were relatively straightforward (especially since the application process clarified for myself and the University of St. Gallen exactly what results they could expect). I was able to extend my existing research collaboration on innovation and the capital markets with Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen. The two of us produced a proposal for the Swiss National Science foundation for research on the behavioral aspects of venture capital investment, using renewable energy technology as a context (does venture capital decision-making differ in the renewables space? how do venture capital investors choose new industry segments?). We also launched a new book project on energy entrepreneurship with the support of Edward Elgar Publishing. And we began work on two new papers, and presented a third (on venture capital involvement in the funding and commercialization of fuel cells) at two conferences.
I had some other, ancillary objectives to accomplish during this trip as well. First and foremost was to introduce my born-in-California, raised-in-California, never-left-California fiancé to life outside The Bubble. For an itinerant scholar, all roads do not end at the Pacific Coast Highway - one takes the jobs on offer. So for the two of us the trip was an experiment to see whether or not Switzerland fell into the No Way This Place Is Too Cold bucket. As it turns out (and much to my surprise) Switzerland (and especially St. Gallen) were a go. She liked the hills and cobblestone streets, remarking that the town felt remarkably like California to her (this is high praise). What sealed the deal: durum kabobs. Did you know that there is a Swiss version of Yelp that lists, and rates, every single kabab shop in town? Neither did I. We visited all of them. The local beer got another big-up. Smoking in the bars, not so much - but that's getting legislated out of existence as we speak. The farmer's markets were completely acceptable, as was the plethora of dark, seedy, intestine-ripping bread available from every local bakery. Other differences crucial to shaping her overall impression of Switzerland were the traditional ice cream break in the middle of feature length movies (initially confusing but good) and the rigorously enforced 10 AM and 2 PM break for espresso at the Institute (also good).
An unexpected outcome of my visit was an additional piece of joint research on solar energy investment and public policy regimes, which I am working on with another PhD student at the Institute. It was enjoyable to contribute to the development of the prestigious and important Oikos PhD Seminar for 2009, providing advice and introductions to Dr. Jost Hamschmidt.
Challenges relating to the stay are probably unsurprising, and one of which—the brevity of the visit—was of my own devising. Although I wish that I could have spent more time at the Institute—optimally, another two months—at this stage of my PhD dissertation a stay of that length would have been unworkable. It was a pleasure, however, to be outside of the United States during the weeks immediately preceding our elections, as this afforded a particularly interesting perspective from which to view the general goings-on inside and outside the United States.
The cost of living was, of course, a challenge; however the financial support provided by the ThinkSwiss grant made the visit possible, and in this sense I am grateful for the opportunity. Through the help of the Institute I secured a house stay with a host family, which helped immensely. I published my final budget to the Institute in December. Two things that I noted at the time were that additional ad hoc travel for meetings (to Zurich, Bern, Geneva, and Basel) turned out to be crucial, and quite expensive; and that staying with a host family changed my cost structure dramatically for the better. ThinkSwiss might consider trying to formalize a host-stay program somehow.
My final thought on the program relates to the oft-raised issue of expenses and activities, and for those considering a research stay perhaps the following might be something to consider. Conducting a research stay - traveling somewhere, staying there, and working - is roughly a fixed cost, minus the travel. Transport (walking) and eating (regional staple foods) are roughly the same everywhere in the world. I enjoyed a three week period in Switzerland where the Swiss Franc was pounding the dollar, and coffee got expensive, and then declined again. No big deal. What is a big deal is when you confuse or mix vacation related expenses (train tickets, eating out, general hi-jinks) with what it takes to conduct research (survive). If you try to take a "research vacation" in Switzerland, your research will be the worse for it and your vacation will suffer because you will fret about what you aren't getting done. My unsolicited advice: shelve the tourism for another time. There's a lot to learn and experience simply embedding yourself in your town, and simply living.
Thanks again to the ThinkSwiss organization, the Swiss Embassy in Washington, and the National Science Foundation IGERT Program for the wonderful opportunity.
Happy New Year (almost...)!!!
I wanted to submit my final thoughts to the blog after I got back to the US, but I thought this might be a good way to end 2008. I am sure once I get back to Austin and feel the cultural differences that I have stopped noticing, my perspective would be a little more useful. Anyway, below are my responses to the ThinkSwiss program questions!
I did not really know what to expect from my time here, but I think this program is a really brilliant idea. I see everything that others have written about their experience, and it seems like a lot of people are strongly considering coming back. As for me, I feel more likely to return here than to remain in the US because the Spatial Development and Infrastructure Systems MS program at ETH is exactly what I would like to do. While Zurich is one of the smaller major cities with about 400,000 inhabitants, it has every luxury and amenity a person could want within a manageable area. I will definitely return, especially if for a PhD, since I like the system better. I would like to return for my MS, but we will see how the application process plays out...
It’s difficult for me to name 3 “things” that were great about the stay. I really enjoyed my co-workers, the mountains, Zurich, and in general everything I got to experience. One thing I have been spoiled and especially impressed by, though, is the efficiency of everything in Switzerland. I only experienced a few delays in the public transport during my nearly four months here, and I never waited in line for an unnecessarily long time. It was possible to get information for just about everything online and even in English when I needed it. We were even able to order a 6 kilogram turkey online from a local farmer for Thanksgiving dinner and have it delivered the next day. It was the freshest turkey I have ever consumed. My favourite feature of this efficiency, though, is the integration of the post office and the banking system. The Swiss (and many other European countries) brilliantly combined two of my most frequent and annoying errands in one location.
There are not even three negative points I can think of, either. One thing that irritated me was people’s curiosity about the election and American politics. Obviously it was an exciting time, but some people were really rude when they wanted to talk to me about it. In general I am told the Swiss are as discreet about their personal lives as they are about their banking, so I am sure it was just a rare exception. Still, the exceptions were extremely pushy and insulting.
E
And for budgeting purposes, I tracked my expenses during my 4 months here. I spent about 1400 CHF a month, but that is including airfare for some travel I did while in Switzerland, which is unnecessary and, to be honest, a little stressful. Looking back I would have preferred if I had just tried to visit my friends in Munich and Barcelona but spent all my weekends in the Alps or just hanging out in Zürich. I probably could have gotten by on about 1100 CHF each month.
While in the end I did not feel as though I had contributed anything significant with my research, I am so glad I had the opportunity to work in this environment. My goal was to predict the price and energy consumption of new vehicles purchased by Swiss households based on their environmental attitudes and demographic characteristics. Collecting such psychological data at all is still a relatively new concept, so perhaps there was not enough data to produce conclusive results. Maybe its because it is so difficult to measure at all; the vehicle market is so diverse that there are hundreds of options/luxuries/qualities to quantify. My models were at least consistent with past results in suggesting that price and vehicle size are the most important attributes of new vehicle purchases (so environmental attitudes, not so much). In any case, now that I know what kind of problems to look for in the data and my models, I feel any future research work will be much more productive.
Finally, I'd like to thank everyone involved with ThinkSwiss for this rare opportunity- I think its definitely a program that should be continued, if for no other reason than to advertise and incentivize overseas research. Also thanks to Prof. Kay Axhausen and his entire research group for all the fun and information they shared. It was a really great experience, and I can't wait to come back to Zürich!
With my favorite breed- the Bernese Mountain Dog, or Berner Sennenhund!
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