Achievement

In 2012, trainee Veronica Augustyn joined a U.S. delegation to visit Ethiopia as part of the 1st Joint U.S.-Africa Materials Initiative, or JUAMI. This was an NSF-funded research school that brought together graduate students, postdocs, and other young scientists from the U.S. and several eastern African countries in order to establish contacts in the area of materials for energy and sustainability. Veronica continues both research and educational collaboration with her African colleague she met there, John Paul. The group is developing a program to provide nanoscience experiment kits as hands-on learning opportunities for undergraduate students in Makarere University in Kampala, the oldest university institution at Uganda. These kits will expose students to state-of-the-art science topics that are not currently taught there.