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Studying the Arctic from a Norwegian archipelago. Empowering women in Sierra Leone through health care. Studying the movement of T-cells in Greece. Exploring the use of 3-D printing of building materials in Italy.

These are just a few examples of projects Lehigh University faculty and doctoral students alike have been engaged in throughout the world, and their work was recognized and celebrated during International Education Week last month at Lehigh.

During a Nov. 15 event, projects were presented by recipients of two different grant programs: the Faculty Internationalization Grants and the Doctoral Travel Grants for Global Opportunities. Lehigh’s Office of International Affairs provides awards through both programs for faculty and doctoral students to engage globally through research collaborations and conference presentations.

“Both of these funds are very important, with slightly different focuses,” said Cheryl Matherly, Vice President and Vice Provost for International Affairs at Lehigh.

“For our doctoral students, it’s an important part of their work in scholarship to have opportunities to participate in conferences and research opportunities,” Matherly said. “For our faculty, it allows them to work with a collaborator, explore an idea, or engage in what I might call ‘blue sky thinking.’”

Faculty Internationalization Grants

John Paul Balmonte, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, used his grant to support fieldwork at the International Arctic Research Base in Svalbard, Norway, as part of his continued collaboration with colleagues at the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) in Goa, India.

“Hopefully our work generates enough data for our preliminary proposal to do more long-term research, and hopefully we’ll submit a proposal to the National Science Foundation,” Balmonte said. “Through this partnership between NCPOR and Lehigh, we will continue to try to get Lehigh scientists up to the Arctic.”

Michael Kramp, professor of English at Lehigh, used grant funding to expand his work as part of the Global Social Impact Fellowship project Mothers of Sierra Leone, which uses documentary film to encourage women in Sierra Leone to seek maternal healthcare.

Students will be involved in filming, editing, interviewing, and distributing documentaries highlighting innovations in prenatal care, clinical treatment, emergency surgery, postpartum care, and more. These documentaries are now shown in Sierra Leonean hospitals and other locations on a daily basis, demonstrating the effectiveness of health innovations in the country.

“I’m a 19th century British literature scholar by trade, I am not a scholar who's trained to do international work,” Kramp said. “Some faculty members come to Lehigh with extensive international training, some have thrust upon them, and some slowly learn to do some things. I am certainly in the last category, but I'm very grateful for the support that has made it possible.”

Nik Nikolov, associate professor of architecture, also presented his ongoing partnership with WASP, a company in Italy that specializes in the 3-D printing of building materials. The grant funding allowed him and Lehigh students to visit and utilize the company’s laboratory in Syracuse, a city in southeastern Sicily.

“We had 13 students who had never done this kind of work before in their lives,” Nikolov said. “We went through all the basics, and there is truly a beauty in forgiveness, and in being an amateur with this kind of material. It was very much an experiential learning experience.”

Doctoral Travel Grants

Lehigh doctoral students Sami Ahtnawanti, Artemiza A. Martinez, and Sena Mursel also presented on the international research projects or scholarly work they conducted as a result of funding they received through the Doctoral Travel Grants for Global Opportunities.

Sami Alawadhi, a PhD student in Lehigh’s Department of Physics, visited the Biophysics Summer School in Rethymno, Greece, which was directly relevant to his ongoing research project involving T-cell locomotion. He also learned about such topics as cytoskeletal mechanics, membrane biophysics, DNA damage and repair, and more.

Artemiza Martinez, a fifth-year PhD student studying molecular biology, is using yeast as a model system to study DNA and now it changes over time. She attended the Conference of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Fungi in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she networked with many other professionals and won an award for her oral presentation.

Sena Mursel, a PhD candidate studying structural engineering, used her grant funds to attend the prestigious International Conference on Application of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering in Dublin, Ireland, where she presented her research on the comparison of strategies for the optimal sampling of random functions.

“I was able to learn about research projects from around the world, which gave me a lot of ideas, and I met peers from other international universities that I believe will lead to collaborations in future research,” Mursel said. “I think we’ll do a lot of things together in the future.”

Both grant programs are supported by a fund that was established in recognition of former Lehigh President Gregory C. Farrington to support international work in the Lehigh community, Matherly said.