Written by emg210 | September 12, 2019 | SHARE
In a confluence of events, Dimitrios Vavylonis saw an opportunity to create an international research experience for students.
He was on sabbatical in Japan working in the lab of his research collaborator at Kyoto University. His former collaborator, Ikuko Fujiwara, was starting to develop international connections for a new creative engineering program at Nagoya Institute of Technology (NITech) nearby. And at Lehigh, the Iacocca International Internship Program (IIIP) was inviting faculty and staff to propose new group internships for students.
IIIP aims to make international experiences accessible to all students and prioritizes students who have high financial need or who have never been abroad before. The program partners with faculty to lead some internships to enable a broader geographic reach, especially in locations where students are less likely to travel independently, and provide opportunities for students who might not be comfortable with independent travel and work abroad, as well as expand on faculty research collaborations and institutional partnerships. Faculty can also lead study abroad programs over summer and winter breaks.
“I thought that this may be an opportunity for Lehigh students given the connections I had with Dr. Fujiwara, who was both familiar with U.S. students and personally knew various NITech faculty that could host the Lehigh students,” says Vavylonis, who is a professor of physics at Lehigh.
In Vavylonis’s group internship program, four students visit NITech for eight weeks in the summer and work in a research lab on a project that matches their background or interests. In addition to getting real lab experience, they have the experience of living in a country that has different professional and research norms than the U.S. and learning to communicate and collaborate across cultures.
“I first heard about the Iacocca International Internship program my freshman year,” says Rachel Fan ’18, who participating in the internship in 2017. “I knew I already had a packed schedule credits wise for my time at Lehigh, so having an opportunity to go abroad during the summer was something I wanted to take advantage of. I also liked how the program was fully funded and gave a chance to gain work experience abroad, which is a resume differentiator.
“I chose the Nagoya IIIP as my first choice because Japan was a country that I was interested in traveling to and learning about culture-wise. The program was also geared towards my bioengineering major, and I felt that I could both learn more and apply my bioengineering knowledge during the program.”
Through the internship, Fan worked in a collaboration between NITech and a structural biology lab at nearby Nagoya University, researching how actin, a protein in muscle cells, is broken down and recycled by a severing protein called gelsolin.
“During the Nagoya IIIP, I was working and socializing with Japanese teams in the lab,” Fan says. “I was able to gain experience working in cross-cultural teams, especially with a language barrier. This experience helped prepare me for working on group projects at Lehigh and working with different teams in my future career. The Nagoya IIIP was also my first experience living abroad for an extended period of time. I gained a sense of independence and confidence being able to live and care for myself in a foreign country.”
Alexandro Pozos ’20 went to NITech in 2018. A mechanical engineering major, he researched a growing technique called Genetic Algorithm that can easily and precisely find coefficients for mathematical equations. Working in a lab with graduate students, Pozos learned about industrial control systems, but his education in Japan went beyond engineering.
“When I was accepted to the program, I was elated to finally have a chance to do some research. However I was not expecting to have that ‘eye opening’ moment,” Pozos said.
“At one point when I was climbing down Mt. Fuji, I heard a child ask her mother if she could see the entire world from the top. This was more impactful than I thought because I could only see a fraction of the world, despite being on the tallest mountain in Japan. In the whole grand scheme of things, we are so small and insignificant. There are going to be conversations in languages that we will not understand, people we will not meet, or places left unseen. However, this is okay for me. I believe this because we can impact one person’s world with small and kind gestures every day. This is something that I still try to do right now.”
The Iacocca International Internship Program is accepting faculty and staff proposals for theme-based internships for summer 2020. The deadline to submit is proposal is September 24. Learn more about opportunities for faculty and staff here.
“During the Nagoya IIIP, I was working and socializing with Japanese teams in the lab,” Fan says. “I was able to gain experience working in cross-cultural teams, especially with a language barrier. This experience helped prepare me for working on group projects at Lehigh and working with different teams in my future career. The Nagoya IIIP was also my first experience living abroad for an extended period of time. I gained a sense of independence and confidence being able to live and care for myself in a foreign country.”
Alexandro Pozos ’20 went to NITech in 2018. A mechanical engineering major, he researched a growing technique called Genetic Algorithm that can easily and precisely find coefficients for mathematical equations. Working in a lab with graduate students, Pozos learned about industrial control systems, but his education in Japan went beyond engineering.
“When I was accepted to the program, I was elated to finally have a chance to do some research. However I was not expecting to have that ‘eye opening’ moment,” Pozos said.
“At one point when I was climbing down Mt. Fuji, I heard a child ask her mother if she could see the entire world from the top. This was more impactful than I thought because I could only see a fraction of the world, despite being on the tallest mountain in Japan. In the whole grand scheme of things, we are so small and insignificant. There are going to be conversations in languages that we will not understand, people we will not meet, or places left unseen. However, this is okay for me. I believe this because we can impact one person’s world with small and kind gestures every day. This is something that I still try to do right now.”
The Iacocca International Internship Program is accepting faculty and staff proposals for theme-based internships for summer 2020. The deadline to submit is proposal is September 24. Learn more about opportunities for faculty and staff here.