Table-top Scientific Research for Developing Countries

Professor Rajarshi Roy (Physics/IPST/IREAP) andgraduate student Aaron Hagerstrom (Physics) participated in this year's Hands-On Research in Complex Systems School in Trieste, Italy, July 1-12, 2013. The school is sponsored by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics and co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

This year's school hosted over 60 participants from 30 developing countries. The school is designed to introduce graduate students and young faculty from developing countries to table-top scientific research on problems at the frontiers of science. The students work in groups of 4-5 with two instructors for a two-week period. The lectures and hands-on experiences focus on complex systems in the physical and life sciences. The research is inherently interdisciplinary and topics range from biological networks to spatial patterns in fluids to laser chaos. The modeling and acquisition and analysis of laboratory data are performed using Matlab. "The idea behind small science is try to do experiments that cost less than a 1,000 euros, but still do absolutely cutting-edge science."

http://www.handsonresearch.org

Published July 13, 2013