The Award Selection Committee of Friends of UTokyo Inc. (FUTI) decided to continue their support of Columbia-UTokyo’s effort in their curricular development and student exchanges in the area of condensed matter physics. The committee also decided to renew the research grant for UC Berkeley and UTokyo’s research on “physics and mathematics for the universe,” specifically their exchange program of graduate students and their outreach program for the general public.
1. Frontiers of Condensed Matter Physics (F-CMP): Columbia-UTokyo cooperation on education and research
Prof. Uemura giving a lecture to visiting students from UTokyo and other Japanese universities
Organized by Prof. Yasutomo Uemura of Columbia University, the Columbia-UTokyo educational cooperation on condensed matter physics has been successfully carried out over the past few years with partial support from FUTI.
In March 2013, fifteen Columbia graduate students visited Tokyo and Kyoto, after having taken UTokyo’s lectures that were video-broadcasted to Columbia. Some of them also visited Kyoto University and SPring-8 Synchrotron facility, and enjoyed Japanese culture in Kyoto and Tokyo.
In Fiscal Year 2014-2015, Columbia-UTokyo plan to continue their teaching activities, the fourth year in a series of joint teaching of the F-CMP course, as well as their research collaboration between graduate students of both institutions. In the previous year, the research collaboration was performed using the accelerators at TRIUMF in Canada and PSI (Paul Scherrer Institute) in Switzerland.
In the coming fiscal year, in addition to research at these facilities, two collaborative activities will be organized using Japanese research facilities: KEK Photon Factory and the laser facility of the Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP) located at the UTokyo Kashiwa Campus. This year, Prof. Hiroshi Kageyama and his student Mr. Yasumasa Nozaki of Kyoto University will be invited to Columbia to continue the collaboration on muon spin relaxation experiments at TRIUMF. Again this year, several exchange visits of graduate students between the facilities of UTokyo (including KEK) and Columbia are planned.
2. Collaboration, Exchanges and Outreach at the Kavli IPMU-Berkeley Campuses.
Brian Hennings of U.C. Berkeley and Kohsaku Tobioka of U. Tokyo mutually visited each other for collaborations.
The collaboration between the Kavli IPMU at UTokyo and the Berkeley Center of Theoretical Physics (BCTP) at UC Berkeley has a unique environment where mathematicians, astronomers, and physicists work together. Having both research and cultural exposure has been proven crucial for the development of the careers of young researchers in the global scientific community. This has been particularly important for the UTokyo graduate students and the collaboration should boost the international visibility of the University of Tokyo.
Last year, two Berkeley students flew to the Kavli IPMU for a month-long visit, and another Berkeley student (Brian Hennings) had a semester-long stay. Brian helped Prof. Murayama teach the first-ever online course from Japan entitled “From the Big Bang to Dark Energy.” Brian acted as the Teaching Assistant for this course, ran the discussion forum, and wrote homework problems. In this coming year, they will continue their exchange program of graduate students.
Prof. Murayama is also planning to work with the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco to organize another event in 2014 to reach out to the local community, after giving two successful public lectures in North America this year, one in an IMAX theater in Vancouver with about 400 people in the audience (available online) and another in Santa Cruz with about 200 people (http://news.ucsc.edu/2013/07/murayama-lecture.html)
(Read this article in Japanese)
Articles in this newsletter:
- The Fifth Annual Campaign Not as Successful as in the Past
- The Annual Board Meeting and Board-AC Joint Meeting Held
- FUTI Website Completely Redesigned
- Excerpts of Reports by FUTI’s Scholarship Recipients in 2014
- FUTI Research Grants to Columbia-UTokyo Team and Berkeley’s BCTP-UTokyo’s Kavli IPMU Renewed
- Receptions for GSP and UTRIP Students
- The Eighth "Appreciation Party of UTokyo Foundation" Hosted by President Hamada
- Appreciation Party and my Revisit to the Hongo Campus: Ko-Yung Tung
- Mr. Kim of Stuyvesant H.S. Receives FUTI’s Travel Grant to Attend PEAK
- Mr. Kazutaka Yamaji Speaks in New York
- "Prepare for Spreading Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever," Explains Dr. Kuwama on TV
The articles in this issue were contributed by Yasuyuki Izumi, Hisashi Kobayashi, Yuichiro Kuwama, Shigenori Matsushita, Masako Osako, Ko-Yung Tung, and Masaaki Yamada. Editorial assistance is by Prof. Brian L. Mark (Professor, George Mason University).
