One speaker, one audience, 10.5 hours apart
By: Christi Fish
PUBLIC AFFAIRS SPECIALIST
In 2009, UTSA became a founding member of the Indo-U.S. Public-Private Joint Center on Biomaterials for Health Care, funded by the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum. The center connects biomedical engineering researchers and students from top universities in the United States and India to improve public health through the development of artificial organs made from biomaterials.
Two years later, UTSA and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) are nurturing that research partnership through a live international seminar series on topics of interest in biomedical engineering. Seminar topics are translational and generally related to medicine and health. Past topics include bioengineering technology and vaccine delivery.
The seminar, which is free and open to the public, is held in the morning on the first Wednesday of every month in Business Building Room 3.04.18 on the UTSA Main Campus. UTSA and IIT Kanpur conduct the seminar series by videoconference, allowing both audiences to hear and interact with the featured speaker in real-time, despite the 8,600 miles and 10.5 hours which separate them. UTSA participants attend the seminars in the mornings, while IIT Kanpur offers the seminar in the evening. The two institutions rotate speaker coordination from month to month, ensuring all attendees also have PowerPoint slides to facilitate their learning.
“Our biomedical engineering seminars with IIT Kanpur are extremely popular,” saidAnson Ong, UTSA’s USAA Foundation Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. “We have had as few as 30 attendees, but we’ve also had seminars where students have been sitting on the floor, because the room is packed. It just depends on the topic.”
The UTSA College of Engineering offers world-class education and research opportunities to almost 2,600 undergraduate, master’s and graduate students pursuing careers in biomedical engineering, civil and environmental engineering, electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering. In 2010, the UTSA College of Engineering was ranked seventh in the top ten graduate programs in engineering by Hispanic Business magazine.
In addition to the international seminar series, UTSA and IIT Kanpur participate in an exchange program, allowing researchers and students from each institution to visit their international counterparts to conduct biomedical research.
The next biomedical engineering seminar with IIT Kanpur is scheduled at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 6 in BB 3.04.18 on the UTSA Main Campus. To learn more, visit UTSA Department of Biomedical Engineering’s Seminar Schedule.