Physics Professor Shashi Kanbur works with his advisee Danielle Citro ’13 on an astrophysics project she will present at a national conference.

SUNY OSWEGO PHYSICS PROFESSOR SHASHI KANBUR travels to India this spring to open a new collaboration in Delhi for course development in astrophysics and research in realms including the evolution of stars.

A travel award from the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum and the American Physical Society will fund his trip to the University of Delhi.

Among Kanbur’s objectives are to develop and teach a two-week course, with an emphasis on statistical methods, to graduate and undergraduate students on topics related to stellar evolution, the extra-galactic distance scale and cosmology. With the assistance of professor Harinder Singh of the University of Delhi, he plans to work with researchers to construct software for the automated classification of variable stars. Also he aims to draft a grant proposal for the U.S. National Science Foundation to bring American undergraduates to India for summer research and to develop a joint online course in astrophysics between SUNY Oswego and the University of Delhi.

A long-term goal is to establish Delhi as a research partnership in SUNY Oswego’s Global Laboratory program, Kanbur said. The Global Laboratory offers students hands-on, immersive problem-solving opportunities in international laboratories in promising fields of study such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

There are two Global Laboratory sites in India, at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the University of Calcutta, as well as in Brazil, Congo, Costa Rica, Republic of Korea, Taiwan and more. For more information on Oswego’s Global Laboratory program, visit oswego.edu/globallaboratory.

Geraldine Forbes, distinguished teaching professor of history

Distinguished Teaching Professor of History Geraldine Forbes is sharing her knowledge, and collecting more, through a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer Fellowship to India. Faith Maina, a SUNY Oswego faculty member and a new Fulbright Scholar, returned this school year to her native Kenya as she seeks to build the research and writing skill sets of young Kenyan scholars.

Forbes is teaching courses on gender and history, gender and visual history and other topics at the Calcutta University Women’s Studies Research Centre.

Forbes, who first visited India as a graduate student researching Indian Positivists in 1969, had a previous six-month Fulbright Research Grant to India in 2003-04 to work on a monograph, Photographic Imagery in the History of Indian Women. She said she plans to return to that project while she is in India.

The Fulbright proposal Maina produced grew from her experience with universities such as Moi in Eldoret, Kenya, working with young researchers as an editor of the JINSIA-Moi University Journal of Gender and Women Studies.

“They weren’t getting promoted because their journal submissions were not being accepted due to poor writing,” Maina said. “No articles, no promotions, no gender equity. I feel this (Fulbright) would be an opportunity to break some of this cycle.”

Faith Maina, associate professor, department of Curriculum and Instruction

Maina attended primary and secondary school in Kenya, and did her undergraduate work at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. She learned to speak Swahili and English, in addition to her native Kikuyu, and wants the same educational opportunities for other girls and women in extraordinarily diverse Kenya, which has 42 distinct ethnic groups. l

— Tim Nekritz M ’05 and Jeff Rea ’71

Saawan Pathange M ’02 and Pei-Chang “Jessie” Wu M ’03 traveled the world to meet, fatefully, at SUNY Oswego. Specifically, their world-class romance developed in Penfield Library.

“We had our spot,” said Saawan with a smile. He and his wife, Jessie, now living and working in New York City, visited Oswego in the fall as part of the School of Business Alumni Symposium.

Pei-Chang "Jessie" Wu M '03, left, and Saawan Pathange M '02 made their unlikely acquaintance at Oswego and are now married. Both work in the financial industry in New York City.

The couple found love and a great education during their time as Lakers.

“Because I was here, I was able to focus,” said Jessie, a native of Taiwan who currently works as an associate at Neuberger Berman. “To be here, to learn from other students — that was an important part of it.”

Both came to Oswego through the International Education program.

“It’s quiet,” recalled Saawan, a native of India who came to Oswego via Sydney, Australia. “You have time here and there are not many distractions.”

Both said faculty and staff were an important part of their Oswego experience as well. Professor Chuck Spector in business and Gerry Oliver, now retired from the International Education office, were particularly helpful to them.

Saawan and Jessie come back to campus whenever they can and are very encouraged by the quality of students and expansion of programming in critical areas like international business.

“I think there has been tremendous progress,” said Saawan, a director for UBS Investment Bank. “It’s good for students to experience [what they do] at this level.”