The award recognizes an outstanding educator whose teaching, research, creative work, scholarship or services have significantly promoted global learning

Associate Professor Shashi Kanbur

outcomes among students in a college or school setting, according to the center.

Gurdeep Skolnik, coordinator of Oswego’s International Language and Education Center, nominated Kanbur for the honor in recognition of his “significant contributions towards internationalization at SUNY Oswego,” she said.

An associate professor in the physics and earth sciences departments, Kanbur is also a faculty fellow in the President’s Office this year. He has played a key role in developing SUNY Oswego’s Global Laboratory.

India native Kanbur has an international reputation in astrophysics research. Since his arrival at Oswego in 2005, he has published 23 papers with international collaborators in the top peer-reviewed journals in astrophysics. Currently he has active collaborations with researchers in Taiwan, Chile, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Japan.

The grant, titled “Astrophysics International Research Experience for Students in Taiwan: Connections Between East and West,” started this summer. It enables Kanbur and Ching Hung “Jean” Hsiao, adjunct instructor of Chinese, to mentor six students each of the next three years on research trips to the Graduate Institute of Astronomy at National Central University in Jhongli, Taiwan.

Student researchers from Oswego and other Upstate colleges and universities will advance work pioneered at SUNY Oswego on a more accurate means for determining the size scale of the universe, as well as several other groundbreaking projects related to Kanbur’s longtime research of Cepheid
variable stars.

“The projects the undergraduates will be doing are all absolutely on the cutting edge,” said Kanbur, an associate professor of physics working with the college president’s office as a Faculty Fellow.

The Global Laboratory is SUNY Oswego’s innovative undergraduate research experience offering students hands-on, immersive problem-solving opportunities at international laboratories in promising fields of study — science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

As they prepared to return this summer, they had a chance to share their stories with representatives of the international partnership that is supporting a Brazilian research experience for them and 13 other SUNY students this year and another 15 next year.

Officials from Sovereign Bank/Banco Santander, the State University of New York system and Brazil’s State of Alagoas visited SUNY Oswego in May to preview the work that 15 SUNY students will do this summer at Oswego’s global laboratories in Brazil under the first phase of a $160,000 Santander-funded project.

Officials from Sovereign Bank/Banco Santander, the State University of
New York system and Brazil’s State of Alagoas visited SUNY Oswego in May and heard Bellinger’s and Buckner’s presentations. Banco Santander awarded $160,000 to SUNY to support student participation in ongoing research at Brazilian sites in Oswego’s new network of global laboratories.

“We strongly believe that future leaders will be global leaders,” said Eduardo Garrido, director of the Santander Universities program at Sovereign Bank, a U.S. subsidiary of Spain-based Banco Santander. “This has to be fostered.”

Emerging scientists

Buckner gave an illustrated presentation of her work in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands with Cleane Medeiros of Oswego’s biological sciences faculty. She participated in a survey of reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates, gathering data that will help protect the habitat.

“I’ve had dreams of being a scientist forever,” the senior zoology major said. This summer she returned in search of ideas for her doctoral research. A McNair Scholar at Oswego as well as a participant in the college’s Honors Program, Buckner has been accepted to pursue a doctorate at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Bellinger reported on his work last summer studying the period luminosity relationship of Cepheid stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, working with Shashi Kanbur, Oswego’s faculty fellow and a member of the physics faculty. “You can’t see the Magellanic Cloud from the northern hemisphere yet it holds all the data that I’m researching,” Bellinger said.

This summer the junior double major in computer science and applied mathematics worked on computational quantum physics at the Federal University of Alagoas in Maceio.

‘Tight-knit collaboration’

SUNY Oswego President Deborah F. Stanley last year traveled to the Brazilian state of Alagoas, the fast-developing northeastern region of Brazil, to sign three agreements that established some of the first global laboratories in Oswego’s planned world-spanning network, including agreements with the federal university and the state of Alagoas.

In turn, Eduardo Setton, secretary for science, technology and innovation for the state of Alagoas, came to Oswego and heard Buckner’s and Bellinger’s presentations. Setton spoke of the tech park in Maceio and the opportunities for international collaboration there through such agreements as SUNY Oswego has established.

Kanbur described Oswego’s network of global laboratories, which he is helping to develop, as “absolutely unique,” and Bellinger added that his experience supports that claim: “My friends at private universities have expressed envy that we have such fantastic opportunities at our public university.”

Josh McKeown, Oswego’s director of international education and programs, agreed. “We have built something special,” he said. “Our students can so seamlessly enter into a research program in another country because of the close relationship of our international faculty with researchers abroad.”

Oswego’s agreements in Alagoas are among nine the college has with universities and states in Brazil. “That’s really a tight-knit collaboration. I’m proud of Oswego for forging these alliances with such an important country,” said Sally Crimmins Villela, SUNY’s assistant vice chancellor for global affairs.

President Stanley noted that Oswego is deepening the relationship as it sends more students to the country to participate in hands-on research while gaining understanding of another culture, and she said she hopes to bring students from Brazil to Oswego. “Banco Santander’s support is helping our global laboratories come into full blossom,” she said.

Shashi Kanbur has a yearlong Faculty Fellowship through the President’s Office in support of two key initiatives: the Possibility Scholars and Global Laboratories programs.

Kanbur conducts many day-to-day activities of the Possibility Scholars program, launched by President Deborah F. Stanley to provide full funding and research opportunities for outstanding students who may not otherwise be able to study in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields.

Shashi Kanbur

“I develop grants to help support the scholarships and work with others to find grant support,” Kanbur said. “I try to publicize Possibility Scholarships with our partners in the Syracuse City School District, Oswego City School District and Syracuse Academy of Science charter school.”

The program launched with four freshmen this year — with an emphasis on first-generation college students — and Kanbur is working on a larger class for next fall.

The Possibility Scholars initiative dovetails with the Global Laboratories program looking to provide opportunities for students to study on all seven continents — from medicine in the Congo to ecology in Brazil to climate change in Antarctica.

“I try to encourage other faculty to make connections with research partners in other countries, to create programs and apply for funding to take their students abroad to do research for six to eight weeks,” Kanbur said.

To his new role, Kanbur brings the experience of taking students to a Brazilian national telescope facility in Minas Gerais, as part of a partnership between Oswego and Brazil’s Federal University of Santa Catarina. Kanbur hopes to take students to a telescope facility in Taiwan as part of a new Global Laboratory placement.

“We’re looking at experiences where students have a central role,” Kanbur said. l

— Tim Nekritz M ’05