NGDI partners with Mitacs to provide Indian students a UBC summer experience

The NGDI announces that it has partnered with Mitacs in their Globalinks Program to provide two top-notch students from India to come to Canada and work for the summer at UBC with NGDI Associates Dr. Frank Ko and Dr. Robert Hancock.  The Globalinks Program provides full funding for an undergraduate student to spend 12 weeks working in universities across Canada.  Student placements are not only in engineering and mathematics but are now moving into the life sciences arena as evidenced by Dr. Hancock’s project.

Dr. Ko’s project, “Structure and Properties of Nanofibre Membranes for Energy Storage Devices” matches the interests of his student studying chemical engineering at Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani (about 100 miles north of Jaipur in northern India).  Sai Deo, explains in her profile that she is a junior undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor of engineering (Honours) program at BITS, Pilani majoring in Chemical Engineering.  Her research interests broadly include the areas of energy engineering, chemical reaction engineering and micro and nanotechnology. Outside of academia,  she is an entrepreneurship aficionado avidly following developments in the sector of social entrepreneurship, and enjoys reading, travelling and meeting new people.

Dr. Hancock’s project, “Interactome Analysis of Infectious Disease and the Effects of Novel Peptide Drugs” will allow Vidur Kumar from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in northern India who studies Biological Sciences and Bioengineering to work with in the Centre for Microbial Diseases and Immunity Research.

The NGDI encourages faculty members to look into this program for the 2012 session.  These are the deadlines for the next Globalink cycle.

July 2011 Call to be issued to Canadian faculty for research project proposals for the Globalink 2012 cohort
September 2011 Student application system opens for Globalink 2012
October 14, 2011 Student application system closes
October 31, 2011 Faculty research project proposal deadline

For more information on the program contact Lorena Christensen by email at lchristensen@mitacs.ca or call (604) 822-4046.