Negishi to Receive Japan's Order of Culture

Dr. Ei-ichi Negishi (pictured), the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University, will receive Japan's highest distinction, the Order of Culture, on 3 November from the country's emperor.

It honors his contributions to Japan's cultural development through his work to create a method to build complex organic molecules necessary for numerous purposes, from pharmaceutical manufacturing to electronics. Negishi is a Japanese national and first moved to the United States in 1960.

Prof. Negishi was announced as a winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry on 6 October. The Order of Culture was established in 1937.

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Purdue Investigates Causes of Haiti Quake

Researchers at Purdue University have found that a previously unmapped fault was responsible for the devastating earthquake on 12 January in Haiti, and that the originally blamed fault remains ready to produce a large earthquake.

The team determined the earthquake's origin is a previously unmapped fault, which they named the Léogâne fault. The newly discovered fault runs almost parallel to the Enriquillo fault, which was originally thought to be the source of the earthquake.

The team analyzed data they recorded before the earthquake and new measurements taken after the event. Their work is detailed in a paper that will be published in the November issue of Nature Geosciences.

Purdue Teams with Russian Universities

Purdue University and three other U.S. universities have announced a multiyear partnership aimed at strengthening efforts by Russian National Research Universities to commercialize their research and foster campus entrepreneurship, according to the Purdue News Bureau.

In launching the Enhancing University Research and Entrepreneurial Capacity, or EURECA, program, Purdue will collaborate with the University of California-Los Angeles, University of Maryland and the University of Washington and a consortium of program operators, led and financed by the U.S. Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law.

The initiative, officially announced on 30 September, will be administered by a consortium of non-governmental organizations: the Russian-based New Eurasia Foundation and two U.S.-based non-governmental organizations, the American Councils for International Education and the National Council for East European and Eurasian Research.

A Russian delegation will visit Purdue from Sunday through Tuesday (10-12 October) to tour the university's research facilities, technology transfer offices and business incubators. Meetings also are planned with researchers, graduate students and faculty members to discuss potential collaborations.

University representatives from Purdue, UCLA, Maryland and Washington joined five Russian research universities today at an event to formally launch EURECA in Washington, D.C.

The participating Russian universities are Lobachevsky State University, St. Petersburg Institute of Information Technology along with the National University of Science and Technology, National Research Nuclear University and Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

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Purdue Prof Shares Nobel Prize in Chemistry

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for the development of palladium-catalyzed cross coupling.

Ei-ichi Negishi (pictured) is a Japanese citizen who was born in 1935 in Changchun, China (then ruled by Japan). He received his Ph.D. in 1963 from University of Pennsylvania. He is the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University, West Lafayette.

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Purdue to Join Forces With Chinese Researchers

Purdue University's Center for the Environment and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are forming an environmental research partnership, reports Inside INdiana Business. Officials from both institutions will take part in a signing ceremony today to establish the China-U.S. Joint Research Laboratory on Sustainable Ecosystem. The partnership will create programs that offer opportunities for student, scholar and faculty exchange in research and study.

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Ukrainians Learn from Indiana Farmers

A Purdue Extension educator in Fulton County has made it possible for two graduate students from Ukraine to stay with Indiana farmers to work and learn this summer, reports the Purdue News Bureau.

Mark Kepler came up with the work-study idea after he visited the Poltava State Agrarian Academy in Ukraine three years ago.

Kepler last winter found two farmers in Fulton County interested in hiring students from Poltava to work on their farms this summer. The farms are family operations with more than 1,000 acres and exemplify farming life in Indiana.

Two graduate students - Ol'Ha Reva and Sergii Panchenk - arrived in Indiana in May to begin their work.

As part of the program, Reva came to Purdue University for three days in August to learn more about DNA extraction in plants. Working in a laboratory for the first time, she studied plants and genotypes with agronomy professor Herb Ohm. (The photo shows Reva working with Dr. Ohm. It's a Purdue Agricultural Communication photo by Tom Campbell.)

After finishing her studies in the lab, Reva returned to Rochester to continue working on the farm with her host family, Tom and Jill Weaver.

Panchenk is staying with Alan and Nancy Gohn in Rochester, working in the fields and helping around the farm. Both Ukrainians will fly back to Poltava in September.

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Purdue's Global 4-H

Indiana 4-H Global Programs sent two groups of students to Poland and Japan, while students from Japan visited Indiana.

The program has held a partnership with Meiji Gakuin High School in Tokyo, Japan for nearly 30 years. Ann Williams, an extension educator for DeKalb County, and Tiffany Henson, a 4-H'er from Dearborn County, left for Japan on 15 July for a three-week stay.

Williams and Henson are learning about the Japanese education system and culture. Williams is living with a high school teacher, and Henson is staying in a high school student’s home.

While Williams and Henson tour Japan, 21 students from Japan are visiting Indiana to learn about culture and 4-H programs during their 3-week visit to 19 counties. The Japanese youth arrived on 21 July and are staying in the homes of 4-H families.

Global 4-H Programming also has maintained a six-year partnership with part of southern Poland. This summer, three adult representatives and 13 Indiana 4-H youth visited Poland for three weeks. The group learned about the 4-H system in Poland, lived with Polish families and toured cultural sites and cities.

To date, 58 people from Indiana have visited Poland through this program. Next year students from Poland will visit Indiana.

For more information on Global 4-H programs, email Lee Stanish.

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Global Policy Research Institute

Purdue University's Global Policy Research Institute has hired a new managing director, reports Inside INdiana Business. Angela Phillips Diaz most recently worked with the California Council on Science and Technology on various projects. She has held executive leadership positions at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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Indy International Wine Competition Moves to West Lafayette

Winemakers from around the world will send their best wines to Purdue University for the annual Indy International Wine Competition on 4-6 August, reports Inside INdiana Business. This competition, the largest in the United States run by a university will be in West Lafayette for the first time after 17 years in Indianapolis.

The competition, which is free and open to the public, will be at the Purdue Memorial Union. Judging will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 4 and 5 August, and 10 a.m. to noon on 6 August. Expected are more than 3,000 commercial entries from 39 states and 12 countries. More than 50 judges will come from the United States, Europe and Canada to taste, analyze and score the wines. Deadline to enter is 15 July.

A jury of wine industry peers serves as judges: winemakers and chefs, marketing executives and wholesalers, writers and journalists, enologists and winegrowers. They're listed here.

The Indy International Wine Competition is the largest scientifically organized and independent wine competition in the U.S., the world's largest wine market. More than 3,000 commercial entries from 12 countries and 39 US states will be evaluated by 80 judges.

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Purdue Honors World Food Prize Winner

The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday approved renaming the Food Science Building in honor of Philip E. Nelson, who developed the program into one of the strongest in the nation and became an international laureate for his work in improving the world's food supply, reports the Purdue News Bureau.

Nelson, who retired in May at age 75, ended a 50-year career at Purdue, most recently as the Scholle Chair Professor in Food Processing. He was the food science department's first chairman when it was created in 1983 and served in that position for 20 years.

The building, dedicated in 1998 after a campaign that Nelson led for its construction, will be called the Philip E. Nelson Hall of Food Science. Largely designed by Nelson, it has been a model for other food science buildings in the United States.

It was his work in food science that brought Nelson international acclaim as recipient of the World Food Prize in 2007. Created by Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman E. Borlaug and often called the "Nobel Prize for Agriculture," the award honored Nelson for his aseptic processing innovation. The system revolutionized food trade by reducing post-harvest waste and making seasonal fruits and vegetables available year-round and easier to transport worldwide. The technology was used to bring potable water and emergency food to survivors of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia and to victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It continues to be employed for safe and economical food processing, shipping and storage globally.

Nelson was the first Purdue faculty member to receive the World Food Prize since it was established in 1986. In 2008 Gov. Mitch Daniels created the Philip E. Nelson Innovation Prize to recognize scientists annually for their discoveries, research and inventions.

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Southeast Asian Officials Coming to Purdue

Officials from several Southeast Asia universities will visit Purdue University on Monday (28 June) for a workshop on government-private sector partnerships and the role of intellectual property as an economic development tool, reports the Purdue News Bureau.

The campus event, hosted by Purdue's Discovery Park, is part of a two-week seminar on innovation and intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement supported by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The visit will include IP officials from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

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Purdue Librarian Off to Alexandria, Egypt

Michael Witt (pictured), an assistant professor of library science and interdisciplinary research librarian at Purdue University, has been named a Fulbright Scholar, reports the Purdue news bureau.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is administered by the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars for the U.S. Department of State.

The award will support Witt in relocating his family to Alexandria, Egypt, where he will lecture and conduct research at the Bibliotheca Alexandria from January to May 2011.

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CIBER at Purdue Gets Grant.

Purdue University's Center for International Business and Research, based at the Krannert School of Management, has received a four-year, $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

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Purdue's President Off to China

Purdue President France Córdova (pictured)is traveling to China this week to lead an academic mission focused on strengthening ties with two universities and bolstering connections with alumni and students, reports the Lafayette Journal & Courier. A main focus is for Córdova to sign partnership agreements with Tsinghua and China Agricultural universities that will expand opportunities for student and faculty exchanges and development of collaborative research.

Córdova and a seven-member delegation leave for China tomorrow (17 May), returning 24 May. Those traveling for the full-trip include Michael Brzezinski, interim vice provost for global affairs and dean of international programs; Jay Akridge, dean of the College of Agriculture; Chris Foster, Córdova's husband and Discovery Park's K-12 STEM program director, and Kirk Cerny, Purdue Alumni Association CEO.

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US-French Symposium Underway at Purdue

The Purdue University Global Engineering Program and the Chicago-based Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy are co-organizing a French-American Symposium on “Developing Partnerships for Sustainable Water Management and Agriculture in the context of Climate and Global Change” that is underway at Purdue University in West Lafayette.

The symposium, 11-12 May, is sponsored by the The Office for Science and Technology of the Embassy of France in the United States, NSF, OECD, the French Ministry of Agriculture, and several French research institutions (CNRS, INRA, INPT, IRD, IAMM, ONEMA).

About 120 invited scientists from France, the United States and the international community are attending the symposium. Key themes of the presentations and discussions will be summarized in a report to be shared with scientists and interested policy-makers in France, the United States and the broader international scientific community.

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Purdue's Wood Vehicle Travels to Africa

Purdue University students have designed and built a multipurpose vehicle made primarily from wood, reports the Purdue News Bureau. They will travel to Africa this month to help officials there set up a manufacturing facility for the trucks, which could help to transport everything from produce to people.

The Basic Utility Vehicle, or BUV, is produced from raw materials readily and affordably available in Africa and is designed specifically to meet the needs of villagers. The students will travel to Cameroon, Africa, on Monday (10 May) to aid in setting up a manufacturing facility in a northern village near a forest.

The BUV's body and much of the frame are built of pine, but the design can easily be adapted to African hardwoods like mahogany or eucalyptus. It could be used for many purposes - such as hauling crops, water, building materials, students or the infirm - in areas where no other transportation exists, said Kyle Bazur, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering from Fort Wayne, Ind.

The students won an innovation award for the vehicle during an April competition sponsored by the Indianapolis-based Institute for Affordable Transportation, which is promoting the use of BUVs to help people in poor regions of the world.

The three-wheel BUV is about the size of a 1980s Toyota pickup and incorporates some parts, such as the rear axle, from pickup trucks. Powered by a 10-horsepower diesel engine easily available in Africa, the BUV has a top speed of about 20 mph and achieves about 40 miles per gallon.

The all-terrain vehicle, outfitted with knobby tractor tires, can travel on small roads or cross-country and can carry at least eight passengers and up to 1,200 pounds.

The students worked with the nonprofit African Centre for Renewable Energy & Sustainable Technology, or ACREST, to set design and manufacturing parameters.

"The long-term goal is to help the organization in Cameroon build these multipurpose vehicles in Africa with local resources and materials and sell them to surrounding villages," Bazur said.

The students built the vehicle for about $2,000.

Villagers currently are unable to transport much of their farm produce to markets before it spoils, a problem that could be alleviated by the inexpensive vehicles. The vehicle has a bed that operates like a miniature dump truck, making it easy to unload cargo. Benches on the sides of the cargo bed can be used to carry people, and the sidewalls can be removed, creating a flatbed arrangement for hauling longer items.

The team completed the project in one semester during a senior design course.

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Purdue Part of International Solar Home Competition

Purdue University is one of 20 teams chosen to compete in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011, reports the Purdue News Bureau.

The teams, from 16 U.S. and four foreign universities, will compete to design, build and operate the most affordable, attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The houses will be set up and judged on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in fall 2011.

This is Purdue's first time in the Solar Decathlon. DOE held the first competition in 2002 and has held it biennially since 2005.

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Asian-American Identity

Asian-American identity in the Midwest, at college campuses and in the media are some of the topics that will be discussed at a symposium tomorrow (13 April) at Purdue University, West Lafayette, reports the Purdue news bureau.

"New Communities: A Symposium on Exploring, Challenging and Negotiating Contemporary Asian-American Identity" will be held from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room 118 of the Purdue Memorial Union. The event, which is free and open to the public, is to celebrate the upcoming Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, will speak from 9:15-9:50 a.m. on "Becoming Asian Pacific American...in the Midwest?!!! Identities, Cultures and Communities." Wang writes the syndicated column "Adventures in Multicultural Living" available at AnnArbor.com and is the outreach coordinator of the Ann Arbor Chinese Center of Michigan.

Times, topics and panelists for the other sessions are available online

Panelists include Asian-American activists "Angry Asian Man" blogger Phil Yu, Blacklava founder Ryan Suda, songwriter Dawen and spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai. Professors from Northwestern University, Purdue University, the University of Illinois Chicago, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Indiana University also are participating.

The New Communities Symposium is the result of a Bisland Strategic Initiatives Fellowship awarded to student Kate Agathon by the Purdue Graduate School. Agathon, who is from Lafayette, is working on her doctorate degree in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Other symposium sponsors are American Studies, Asian Studies, Committee on Institutional Cooperation Asian American Studies, College of Education Office of Diversity Initiatives, Council on Asian American Studies, Department of English, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Diversity Resource Office and DiversiKey, Purdue Graduate Student Government, Student English Association and the Vietnamese Student Association.

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Indiana Humanities Council Grants

Among the recently announced grants from the Indiana Humanities Council is one to Purdue University in West Lafayette for "Communication Across the Language Barrier: The Basics of Community Translation and Interpreting".

Cecilia Tenorio, a Purdue faculty member in Spanish and director of the Community Assistance Program, will present a workshop in June for non-professionals on translation and interpreting with her grant.

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Chinese Media Expert to Speak at Purdue

Dr. Hong Fan will speak on "Cross Cultural Communication for Managers" at Purdue University, West Lafayette, 1 April. His appearance is sponsored by The Purdue Department of Communication and the Krannert International Business Club. Dr. Fan is professor of Media Language and Communication at Tsinghau University in Beijing, China.

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