In this International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program at the University of Pittsburgh (UP) under the direction of Prof. Larry Shuman, U.S. graduate and undergraduate students will participate in collaborative research projects in Brazil with the research groups of Dr. Maristela Gomes Da Silva at Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo (UFES), Dr. Vanessa Gomes Da Silva at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), and Dr. Khosrow Ghavami at Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). The U.S. students will explore sustainable community development and quantifying sustainability efforts using Life Cycle Analysis. A total of eight students per year for three years will participate in a 12-week summer research program with a research team consisting of UP faculty, two or more UP graduate IGERT fellows, Brazilian undergraduate students, and faculty from UNICAMP, UFES and PUC-Rio (all in Brazil). Specific design problems focus on evaluating sustainable building materials, renewable energy and energy efficiency. The PIs will build on their previous work with their Integrative international Research Experience Program (IIREP), expanding from one to three international partners and linking this project with an IGERT award in Sustainability.
A great strength of this program is its integration into a variety of ongoing research and education collaborations between UP and the Brazilian partner institutions (an IGERT program, the previous IRES, and a FIPSE-CAPES grant from the US Department of Education and the Brazilian Ministry of Education). Included in the program is a four week course in the US in which students will learn Portuguese, receiving training in Brazilian culture and specific research tools, and build relationships with their Brazilian team members. Design teams made up of students and faculty from a variety of backgrounds and the potential for student-faculty interactions (from US and Brazil) are integral parts of the IRES program. The program PIs have well established relationships and a history of collaboration at the site, which will ensure that details of housing, safety and cultural competency are adequately addressed. In addition, the PIs have laid out a clear strategy to achieve and assess their program outcomes.
This award is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) and the Division of Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) within the Engineering Directorate.
This IRES award supported undergraduate research opportunities focused on international, sustainability research in collaboration with Brazillian collaborators. The award supported 16 IRES fellows over three summer programmes in which research was conducted jointly at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). The theme in each of the three years was on bamboo as a vernacular, sustainable material and the teams were mentored by project coPIs and three NSF IGERT Fellows. The 2011 team focussed on life cycle assessment (LCA) comparisons of bamboo and competing construction materials and methods. The innovation of this project was the adoption of ‘structural functional units’ – wall panels in this case – whose equivalence was expressed in terms of lateral stiffness in the context of residential construction. The 2012 team researched and built prototype bamboo gridshell structures with the explicit focus of [locally available] post-disaster relief housing. The team also developed an approach to shape-finding for such bamboo gridshells. The 2013 team focused on developing practical and field-ready mechanical test methods for full-culm bamboo. Their ‘test-kit-in-a-backpack’ prototype has proven to be as accurate as laboratory test frames; two team members are presently working to improve the precision. The intent is to deploy the prototype in Nepal and Indonesia. The International Network of Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) has expressed interest in developing this project further and demonstrating it in the field – most likely in Nepal. These programs trained a cadre of undergraduate researchers. Most of the 2011 and 2012 teams are pursuing graduate studies (additionally, one was named a 2013 Goldwater Scholar) and some of the 2013 team are continuing the development of their test kit prototype as part of Pitt’s Engineering for Humanity Certificate and Honors College Programs. Although she did not travel to Rio, the 2012 team included a High School junior from the New York City area who leveraged her part of the work to win an overall Silver Medal in Engineering in the 2013 I-SWEEEP competition (a prototype bamboo gridshell she built survived Hurricane Sandy!). This young woman has since enrolled in Engineering at Pitt and is presently mentoring the 2013 IRES team!
