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May 1 , 2006
Emory, Imperial College London ink scholar exchange agreement

BY beverly clark

Emory and the renowned Imperial College London have developed a new partnership to promote student study abroad in the sciences as well as faculty research collaborations between the two institutions.

Imperial College London is an independent constituent part of the University of London and is consistently rated in the top three of universities in the United Kingdom. The agreement will allow undergraduates in chemistry, biological science and other disciplines from both Imperial and Emory to learn abroad as part of a student exchange program. The program will be open to highly qualified students, initially two per year from each institution.

The program will benefit both the education and the research mission of Emory, and adds to the University’s strategic efforts to internationalize research and learning, especially in the sciences, said Preetha Ram, assistant dean for the sciences at Emory College.

“Internationalization can play an important and critical role in engaging young scholars at Emory,” Ram said. “Our students will benefit from an early exposure to the high-caliber science education that is offered at Imperial, and our faculty will also gain from research collaborations and joint projects. Several faculty have research collaborations with Imperial already and are looking forward to engaging undergraduates in these efforts.”

The new agreement adds to Emory’s expanding Science Experience Abroad program, a joint effort of the Office for Undergraduate Education and the Center for International Programs Abroad (CIPA).

“This new agreement adds to Emory’s diverse growth in offerings for science students, which range from summer research opportunities, internships and community involvement to study-abroad programs around the world,” said CIPA Director Philip Wainwright.

Emory’s chemistry department played an active role in the development of the program, which has its roots in the long-time research collaborations between Emory chemistry Professor Dennis Liotta and Professor Tony Barrett at Imperial.

“Both Imperial and Emory are leaders in the fields of science and medicine, and this agreement will allow students to learn with top academics on both sides of the Atlantic,” said Barrett, head of the synthetic chemistry research group at Imperial, who coordinated the exchange program’s development at his school. “This is an excellent basis from which to explore further opportunities for collaboration with Emory.”

The first student exchange will take place in 2007. Interested students should contact Ram at pram@emory.edu.

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