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IREES Launches First International Summer School Program

July 21, 2022

IREES-UNSA Launches First Summer School For Research Excellence


Scenery from a recent trip to Arequipa

The Institute for Resilient Environmental and Energy Systems at the University of Oklahoma is launching its first international summer school on OU's Norman campus.

From July 31 - August 7, IREES will host a group of 17 faculty and students from the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín (UNSA) in Arequipa, Peru for a week of technical training and research development activities focused on pressing climate change and human health challenges facing the Arequipa region.

The Summer School for Research Excellence will support a research and capacity building initiative to establish a bi-lateral Institute for Global Change and Human Health through a cooperative alliance between OU and UNSA. Attendees will participate in technical workshops covering a wide range of subjects that include: health informatics, image processing, carbon nanotube fabrication, advanced treatments for cancer, regional climate modeling, hydrological modeling, theories in public policy, and collective decision making. The SSRE will also include plenary sessions designed to share cross-discipline perspectives and facilitate exploration of new approaches to addressing the regional impacts of global challenges with resilient, sustainable solutions.

The UNSA-OU partnership is administered through the IREES Latin America Sustainability Institute and co-led by Eveling Castro Gutiérrez, UNSA professor of computer science and Tim Filley, OU professor of geography and environmental sustainability and IREES executive director. LASI partnerships and projects in Peru are designed to bridge use-based science and policy with resilient design in a university-led framework. Each effort is initiated by co-development of targeted technical and research infrastructure to support a network of interrelated, interdisciplinary research projects addressing local and regional needs. 

For more information, please contact Victor Maqque, LASI managing director at vmaqque@ou.edu.


The UNSA-OU partnership was initiated with four connected research projects, each led by interdisciplinary teams from across campus. These projects and their OU and UNSA faculty co-leads are as follows:


Photothermal Therapy Using Carbon Nanotubes for the Treatment of Cancer

Roger Harrison - OU School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering 

Jorge Ballón - UNSA Microbiology and Immunology


Very-High Resolution Regional Climate Dynamic Downscaling and Hydrological Simulations for the Region of Arequipa

Ming Xue - OU School of Meteorology

Hector Mayol Novoa Andia - Department of Civil Engineering

 


Developing Radiology Image-Based Machine Learning Models for Staging and Assessing Severity of COVID-19 Pneumonia

Javier Jo - OU School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Eveling G. Castro Gutierrez - UNSA Systems Engineering and Informatics

 

Creation of an Integrated Center for Monitoring and Control of Public Health in the Region of Arequipa

Hank Jenkins-Smith - OU Department of Political Science

Dr. Silva Fernandez Jesus Martin - UNSA Systems Engineering