In October, I had the opportunity to discover Colombian culture by teaching experimental courses on basic solid state chemistry to a group of graduate students from the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS) and Universidad Los Andes (Uniandes) universities. The students were very interested in energy development and carbon dioxide capture and are aware of the problems linked to depleting natural resources and climate change. Many of them would like to train in Canada.
In addition to attending work meetings with my collaborators, I engaged in research knowledge transfer activities that enabled young Colombian researchers to acquire training in material design for energy and nanotechnology development.
The results of this instructor mobility surpassed my expectations! As I was on site, I was able to develop my network of scientific partners, which would have been much more difficult in Canada. I seized the opportunities available to me during my stay by keeping a flexible schedule that enabled me to make the most of meetings and opportunities for sharing my knowledge with Colombian students.
In order to maintain the Canada-Colombia partnership at my home university, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), we launched student exchanges across ELAP. My collaborators and I are extremely delighted and grateful that educational exchange program scholarships such as ELAP and instructor mobility exist, as they contribute to expanding the sharing of knowledge across borders.
