FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is a middle and high school based program in which teams of students design, build, and program robots. Under the direction of Rebecca Whitaker, the University of Iowa College of Engineering has been the Affiliate Partner organization for FIRST Tech Challenge since 2009. Through this partnership, the Iowa program has become known across the world as a leader with FIRST Tech Challenge. Due to the successes of FIRST Tech Challenge in Iowa through hosting large tournaments, Whitaker was invited to attend the FTC Championship in Bucharest, Romania. Her travel was funded, in part, by International Programs and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization. Whitaker's reflections from her March 2018 trip to Bucharest are below.

Qingyang Su, an undergraduate student in the College of Engineering, is an international student at the University of Iowa. Hailing from Beijing, China, Qingyang has embraced the opportunity to learn about American culture, meet new people, and challenge himself through research and teaching assistant experiences.

Mandy Gavin, University of Iowa undergraduate engineering student, studied abroad in Hong Kong during the summer of 2015. She applied for and received several scholarships, including a Global Engineering Scholarship and a Center for Asian and Pacific Studies Study Abroad in Asia Scholarship. Gavin also used the Summer Hawk Tuition Grant to help fund her study abroad experience. Last summer, Gavin worked as a continuous improvement intern at PMX Industries. For this summer, she has secured an internship with Alliant. While interviewing for the Alliant internship position, Gavin feels her study abroad experience helped her stand out, calling it a ‘gold star’ in the eyes of her employers.

Undergraduate engineering student Carli Brucker studied abroad in Hong Kong during the summer of 2015. To help fund her study abroad experience, Brucker used the Summer Hawk Tuition Grant. She also applied for and received a Global Engineering Scholarship. Brucker pursued a second academic experience abroad through the course International Perspectives:  Xicotepec. The course involved a service-learning experience over Spring Break in Xicotepec, Mexico.

Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, Kendall Heitzman, tells the story of Hiroyuki "Larry" Kasuga (M.S. industrial engineering, '53), a 93-year-old Iowa alum who is bringing alumni together in Tokyo, Japan. This past summer, after a week of touring the University of Iowa’s study-abroad partner programs in Japan, our delegation joined Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of International Programs Downing Thomas for an impromptu alumni gathering at a hotel in central Tokyo. We were not sure who would show up on such short notice, but about twenty alums did. The hotel had failed to provide us with any chairs, and I worried about one man in particular, who leaned lightly on a cane and in his self-introduction had mentioned that he was 92. I needn’t have worried; for over three hours, Hiroyuki “Larry” Kasuga (M.S. industrial engineering, ’53) made his way around the room, introducing himself and eager to catch up with old friends and make new ones, and to hear the latest word from his beloved Iowa.

The UI’s Obermann Center for Advanced Studies has long been the home of interdisciplinary collaboration, where thinking outside the box isn’t just the result but the operating principle. Ten years ago, the Obermann Center, believing strongly in the power of actively-engaged scholarship, established an institute which would put experienced faculty together with graduate students to show them how they can enhance their teaching, research, and creative work through purposeful interaction with community partners. We’ll hear from participants—faculty, graduate students, and community members—on the next WorldCanvass in a program called “Taking It to the Streets: Engagement and the Academy.” The free program begins at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 1, at FilmScene in downtown Iowa City.

A remote stretch of gravel road over a no-name creek attracted international guests Tuesday to rural Buchanan County. Engineers representing the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, local dignitaries and politicians also showed up. The lure was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a special bridge in the 1100 block of Deacon Avenue, the first span in the United States utilizing Korean ultra-high performance concrete.

On the next WorldCanvass, we’ll bring together members of the scientific research community, political leaders, and entrepreneurs to consider the topic of climate change and how it’s evolved in both scientific understanding and public discourse over the past twenty-five years. The WorldCanvass discussion will take place at 5 p.m., October 13, at FilmScene in downtown Iowa City and is free and open to the public.

This summer, Meena Khandelwal was awarded over $83,000 by the prestigious Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA) Program to lead a group of UI students and faculty to India to investigate the curious case of the chulha- a wood fueled cook-stove- used in rural areas across India. Often cited as a cause of deforestation and pollution, efforts to replace them with solar cookers have been widespread but largely unsuccessful. This project will bring together UI engineers, anthropologists, urban planners, and historians to examine chulhas from every dimension: what has motivated efforts to improve them, what interventions have occurred, and why have these efforts tended to fail.

China has about 100 million children learning English, and a pair of University of Iowa students have started a new business to help them. Western Wise started offering real-time English language tutoring services for children in China over the Internet in February and has today about 25 clients, nine tutors, and a total of 10 employees. The business, which is headquartered in the Bedell Entrepreneurship Learning Laboratory (BELL) student-owned business incubator, is owned by Emily Roberts, a senior majoring in Spanish and finance, and Chen Cui, a doctoral engineering student.

David (Hosin) Lee, an International Programs Faculty Fellow, is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and public policy at the University of Iowa. Lee also serves as the director of the Laboratory for Advanced Construction Technology center (LACT). Lee coordinated a delegation visit of two Korean congressmen in March 2015, one of whom was recently elected minority leader in the Korean congress. In the following article, Lee recounts their visit to Iowa.

Twelve Brazil Scientific Mobility Program (BSMP) scholars were honored at the College of Engineering’s Student Recognition Luncheon on April 17, 2015 with certificates of achievement.