In March, we welcomed our first KTP visiting fellow of 2014 from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) (opens an external site), Associate Professor Maria Thaker.
Maria is an Associate Professor at IISc’s Centre for Ecological Studies (CES) and her primary field of expertise is in predator-prey interactions at physiological, behavioural and landscape scales. Hosted by Dr Jonathan Webb from the School of the Environment at UTS, Maria spent her week in meetings with UTS academics for research collaboration as well as other UTS units including the Graduate Research School and Research Innovation Office for possible opportunities in student exchange and co-supervision of research students.
Maria also presented a lecture at UTS entitled “Surviving in a dangerous world: understanding the complex movement strategies of large African mammals”, and she found time to discuss her research with several SoE honours students and postgraduate students. Maria and Jonathan will be collaborating on a project with Dr Martin Whiting, Macquarie University, and will submit grant applications to support the research later this year. Overall, the visit was successful on both sides, was filled with good discussions on research and will most definitely allow for future opportunities for further collaboration between UTS and IISc to occur.
We will also be welcoming Maria’s colleague, Professor K.V.S Hari, to UTS in September as our second 2014 visiting fellow from IISc. Professor Hari is from the department of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE) (opens an external site) at IISc and will be hosted by UTS Associate Professor Ananda Sanagavarapu from the Centre for Health Technologies. Professor Hari’s visit will focus on research collaboration on wireless technology and the design of mobile assistive devices for elderly citizens.
We look forward to welcoming Professor Hari later this year and are certain that his visit will prove to be equally as successful as Maria’s in terms of deepening the partnership between UTS and IISc.
For more information on the KTP visiting fellows please visit our website or contact Fiona Chan.