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Penn State Students Gain International Experience - August 2006

August 10,2006

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA – Two Penn State graduate students recently spent several weeks in Europe as part of a student exchange program designed to promote scientific cooperation and collaborative education between academic and professional communities in the US and Europe.

Tim Leslie, a Ph.D. candidate in entomology, spent three months at Wageningen University Research Centre in the Netherlands with Dr. Wopke van der Werf. “It was a great experience. I worked on a project very different from my dissertation research, so I was able to learn new skills while meeting new people and learning about different cultures,” he says.

While there, Leslie lived with a local family and used his bike to explore the area. “There are many more bikes than cars in the Netherlands,” he explains. “Everyone rides them to work, school, run errands, etc,” Leslie also traveled by train to work with researchers at three different institutions and visit Prague, Paris, and Zurich. Currently, he is working on finishing a manuscript about his European research on natural enemies and how they control pest populations using the new statistical techniques he learned.
 
Jennifer Dean, another Ph.D. candidate in entomology, spent five weeks in Belgium at Gembloux Agricultural University. “It was a fantastic opportunity, one that I would highly recommend to any graduate student,” says Dean. “I was tutored in French before leaving, but everyone in the lab was so friendly and helpful and mostly used English.”

Dean learned more about the field of proteomics, a very important aspect of interactions between plants and insects, which is her field of study. “During the week I learned new techniques used in processing lab samples, and on the weekends I explored the country and immersed myself in the Belgium culture,” she says. “It was a very interesting experience; our lab was beautifully located in a house over 200 years old, but inside was all the latest high technology lab equipment.” Dean also visited Versailles in France to work with another project partner, Dr. Frédéric Marion-Poll at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon, and gave a seminar there. “Thankfully, I was able to present it in English,” she says.

Led by Penn State’s Department of Entomology and the College’s Office of International Programs, the Sustainable Crop Protection in Agriculture Program (SUSPROT) allows graduate and undergraduate students to spend time in one of four institutes in Western Europe to gain a global perspective on sustainable agriculture.
           
According to Marilyn McPheron, study abroad coordinator in the College’s Office of International Programs, students in this SUSPROT program can travel to Belgium, France, Germany, or the Netherlands for study, research, or internships.  “Our office feels strongly that agricultural students must understand how agriculture works in other countries. These students are going to be making the agriculture policies of the future and they can only make good ones if they understand the entire picture and that includes how agriculture intersects globally. The quickest way to make this clear to students is through an international experience,” she says.

The program is being offering through the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). Students or faculty interested in study abroad options should contact McPheron at (814) 863-0249 or by e-mail at mbm8@psu.eudu. For more information on the SUSPROT program at Penn State, visit Web site http://www.cas.psu.edu/docs/international/ FIPSEMain.htm.

The College of Agricultural Sciences and its Office of International Programs are committed to preparing the workforce of the future by providing students with the best education and skills necessary to function in and contribute to the current global environment and business demands. The College has well-established programs for graduate and undergraduate students to visit other countries as part of their curriculum or graduate research. For more information on the Office of International Programs, visit their Web site at http://www.cas.psu.edu/docs/international/.

Established in 1963, Penn State’s Department of Entomology has grown into a well-balanced department providing undergraduate education, graduate student training and extension outreach education focusing on both domestic and international issues. Twenty faculty and more than thirty graduate students work on a variety of research topics providing insights into insect ecology, behavior and molecular biology as well as integrated pest management. The department is part of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. For more information about solving insect problems, descriptions of research and education programs or admission to the graduate program, visit their Web site at http://www.ento.psu.edu/ or contact the department at (814) 865-1895.