I am realizing that when you do not keep up with your posts, the order gets a little confusing -- but here in Casablanca, there is always a high level of chaos so this blog fits right in!
I would like to say more about the Andalusian Classical Music. This was such a special, and exciting night! But I'm out of order so I'll hold that off for just a little bit...
I wanted to mention that on Thursday morning, Jessica Greene (no relation) from George Washington University, worked on evaluation -- near as I can tell it is not unlike the Instructional Design that my sister Ellinor Greene (certainly a relation) does. This is a vital area of research where one actually can evaluate, with proper metrics, how well people learn and other interactions -- all with different kinds of statistical analysis. Jessica sent out questionnaires before the meeting and also one at the meeting to track the collaborations. She had very interesting graphs that showed how the relations between scientists were at the time and will keep track of that as we develop our collaborations. The talk is probably posted on the COACh web site by now. I want to laud Geri for having Jessica involved -- too often scientists do not appreciate the value of educational evaluations -- I'm going to try to learn a lot more about this!
Thursday afternoon were more breakout sessions and we better defined how we would self-assemble. The main areas were phosphites, water, and materials. My group was all about design, analysis, and computation of materials for understanding their properties and design of new functional materials -- an old idea but maybe with some new ideas. This will be exciting to work out -- the diversity in laboratories, and even backgrounds, will give us new tacks for approaching these old problems. Here is our group:
Laura Greene (USA; Physics)
Janet Tate (USA; Physics)
Leila Adnane (Algeria; Chemistry)
Sonia Haddad (Tunisia; Physics)
Nadia Saoula (Algeria; Chemistry)
Rahma Adhiri (Morocco; Chemistry)
Mimouna Baitoul (Morocco; Physics)
This is Janet, Rahma, Leila, Sonia, and me.
I'm going to post this and then continue with our sight-seeing after the Mosque, the banquet, and the Andalusian classical music -- then the official COACh Career Advancement Workshop on Friday. The exciting finale -- some interesting interactions, and SHOPPING. But today is a day off and the US team is going to Marakesh!