Joint Research with UC Davis

In 2004, the Graduate School of Science and Technology of Ryukoku University and the University of California, Davis established a graduate student exchange program. By 2007, eight graduate students from the Department of Materials Chemistry (including three from Ohyanagi Laboratory) had participated in the program. In 2008, two more students (including one from Ohyanagi Laboratory) will participate.

Originally, UC Davis was a laboratory for agricultural experiments for the State of California. Now as one of the nine campuses of the University of California system, UC Davis is a large university with over 110 major fields of study. In particular, UC Davis is one of the top universities in the USA in science and technology. With over 5200 acres, it is the largest of the nine University of California campuses and has close to 30,000 students. The campus lies close to the City of Davis, which has a population of 55,000. Over half the residents have some connection (e.g. student, work) to the university. As the campus sits on flatland, many residents in the area do a lot of bike riding and walking. With good public safety and all the necessities of daily life readily accessible, the campus is an ideal place to become immersed in research activities.

Exchange students from Ohyanagi Laboratory are mainly dispatched to the laboratory of Professor Z. A. Munir. Professor Munir is a world-renowned authority in the field of Materials Science, in particular, combustion synthesis and the effect of sintering under electric current. Professor Munir’s laboratory is made up of undergraduates, post-doctoral fellows, and resident researchers from various countries such as the USA, Italy, South Korea, China, Turkey, Germany, and Japan. Thus students from Ryukoku University who enter the laboratory can enjoy research activities in a rich international environment with ten other students from around the world.

In addition, graduate students from the Department of Materials Chemistry can also participate in a collaborative international education program between Ryukoku University and the University of California, Berkeley at the campus in North American. This program was established under the auspices of the MEXT “Program for Supporting and Improving Graduate School Education” through the training of international engineers who can work from an Eastern sense of ethics.