Outcomes Summary of the 2013-2014 Chinese Visiting
Scholars Network Reciprocal Travel Grant Program
Each year over 200 of China’s leading professors, postdoctoral researchers,
and graduate students are hosted by Purdue University faculty as visiting scholars on extended
research stays. They come to Purdue to collaboratively innovate through the sharing of
knowledge and technologies in a host of research fields. In those short visits of 1 to 2 years many
of these partnerships achieve important discovery milestones and demonstrate further promise
for innovation in areas of environmental and economic sustainability research. However,
maintaining those partnerships after the visiting scholars have returned to China is a challenge.
In a collaboration between the Discovery Park Global Sustainability Institute U.S.-China
EcoPartnership for Environmental Sustainability and the Center for the Environment, the offices
of the Associate Dean for Research of the Colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, Science, and
Technology, and the Confucius
Institute, the Chinese Visiting
Scholars Network Reciprocal Travel
Grant program was established to
help fund the research-related travel
of a past Purdue host of a visiting
scholar to that visitors home
institution in China. The program
offered awards up to $4500 to
support travel of a Purdue host (or a
graduate student/postdoctoral
researcher) for a stay of no less than
four weeks.
2013 Chinese Visiting Scholars welcome reception Awards were made through a
competitive selection processes and based upon the strength of the proposed research to secure
extramural funding, demonstrated successful collaboration between the Purdue-China
participating institutions, and a commitment to an interdisciplinary research approach.
Eight awards were made in the summer of 2013 with travel to be completed by the end of the
2014 calendar year and included a broad range of research areas linking Environmental and
Economic Sustainability including: Food Safety, Nanofabrication, Earth and Environmental
Sciences, Medicine, and Communication. Below you will find brief details of some of those
awards and the activities promoted with the travel grant.
If you have any question, please contact Timothy Filley (filley@purdue.edu), USCEES Director
To learn more about the USCEES, please visit our website at:
http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/ecopartnership/index.php
1 Collaborative Research on Chinese Consumers’ Preference for Food Safety
Attributes of Duck
Driven by economic opportunities and ineffective regulations in a segmented agricultural production
system, incidences of Chinese farmers using unsafe and ecologically detrimental feed stocks or
procedures in food production are not uncommon. This behavior and many high profile cases has
resulted in a lack of trust from both Chinese and US consumers for food produced in China. On one
hand, Chinese consumers are willing to pay more for safer foods certified by the Chinese government
as well as imported food from the US. On the other hand, there is a US consumer base that is also
willing to pay more for imported food that is safer and produced with environmentally friendly
methods. Such considerations are also important for many sectors of Indiana’s agricultural economy.
For example, Indiana’s duck producers exported over four million pounds of duck meat product in
2013 to China. Food safety, and the perception of food safety, therefore, is not just a regional issue
but a global concern.
As a recipient of the 2013 U.S.-China
Visiting Scholar Network Travel Grant,
Dr. Holly Wang, Professor of the
Department of Agricultural Economics at
Purdue University, sent her graduate
research assistant, Ms. Rachel Carnegie, to
China to participate in food safety research
concerning duck production. Beginning in
the fall of 2013, Ms. Carnegie visited Dr.
Laping Wu (Professor at China
Agriculture University, CAU) and Dr.
Junfei Bai (Dr. Wang’s former PhD
advisee and a current CAU professor) to
work on a consumer survey project in
Shanghai. The opportunity to participate
in the survey process while in China gave
Ms. Carnegie invaluable culturally-specific insights into the strengths and weaknesses of survey
methodology, application, and participant attitudes in China, all of which were critical in assessing
the validity and robustness of her research. Additionally, Ms. Carnegie was able to acquire
manuscripts and data sets that are only available in Chinese language with the help of her new
collaborators. Ms. Carnegie’s findings were presented at a research conference organized by China
Agricultural Economics Review where she was able to gain valuable research highlights and network
with potential international collaborators. A manuscript detailing their findings is currently in the
works and the group has initiated a new food safety research project as the results of Ms. Carnegie’s
trip. Importantly, Ms. Carnegie also gained first-hand experience of traditional customs, the food
production system, social norms, and the food safety situation in China and is now better equipped to
understand, assess, and develop food safety in China and apply that, along with her advisor Professor
Wang, to economic issues right here in Indiana.
2 Collaborative Research in Environmental Chemistry of Surface and Drinking
Water in China
China is undergoing dramatic economic development and rapid land use change that relies on vast
quantities of fresh water reserves. In addition to providing enough water for industry and agriculture,
China faces the challenge of managing drinking water and wastewater in its rapidly expanding cities
and many isolated rural areas. Fortunately, Chinese leaders and scholars have identified
environmental sustainability, broadly, and water resources management, specifically, as key goals for
supporting long-term development. As a recipient of the 2013 U.S.-China Visiting Scholar Network
Travel Grant, Chad Jafvert, Professor of Lyles School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University,
traveled to China in the summer of 2014, in order to expand his existing water quality educational
and research collaboration at Southeastern University (SEU) in Nanjing, Jiangsu and to initiate new
collaborative ventures with Qinghai Normal University (QHNU) in Xining, Qinghai, the Chinese
Academy of Sciences Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES), Beijing, and
Tsinghua University, Beijing.
The long standing water quality research collaboration with SEU involves Prof. Dafang Fu, Vice
Dean of the School of Civil Engineering, and SEU Ph.D graduate student Tengyi Zhu, who was a
visiting scholar in Dr. Jafvert’s lab from 2011-2013. The time was spent honing computations
related to Mr. Zhu’s experiments at Purdue on pollutant dynamics in surface waters that resulted in
two manuscripts submitted for publication. While at SEU Dr. Jafvert also taught a one-week
intensive course on “Water Chemistry” to a class of approximately 30 undergraduates and began
planning for a study abroad program with SEU participating as a host for Purdue students.
Dr. Jafvert’s trip to China was also
about the application of technologies for
purification of household water in rural
communities in China. In a new
collaboration with QHNU that was
initiated by USCEES and the UtahQinghai Ecopartnership, Dr. Jafvert
worked with QHNU students and faculty
to install sand bioreactors and filters,
developed at Purdue, in rural village
homes. The villages where the filters are
being tested mainly rely on rainwater
collected during the rainy season that is
stored in underground cisterns for home
use. This water is susceptible to particleborn contaminants and pathogens and poses a significant health risk to people in these communities.
This multi-year project is financially supported by QHNU and the Province of Qinghai and will
involve numerous visiting scholars from QHNU coming to Purdue with reciprocal visits by Purdue
faculty and students. For his contribution to the people of Qinghai Dr. Jafvert, and collaborator Prof.
Timothy Filley, were named Distinguished Visiting Professors in a formal ceremony hosted by the
QHNU President and Vice Presidents.
3 Collaborative Research on China’s Public Diplomacy and New Media Use
Public diplomacy involves the cultivation of public opinions in foreign countries by governments to
influence the formation and execution of foreign policies. Especially in the past decade, China has
been an ardent practitioner of public diplomacy. The Confucius Institute as well as the China’s
visiting Scholar Program are two examples of Chinese public diplomacy. However, there is a clear
dearth of empirical knowledge regarding the efficacy of different public diplomacy strategies. The
linkages between public diplomacy and conventional diplomacy (international relations between
government officials) are also as yet underexplored. Also, social media (such as Facebook, Twitter,
etc.), with their user-generated content, have revolutionized communication especially among
developed segments of societies even in the developing world. Few studies currently exist on the
nexus between authoritarian media environments (such as in China) and social media, especially
related to China.
As a recipient of the 2013 U.S.-China Visiting
Scholar Network Travel Grant, Dr. Kishnamurthy
Sriramesh, Professor and University Faculty Scholar
of the Brian Lamb School of Communication at
Purdue University, traveled to Shanghai in fall 2013
to study the use of public diplomacy and new
information communication media in China. Dr.
Sriramesh visited Dr. Feng Lai, Head of the
Department of Public Relations at Shanghai Normal
University, who was also a former visiting scholar
at Dr. Sriramesh’s lab at Purdue in 2013. Based on
their long-term collaborations studying the
similarities and differences in how the US and China practice their public diplomacy, Dr.
Sriramesh’s reciprocal visit was mainly used for data collection that included both structured
personal interviews, including elite interviews with industry and government leaders, and surveys.
Local governments (such as the Shanghai municipal government) indicated keen interests in learning
from these collaborative efforts. Multiple audiences including scholars, students, and policy makers
may benefit from the research.
During this China trip, Dr. Sriramesh also participated in the regional conference of the International
Communication Association, which spawned two other very promising collaborative endeavors with
Dr. Ke Xue, Professor at Shanghai Normal University and Dr. Kai Feng of the Shanghai Academy of
Social Sciences. Drs. Sriramesh and Xue agreed to conduct a research study of the Corporate Social
Responsibility activities of a sample of family-owned businesses in China. That study has been
completed now and data have been gathered from 524 executives, 50 owner-managers, and 32 other
experts on the topic. A paper has been submitted to the annual conference of the International
Communication Association and also a journal for publication. The interaction with Dr. Kai Feng of
the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) resulted in Dr. Sriramesh being invited by SASS
to serve as a member of the Center of Cross-cultural Education and Communication hosted by the
SASS. The association with the SASS will promise a long-term collaboration for cross-cultural
interactions as well as cross-cultural communication.
4 Collaborative Research in Tracing Nitrate Contamination in China Using
Multiple Stable Isotopes
Nitrogen-containing pollutants in China have increased by 60% in the past 30 years due to increased
use of fertilizer, growth in livestock production, increased coal burning, and a sharp rise in car
ownership. Excess nitrogen, primarily as nitrate, can find its ways into water bodies, leading to in
stream eutrophication (rapid algal growth and anoxia), loss of biodiversity and amenity, and the
deterioration of water quality. Purdue Associate Professor, Greg Michalski, of the Department of
Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, is one of the pioneers of using multiple stable isotope
tracers to determine nitrate sources in surface water and one of only a few in the world that can
simultaneously measure nitrate 15N 17O and 18O isotopic abundances. Over the past five years, Dr.
Michalski has developed strong research and education collaborations with Professors Wenshen Ge
(2010 visiting scholar in the lab of Dr. Michalski) of the Chinese University of Geosciences, Beijing
(CUGB) and Xinghui Xia of Beijing Normal University (BNU). Their collaborative products include
binational field trips, two joint funds from the National Geographic Society, several journal
publications, and a recurring two-week short course on stable isotope geochemistry at CGUB.
Building on these long-term
collaborations, Dr. Michalski, as a
recipient of the U.S.-China Visiting
Scholar Network Travel Grant,
traveled to China in the summer of
2014
to
finalize
research
manuscripts with his past visiting
scholar and work with them to
expand this nitrogen sourcing
isotope analysis and education
network to southwestern China. New
collaborations include with Ms.
Yuanzhu Zhang, Department of
Geography of Southwest University,
Chongqing municipality, to examine
the sources of nitrate in ground
water in mixed land-use watersheds
in Chongqing suburbs. Additionally, Dr. Michalski, worked with the Department of International
Studies at Sichuan University (Chengdu, Sichuan Province) through the LION international
exchange program to teach a 5-week long course in Environmental Chemistry. While in Chengdu, he
met with Mr. Peter Haymond, the US Consulate General in Chengdu, to discuss the US-China
Ecopartnership program and connections to environmental issues in Sichuan province.
5 Collaborative Research on Diagnosis of Childhood Lead Poisoning and
Occupational Manganese Exposure in China
Lead exposure to the general public has been reduced since the ban of leaded gasoline in late 1970s
in the United States and in late 1980s in China. However, in both the United States and China, lead
remains a highly significant environmental toxin with regard to exposure to children. The
consequences of childhood lead poisoning are numerous and include both neurodevelopmental and
non-neurodevelopmental effects. Some of the greatest exposure concerns relate to its adverse
neurological effects, which include lower intellectual quotient, deficits in neurobehavioral
performance, decreases in auditory sensitivity and visuomotor performance, and lower learning
ability. Though awareness, testing, and controls are increasing throughout the world where
industrialization has occurred, there are still many unanswered research questions regarding
excessive lead exposure among pediatric population. One method of lead exposure evaluation is to
identify minimally invasive biomarkers for exposure: Dr. Linda Nie, an Assistant Professor from the
School of Health Sciences at Purdue University, is working on this task.
As a recipient of the 2013 U.S.-China Visiting
Scholar Network Travel Grant, Dr. Nie visited
Xinhua Hospital, affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong
University, and Zunyi Medical University (ZMU) in
China. Dr. Nie was joined by three Purdue
colleagues: Dr. Wei Zheng (Head and Professor,
School of Health Sciences), Dr. Ellen Wells
(Assistant Professor), and Mr. Aaron Specht (Dr.
Nie’s PhD student). Dr. Nie’s collaborators are Drs.
Jian Xu and Chonghuai Yan at Xinhua Hospital and
Drs. Yan Li and Yuanzhong Zhou at ZMU. The
travel funds allowed Mr. Specht to have an extended
research visits in Shanghai in the summer and fall of
2014.
During their visit, the Purdue team set up portable xray fluorescence bone Pb scanning systems to
measure, for the first time, in-situ, high accuracy
bone Pb concentrations. They are using these results,
among other things, to study the efficacy of
chelation treatment in children. While at ZMU, the
scholars discussed research plans, Institutional
Review Board applications, research task
assignments, and the timeline for a correlated new
occupational (Mn) exposure study which they plan
to start in early 2015. An additional benefit of this visit was that it was the first time Dr. Wells and
Mr. Specht visited China. 6 The 2013-2014 Chinese Visiting Scholars Network Reciprocal Travel Grant
Awards
Collaborative Research on Chinese Consumers’ Preference for Food Safety
Attributes of Duck
Purdue principal investigator: Holly Wang, Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics,
wanghong@purdue.edu
Traveler: Rachel Carnegie (Graduate student)
Host in China: Professors Laping Wu and Junfei Bai, College of Economics and Management,
China Agriculture University
Collaborative Research in Environmental Chemistry of Surface and Drinking
Water in China
Purdue principal investigator: Chad Jafvert, Professor, Lyles School of Civil Engineering,
jafvert@ecn.purdue.edu
Traveler: Chad Jafvert
Host in China: Professor Dafang Fu, School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University and
Professor Lin Yang, Department of Chemistry, Qinghai Normal University
Collaborative Research on China’s Public Diplomacy and the Use of Social
Media in China
Purdue principal investigator: Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, Professor, Brian Lamb School of
Communication, ksriramesh@purdue.edu
Traveler: Krishnamurthy Sriramesh
Host in China: Professor Feng Lai, Department of Public Relations, Shanghai Normal
University
Collaborative Research in Tracing Nitrate Contamination in China Using
Multiple Stable Isotopes
Purdue principal investigator: Greg Michalski, Associate Professor, Department of Earth,
Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, gmichals@purdue.edu
Traveler: Greg Michalski
Host in China: Professor Wensheng Ge, School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China
University of Geosciences (Beijing), Professor Xinghui Xia, School of Environment, Beijing
Normal University and Professor Yuanzhu Zhang, Department of Geography, Southwest
University
7 Collaborative Research on Diagnosis of Childhood Lead Poisoning and
Occupational Manganese Exposure in China
Purdue principal investigator: Linda Nie, Assistant Professor, School of Health Sciences,
hnie@purdue.edu
Traveler: Aaron Specht (Graduate student)
Host in China: Professors Jian Xu and Chonghuai Yan, Shanghai Keylab of Children’s
Environmental Health, Xinhua Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University and Drs. Yan
Li and Yuanzhong Zhou, Zunyi Medical University Collaborative Research on the Fabrication of Bulk Nanostructured Metals
and Alloys
Purdue principal investigator: Qingyou Han, Professor, Department of Mechanical
Engineering Technology, hanq@purdue.edu
Traveler: Qingyou Han
Host in China: Professors Lin Hua and Yanxiong Liu, College of Automobile Engineering,
Wuhan University of Technology
Collaborative Research on Lung Cancer and Fatty Liver Diseases
Purdue principal investigator: Wanqing Liu, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal
Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, liu781@purdue.edu
Traveler: Wanqing Liu
Host in China: Chong Li, MD, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University and
Xiaoliang Wang, MD, the First Affiliated Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University
Collaborative Research on AC and DC Characterization of MoS2 MOSFETS Purdue principal investigator: Peide Ye, Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, and Birck Nanotechnology Center, yep@purdue.edu
Traveler: Peide Ye Host in China: Professor Runsheng Wang, Institute of Microelectronics, Peking University
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