CeRTEV endeavors a great effort towards glass education
and networking
The São Paulo Advanced School on Glasses and Glass-ceramics,
organized by the Center for Research, Technology and Education for Vitreous
Materials (CeRTEV) of the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) was
held during August 1-9, 2015, in São Carlos, SP, Brazil. It counted on
generous financial support from the São Paulo Research Foundation
(FAPESP), the Department of Materials Engineering (DEMa-UFSCar), the
Institute of Physics (IFSC)-USP, Brazil, and Owens-Illinois, USA. The
School budget was approximately US$ 250,000.
The School was widely advertised during 2 months at CeRTEV´s email
list of glass researchers, at Klaus Bange´s email list, and on key web sites
related to glass research: American Ceramic Society, Society of Glass
Technology, International Comission on Glass, Linkedin (glass research and
technology groups), Brazilian Ceramic Society, Brazilian Physical Society,
FAPESP, SBPMat (Brazil-MRS), as well as in some journals: Nature, ACerS
Ceramic Bulletin, and Glass International.
The participants were selected among hundreds of applicants from
around the globe. The selection criteria included a thorough analysis of their
CVs, recommendation letters, and the scientific standing of their current
research group. The large number of applications and the outstanding quality
of many of them made this process quite difficult. In the end, approximately
100 highly qualified students from 19 countries were accepted. Among the
international participants were 12 from the US, 8 from France, 7 from
Germany, 6 from India, 3 from Italy, 3 from Colombia, 3 from Russia, 3 from
China, 2 from Canada, 2 from Argentina, 2 from Turkey, 2 from the Czech
Republic, and one each from Spain, Finland, Korea, Japan, UK, Portugal and
Tunisia, plus about 40 students from Brazil. Twenty extra guest students and
professors were allowed to attend the classes. The organizers covered the
travel, meals and accommodation expenses of most of the selected PhD
students and instructors.
The school program covered several key, state-of-the-art, topics on glass
and glass-ceramics, ranging from structural characterization to relaxation,
thermodynamics, crystallization, and properties. The program comprised 11
lectures of 2 hours each, and 3 tutorials about the powerful SciGlass
database/software – with a free user license for all the attendees during the
School days.
The first day started with an overview of the school objectives and the overall
plan (delivered by Prof. Edgar D. Zanotto). The second day started with a
"fire" session, where the students had a 1 minute to "sell" the highlights of
their PhD research work and poster.In the next day, the school was opened
with Professor Hellmut Eckert´s lecture on "Glass structure by NMR
techniques", followed by a lecture by Prof. P.S. Pizzani entitled "Glass
structure by Raman spectroscopy". In the afternoon, the students were
assembled into into groups of five and a challenge was proposed: to develop –
under the guidance of an assigned tutor - an original proposal for a postdoctoral research project on a topic related to glass or glass-ceramics, to be
presented at the end of the school, as a requirement for their final "diploma".
This day ended with a practical tutorial of SciGlass, coordinated by Dr. Alex
Priven. On the fourth day, the school started with Professor Prabhat Gupta´s
lecture on "Structural and stress relaxation in glasses", followed by Prof. J.P.
Rino´s lecture on "Dynamic processes in glass by MD simulation". After
lunch, Prof. Zanotto presented the lecture "Nucleation, growth and
crystallization of glasses", which was followed by another SciGlass tutorial
session. The fifth day started with a lecture on "Optical properties of vitreous
materials" delivered by Prof. Ballato followed by Prof. A. S. S. de Camargo´s
lecture "Spectroscopic techniques applied to glasses and glass-ceramics". In
the afternoon the students had a guided visit to several laboratories of the
Physics and Materials Engineering Departments of UFSCar. Lectures on
"Mechanical properties of glasses" (Prof. V. Sglavo, Italy) and "Mechanical
properties of glass-ceramics" (Prof. F. Serbena, Brazil) were presented on the
sixth day of the school. After lunch, the students attended the final tutorial
class on SciGlass and presented the main results of their PhD work in a 2-hour
poster session. On Friday, the 7th day, Prof. A. Ghosh delivered his lecture on
"Electrical properties of vitreous materials". After this lecture, the students
were invited to visit the laboratories of the Physics Institute of the University
of São Paulo (USP). The afternoon was dedicated to the final discussions
about the pos-doctoral projects. The 8th day started with the presentations of
Prof. Peitl, Marina Trevelin, Clever Chinaglia (all from CeRTEV (Brazil) and
Murilo Crovace on "Bioactive glasses and glass-ceramics". After this
presentation, Prof. Osvaldo N. Oliveira Junior gave an overview of FAPESP`s
funding opportunities for young researchers’ projects. Profs. Zanotto´s and
Eckert´s talks on research opportunities at CeRTEV finished the morning
talks. The remainder of the day was dedicated to working on the students´
research proposals, which were then defended during the final day of the
conference. All the 18 presentations were of very high quality and very
interesting research ideas were proposed. Many professors and attendees
commented that they will likely build on some of these ideas in their own
future research! The school ended with Prof. Zanotto´s and Eckert´s farewell
speeches and acknowledgements. The lectures and other information can be
downloaded from http://www.certev.ufscar.br/g-cc-brasil.
The vast majority of received feedback indicates that the school was a
great success and should be repeated. This was likely one of the largest short
courses focusing on glass education worldwide. We are confident that the
attendees have benefitted greatly from the information and perspectives
presented at this school and that they will return home to their on-going
research projects with inspiration and new ideas. We hope to remain in touch
with these future leaders in academic and industrial glass research, to develop
collaborations and joint research projects with them and their advisors in the
future.
M. R. B. Andreeta, A. C. M. Rodrigues, E. D. Zanotto and H. Eckert
CeRTEV (www.certev.ufscar.br), São Carlos, SP, Brazil