UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Tohoku University, one of Penn State's strategic partners, recently invited Lee Kump, dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and professor of geosciences at Penn State, to visit the university in Sendai, Japan.
On Oct. 9 and 30, Kump met Tohoku's senior leaders, including Masahiro Yamaguchi, vice president for education reform and global engagement; Takeshi Kakegawa, professor of the Graduate School of Science and a Penn State alumnus; Yoshitaka Kasukabe, professor emeritus and specially appointed professor (research) of the Global Learning Center; and Yumiko Watanabe, specially appointed professor of the Global Learning Center and a Penn State alumna. They discussed numerous opportunities to grow Tohoku University’s International Research Excellence initiative with expanded engagement in research collaboration and education exchange with Penn State.
“Already one of the premier research universities in Japan, Tohoku is poised to take research excellence to the next level with a focus on international collaboration,” said Kump. “As a key partner in that effort, Penn State, its students and faculty, will benefit tremendously if we seize the opportunity.”
For decades, faculty champions from both universities have played a significant role in research collaborations. However, the partnership remained as individual faculty-to-faculty linkages before 2022. In efforts to facilitate university-wide, institutional partnership between Penn State and Tohoku University, Anna Marshall, associate director for Asia partnerships at Penn State Global, and Kasukabe met regularly at national and international conferences since 2022. With a commitment to a long-term, multi-dimensional partnership, they have strategized to expand collaborations.
Moving forward, Kevin Furlong, professor of geosciences, and Kakegawa said they plan to create a joint Tohoku-Penn State graduate course. Based on strategic goals and student interests, the initial topic for this course will focus on aspects of disaster science. The course will be taught in a hybrid mode, involving both synchronous and asynchronous remote-education components, plus one or more in-person, co-located activities. Furthermore, two universities consider running a virtual joint exploratory research symposium to foster collaborations at the post-graduate and faculty levels.
“We are grateful to many faculty and alumni for championing our on-going collaborations,” says Marshall. “Now with Tohoku’s new designation as the recipient of the remarkable ‘University for International Research Excellence’ award in Japan, our partnership enters an exciting chapter. We are deepening our research and education collaborations towards common goals of solving global problems and making positive impacts on both local and global communities.”