Achievement

Our field-study trip to Brazil to study bioethanol-based sustainable fuels solutions was a “mobile classroom” for the Trainees who participated. Learning happened in many modes: formal presentations by academic and industrial research groups (e.g. at U. Sao Paulo, Amyris , Fermentec); lab and plant tours (e.g. forestry labs at USP, San Martinho sugar mill, CENA, a Brazilian national lab); small-group discussions over breaks and meals at these and other sites visited. Trainees valued the week-long immersion, free of external distractions. As a direct result of one of the presentations, a Trainee has had new ideas for her research, which she and her advisor are now pursuing. Other Trainees report less tangible but still important outcomes, e.g., “a deeper appreciation of how interdisciplinary work requires maintaining a close relationship with those outside of our own field” and “a renewed focus to improving biofuels in the US, by learning from those abroad with similar goal.”