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Santander grant helps postgraduate researcher to visit Yale

23 April 2012

A postgraduate researcher from the School of Applied Sciences has visited Yale University to help further her research.

School of Applied Sciences postgraduate researcher Ivis Chan visited Yale University using a grant from Santander to help further her investigation into tree pattern diversity in Central America.

Yale, a prestigious Ivy League research University, is the third oldest institution of higher education in the US and is ranked fourth best in the world according to QS top universities.

Travelling to Yale allowed Ivis to meet and work with Dr Dan Rosauer in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Dr Rosauer’s expertise in measurement, mapping and prediction of biological diversity would help her to develop a method of identifying areas containing unique groups of tree species and also provided Ivis with training in the software she will implement during her research.

Ivis took full advantage of the opportunities that were on offer to her at Yale and participated in graduate seminars including the highly debated topics of niche conservatism and heritability of species range sizes.

Ivis said: “This exchange visit was a very rewarding experience for me and I would encourage others to take advantage of such opportunities. This partnership started with a simple exchange of email communication. It is therefore important that researchers are encouraged and enabled to build collaborations as this fosters the exchange of ideas that knowledge is built on.

“The Santander grant offers a good chance for researchers to put their collaborative ideas into action. Many thanks to the Santander grant for sponsoring me.”