Each year, the CAS Office of Research supports faculty members’ international travel through our International Travel Fund. The program provides up to $1,000 in matching funds for tenured or tenure-track faculty to travel abroad for research or conference presentations. (Faculty on phased retirement are eligible for reduced match of $500.) Typically, faculty who apply to our fund will first obtain funding from the International Programs Center, because IPC funds can be used as the match. Travel funding from both CAS OOR and IPC is limited and applications are accepted on an ongoing basis. Find the CAS ITF fund application on our Funding page.
So far in 2023 – 2024, the CAS International Travel Fund has supported travel by 11 faculty members from 7 different departments, with support promised to 4 additional faculty through June 2024. Learn about their journeys below.
SUMMER 2023
Professor Stuart Dischell (English) traveled to France to give a public reading from his collaborative book Andalusian Visions at the Paris Institute for Critical Thought. Dischell was accompanied by his collaborators, French photographer Cyril Caine, and Swiss translator and experimental musician Laurent Estoppey. He also traveled to Sete, France where he did research that yielded a chapter of his travel book on the city and its famous poets. The piece was subsequently published in The Adroit Journal.
FALL 2023
Professor Anatoly Miroshnichenko (Physics and Astronomy) traveled to Slovakia to attend an international conference at the Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences on the use of meter-class telescopes. The conference took place in the mountains near the border of Slovakia and Poland near the Scalnate Pleso Observatory, high in the Vysoky Tatry mountains. Dr. Miroshnichenko was a member of the Scientific Organizing Committee and presented an invited talk, including results of observations taken at the Three College Observatory.
Ignacio López, Associate Professor of Spanish, (Languages, Literatures, and Cultures) traveled to the University of Jaén, Spain to participate in the international conference on “Courtly Discourses of the Early Modern.” Dr. Lopez received feedback on his conference presentation that he says was “instrumental” in transforming the presentation into an article titled “Literary Leisure and the Construction of the Courtier’s Identity in the Sixteenth Century.” The article is now under review in RILCE: Revista de Filología Hispánica, one of the top journals in Hispanic Studies. Through contacts made at the event, Dr. Lopez was invited to lead a one-week graduate seminar at the University of Bordeaux in Spring 2025.
Professor Derek Krueger (Religious Studies) traveled to Vancouver, Canada for the annual conference of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America. Dr. Krueger organized two panels on Religious Life in Byzantium and gave a paper on the veneration of icons as a religious practice in the 9th through 11th centuries. Krueger reported, “The energy from the sessions was so good that we’ll be organizing panels for the 2024 conference and a colloquium at the Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.”
Veronica Grossi, Associate Professor of Spanish, (Languages, Literatures, and Cultures) traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico to a present a paper at a conference hosted by the University of Guadalajara, Biblioteca Octavio Paz, and the University of California, UC Mexicanistas. She also participated in various activities organized by the literary journal Luvina, where she is part of the editorial board.
Alyssa Gabbay, Associate Professor, (Religious Studies) traveled to Montreal, Canada for the Middle East Studies Association’s annual meeting. There she presented a paper called “Around Iran in 400 Days: Heshmat Moayyad’s Yad-i Yaran,” in a panel on “Baha’i History, Texts, and Contexts.” Using close textual analysis, the paper analyzed a memoir written by scholar Heshmat Moayyad describing his travels to more than 30 cities, villages and towns in central and southern Iran, Kuwait and Bahrain from 1948-1950 on behalf of the Baha’i Faith, and offered an assessment of its value as a resource both for those studying the history of the Baha’i Faith and that of 20th-century Iran.
Prashanti Manda, Associate Professor, (Informatics and Analytics) traveled to Goa University in India where she presented research at the prestigious 20th International Conference on Natural Language Processing. Participating in this leading conference provided a valuable opportunity to connect with and forge collaborations with prominent researchers from Southeast Asia. For example, Dr. Manda is currently exploring exciting possibilities for PhD student recruitment from Goa University.
Sadia Khalil, Visiting Assistant Professor, (Mathematics and Statistics) traveled to School of Natural Sciences (NUST) in Islamabad, Pakistan where she gave an invited talk — “An Optional Quantitative Mixture RRT Model that Accounts for the Lack of Trust.” The session was part of the 2nd International Conference on Recent Trends in Statistics & Data Analytics.
Professor Sat Gupta (Mathematics and Statistics) traveled to Rohtak, India to give a keynote talk on THE EFFECT OF MEASUREMENT ERROR ON BINARY RRT MODEL at the International Conference on Statistics, Data Science and Reliability, hosted by Maharshi Dayanand University. During the event, Dr. Gupta was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the India Association of Statistics and Reliability for his long list of significant contributions to the field of Statistics.
SPRING 2024
Professor Anthony Cuda (English) traveled to London, England to direct the special winter session of the prestigious T. S. Eliot International Summer School, a global venue for research and scholarship on the Nobel Prize Laureate T. S. Eliot. The Winter Session is a smaller, one day version of the weeklong July summer school, designed to bring researchers and students together from around the world to discuss the latest work on Eliot in a particular field. This year the winter gathering was co-facilitated by Dr. Cuda and John Haffenden, renowned editor of the 9-volume edition of Eliot’s letters. The group convened at the University of London, School of Advanced Studies, with participants from Brazil, Ireland, the US, England, and Italy.
Sally Koerner, Associate Professor, (Biology) traveled to South Africa to attend the Savanna Science Networking Meeting in the iconic Kruger National Park, along with three graduate students. Dr. Koerner and grad students Shelby Williford and Rose Terry each presented posters to an internationally renowned group of scientists from and working in savannas around the globe. While the meeting is chock-full of scientific presentations, its main goal is to build connections amongst savanna scientists, foster a community, and stimulate future ideas. Their work was received well, and the meeting opened up new collaborative possibilities.
Photos in this post were provided by the faculty travelers.
