Monash University
Melbourne, Australia
https://www.monash.edu
Penn State Global contact: Alexandra Persiko, assistant director for Europe and Oceania partnerships (1-814-867-5941, axp1225@psu.edu)
History
Penn State and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have enjoyed multi-faceted connectivity between faculty and students for many years. Seeing this level of engagement, the two universities agreed to work toward a true strategic partnership in late 2017.
The goal of this strategic partnership is to identify and facilitate collaborative research, education, and service activities that neither could achieve independently. In essence, making 1 + 1 = 3.
The first significant action towards this vision was a bilateral university workshop at Monash University in April 2018. Afterwards, the two universities launched a large-scale Seed-funded collaboration development program in August 2018.
Various agreements have been signed with the Monash University, including a Memorandum of Understanding, and Memoranda of Agreement in Education Abroad and with the College of Medicine.
Opportunities
The Collaboration Development Fund Program, a jointly financed Seed-fund program, was launched to facilitate collaborative research and teaching projects to become sustainable, self-supporting, long-term activities. Upon strong interest by colleges and departments at both universities, 23 projects received funding for the 2018-2019 program.
Due to the preliminary success of the first round, Penn State and Monash University conducted a second Collaboration Development Fund round targeted at projects in the Intersection of Health and the Environment in 2019.
Key Activities
The partnership with Monash is broad, spanning a large number of colleges and departments at Penn State. These have included the Colleges of Health and Human Development, Liberal Arts, Arts and Architecture, Engineering, Science, Earth and Mineral Sciences, Agricultural Sciences and the Institute for CyberScience. The projects involve both faculty and students and address the missions of the respective universities: research, education and service.
2019 Seed Funding
|
Project Title |
Penn State Lead |
Lead Department |
|
Characterizing and Modelling the Impact of Farm Management Practices on Antibiotic Presence and Antimicrobial Resistance in Streams |
Heather Gall
|
Agricultural & Biological Engineering |
|
Self-Powered Wireless Biosensing Networks for Health and Environment Monitoring |
Shashank Priya |
Materials Science and Engineering |
|
An Engineering-Pulmonary-Pathology Collaboration for Developing Disease-specific, Patient-specific Models of Inhaled Toxicant Susceptibility |
Ali Borhan |
Chemical Engineering |
|
Reproductive Scaling in Vectors and the Impact on Human Disease under a Changing Climate |
Elizabeth McGraw
|
Entomology |
|
Understanding Fundamental Processes Governing Bioanalytical Sensors based on Luminescent Carbon Nanomaterials |
Slava Rotkin |
Engineering Science and Mechanics, Biomedical Engineering |
|
Transformative Resilience in the Context of Climate Change |
Paige Castellanos |
Office of International Programs, Agricultural Sciences |
|
Developing and Piloting a Mobile App to Assess the Daily Role of Social Networks in the Recovery of Substance-Dependent Individuals |
Timothy Brick |
Human Development and Family Studies |
|
Developing Ethical, Policy, and Legal Frameworks to Address the Health Effects of Digital Influence |
Daniel Susser |
Information Sciences and Technology; Rock Ethics Institute |
|
From Health to Sustainable Environments: Connecting Wellbeing, Sustainability and Citizenship: Exploring Ecologies of Influence in Young People |
Dana Mitra |
Education Policy Studies |
|
Is the Whole Better than the Sum of the Parts? A model for studying interactions among health- and quality-related phytochemicals in plant foods and food ingredients |
Helene Hopfer |
Food Science |
|
From Local Health to Global Climate: Assessing the air quality co-benefits of climate mitigation strategies in the U.S and China |
Wei Peng |
Civil and Environmental Engineering & International Affairs |
For a list of projects in 2018, please see: Seed Fund Projects
Highlights of the Partnership
- Penn State and Monash held a joint workshop in April 2018. Penn State Provost Nicholas Jones spoke at the event.
- The two universities have held two rounds of seed funding for joint projects.
- In October 2019, a week-long joint workshop was held at Penn State. For more information, see the Penn State News release about the Forum: https://news.psu.edu/story/594622/2019/10/25/impact/penn-state-welcomes-monash-university-guests-university-park-forum
- Monash University President and Vice-Chancellor Margaret Gardner visited Penn State in September 2022 for discussions around impactful strategic goals of the two universities (Monash Leadership Visit)
- The Vice-Chancellor visit was followed by welcoming Professor Bryan Horrigan, the Executive Dean, Faculty of Law at Monash University, and Academic Lead of the Strategic Partnership with Penn State
