ISP

World WIde AlumnI neWS AnnouncementS | ServIce | JobS

Dear TU Alumni,TU Dortmund University was once again ex-hibitor at the European Career Fair at MIT. Laura and I got to go to beautiful Boston to represent the three ConRuhr universities. The ECF is an annual recruiting event, organized by the MIT European Club that connects employers from Europe with the most talented candidates that live in the US. We had the great oppor-tunity to meet up with old and new colleagues from partner institutions and with students and graduates looking for study programs and job openings. We also had the chance to talk to some TU Alumni from the U.S. Did you know that TU Dortmund University attends several international higher education and career fairs each year? Besides the ECF, there is the PhD Workshop in Beijing, China and of course the NAFSA. Most of them are open to the public and are a great way to reconnect with your alma mater and learn more about research and work opportunities in Germany, especially if you’re planning to go back. Useful information and openings for both students and researchers can be found here: www.research-in-germany.de. The day after the exhibition offers infor-mation sessions for both exhibitors and visitors. This year, the half-day program „Research in Germany“ featured first-hand information for both post-docs and graduate students. We hope to see more Alumni at these events in the future. They are great for networking and job hunting.

We will announce future fairs on our Alumni website and on Facebook. Watch out for it! :-)Besides work, Laura and I had a day off to explore Bean Town. By the way, does any-body know why this is Boston‘s nickname??? The weather during our stay was cold, there was even some snowfall. But that did not keep us from walking the famous freedom trail and from visiting some historical sites: Bunker Hill, the USS Constitution, the Old State House... Boston is a great place to learn about American history. So next year, you might wanna plan a trip to Boston to visit the EFC, us, and this great city. :-)Looking forward to seeing you there!Team Alumni InternationalLaura & Anna-Julia

A PoStcArd from boSton, mASSAchuSettS InternAtIonAl offIce PleASed to Announce tWo ImPortAnt PArtnerShIPS

The “Ruhr Fellowship” Program is going to bring the first set of students to TU Dortmund University this summer for two-month internships. The students will spend one month with a culture and leadership pro-gram at the university and one month working closely with a company in the Initiativkreis Ruhr in order to experience the German work environment firsthand. This internship program brings students from the Uni-ted States to the “Cradle of Industry” in Germany and shows them the creativity and innovation that are now associated with the Ruhr Area. On March 15, 10 out of 40 applicants from MIT, UPenn, Havard and Princeton were selected for the program. Be sure to look for more about the fellowship program in a later newsletter.

The University of Victoria is the newest international exchange partner, connecting Dortmund’s students with research in many areas, including re-newable energy systems and deep-water seafloor ob-servatory projects. The school is located on Vancouver Island in Canada, will be hosting its first TU Dortmund University student this fall, and also welcomes further applications for Study Abroad students from the TU.

Ongoing Programs:

The tenth annual International Summer Program (ISP) will be hosting international students from the end of May through July and giving them hands-on study opportunities in upcoming fields. The students take part in regular classes in either Engineering or Ger-man and European Studies and also attend a German language and culture course during their stay. The International Summer Program also acquaints stu-

dents with the area by providing cultural excursions and a partnership program with German students.

Opportunities:

Many former study abroad students wonder how they can make it back to Germany. In order to an-swer the many questions students have, the DAAD has started an initiative called “Study in Germa-ny: Land of Ideas.” This initiative has a new website with information on choosing a university, getting a visa, knowing about your German health insurance options, and games, study-in.de. If you have been thinking of coming to Germany again, you might want to look here for useful information and tips.

International alumni newsletter 03/2012International alumni newsletter 03/2012 5 6

ImPrInt neWSletterPublished by tu dortmund universityInternational office, emil-figge-Str. 61 44221 dortmund | Germany

edited by Anna-Julia toll+49(0)231-7556351annajulia.toll@tu-dortmund.de www.aaa.tu-dortmund.de

translations by tammy Kirchner

Photos: J. huhn, m. roth, m. haruna, A. J. toll

layout: It & medien centrum

thanks to DAAD for supporting this publication

January 2012

march 2012

Info: nAfSA 2012 houSton, texASNAFSA‘s Annual Conference & Expo attracts more than

7,000 attendees from 120 countries each year and is widely

recognized as the world‘s premier meeting, networking, and

learning opportunity for international educators. The expo is

open to the public. Date: 27 May - 1 June 2012

learn more: www.nafsa.org---

World Wide News Announcements

Welcome message // Alumni Profile: mustapha haruna

A careful examination of a neighborhood // music is in the Air

urban Agriculture: International Student Workshop // eu Sponsors research Project: Plastic Antibodies

A Postcard from boston, massachusetts

International office Pleased to Announce two Important Partnerships

InternAtIonAl AlumnI newsletter

technische universitätdortmund

Alumni International

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on And Around cAmPuSWelcome! conferenceS, cooPerAtIonS And co.

With the help of mapping methods, or more speci-fically the artistic cartography of a neighborhood, children, teens, students of TU Dortmund University, and residents investigated the Dortmunder “West-end” for half a year. They presented their findings during the Capital of Culture year 2010 with an ex-hibit in the Dortmund U. The book about the project “U-Westend” is now being published as a part of the series “Dortmunder Schriften zur Kunst” (Dortmund Writings on Art).

To make the change of the neighborhood bordering the Dortmunder U visible – that was the aim of the project “U-Westend,” organized by TU Dortmund Uni-versity, the Museum Ostwall, and the youth art school “balou” and completed in cooperation with schools, extracurricular venues, the artist Martin Brand, and the residents of the “Westend” neighborhood. The collected results of the project can now be found in a book, which was presented in the Museum Ostwall on January 12th. The publishers are Klaus-Peter Busse (TU Dortmund University), Rudolf Preuss (balou e.V.), and Kurt Wettengl (Museum Ostwall). As part of the “U-Westend” book presentation, videos taken during the exploration of the area were also shown.

March is a great time to get geared up for the next se-mester. This spring we are looking at the university’s recent accomplishments as well as upcoming oppor-tunities. We are excited to introduce our first ‘Alumni Profile’ in this newsletter and hope that you will also share your story with the alumni community. With each newsletter, we establish more connections with alumni and hope to facilitate new opportunities and projects for our former students. This newsletter focuses on the diversity of the projects TU Dortmund University has to offer students and alumni. Of course, we always have more information on our website and available through our Facebook page. Each year, TU Dortmund University attends several international career and education fairs. Learn more about our trip to the European Career Fair in Boston this January on page 5. BVB Dortmund is again doing well during the current soccer season and we are hoping to host another “Meisterfeier” in May. Keep an eye on our Fa-cebook page for pictures and reports as we are expec-ting another huge black-and-yellow party in the city. Fingers crossed!

After a year of work on the alumni project, we are ma-king plans for a possible TU Dortmund University alum-ni reunion in the summer of 2013. Spread the news! As always, we are happy to receive your feedback on the newsletter or the alumni project in general.

Glück auf und beste Grüße aus Dortmund!

Dr. Barbara Schneider

A joint venture of TU Dortmund University and Michi-gan State University, the International Student Work-shop “Urban Agriculture – Planning for Sustainable Development in Metropolitan Areas” brought minds and ideas together in May 2011. Seven small groups, each with German as well as American students, participated in a charette, an intensive design work-shop, for one week. The workshop as well as the field trip and a published documentation of the workshop were supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Martin Schmeißer Foundation, and the School of Spatial Planning at TU Dortmund University. Although the issue of urban agriculture is often regarded as antagonistic in urban planning today, the students tackled it as an innovative form of (temporary) land use. Visits to various existing projects encouraged the development of competi-tive concepts for four sites in Dortmund in the group projects. The winning project “Station Green Track” developed a concept for the freight depot southwest of the city center which was taken out of commission in 1963. The goal was the reintegration of the brown-field into the community using an urban garden and a socio-ecological-cultural center within the existing buildings. Both of these would be operated and used by residents and other volunteers from surrounding communities. The 27th year of cooperation between the two universities provided the opportunity for 27 students to look at the numerous brownfields in the former industrial metropolis Dortmund as possible sites for urban agricultural projects. Contact: Micha-el Roth, Faculty of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund University.

Johann Sebastian Bach, Peter Tchaikovsky, and Mi-chael Jackson – in January and February, works by these famous musicians and others could be heard at the university. A diverse crowd came to enjoy the con-clusion of the semester with the concerts: students, academics, friends, and parents of the participants. Music plays an important role at TU Dortmund Uni-versity. There are around a dozen musical ensembles; according to Dr. Klaus Oehl from the Department of Music and Musicology, a good hundred students take part in these ensembles. “Lots of them study music but fifty percent are students from other fields,” he also said that “everybody is welcome, including alum-ni and academics.” The largest groups are the univer-sity choir, the chamber choir, the university orchestra, the student orchestra, and the wind orchestra, but there are also smaller ensembles including the mu-sical choir and the big band. Oehl emphasizes the importance of musical activities on campus and the spectrum of musical styles offered by the ensembles, noting that they “give the students the opportunity to explore their cultural interests.”

The students in the ensembles all have the same mo-tivation: they enjoy making music or singing. Gospel choir member Laura Kleiß adds, “the community is great. Moreover, it’s nice to present the results of our work at the end of every semester.” Most of the en-sembles present new programs twice per year: in the winter and in the summer. Thus, the end of the seme-ster always brings music into the air on campus.

By Linda Klimmek

Mustapha came to Dortmund in August 2010 as a DAAD scholar in the SPRING (Spatial Planning for Re-gions in Growing Economies) Master’s program. He is currently working on the final phase of his thesis “Indigenous Knowledge, Science, and Native Forest Management: Possibilities for a Sustainable and Cul-turally Acceptable Strategy in the Valeriano Cayicul and Manuel Curilef Communities in Southern Chile” in cooperation with the Faculty of Economics and Ma-nagement Sciences at the Universidad Austral de Chi-le in Valdivia, Chile. He hopes to complete the thesis in June and continue his career in the public service of Ghana.

Looking back at his time in Dortmund, Mustapha has many fond memories of the legendary H-Bahn and the beauty of the Technologie Zentrum. He has always told the story of his wonderful experience with the H-Bahn anywhere he went and it is his hope to replicate it at his home university in Ghana.

Approximately three million Euros from the European Commission will fund an internationally networked research project with which scientists will develop so-called “plastic antibodies” and other customized materials in order to research their usefulness in the field of bioanalytics. The project is entitled “Robust affinity materials for applications in proteomics and diagnostics” and is being coordinated by chemists at TU Dortmund University. The high level of stabili-ty of these “plastic antibodies,” their reproducibility and the low production cost give the researchers hope for innovative delicate, reliable, and cost-effi-cient methods of analysis for medical diagnosis. In addition, the project deals with the development of new nanotechnology-based tools and instruments in pharmaceutical and medicinal research, for ex-ample, in the treatment of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. The research project will be spon-sored for four years by the European Commission as a part of the “Marie Curie Program” and will make it possible to train the next generation of scientists on an international level. Nine specialized work groups at European universities and three industry part-ners are working together in the “Marie Curie Initial Training Network.” With this funding, ten internati-onal PhD students and two postdocs will be joining the project as of January 2012. The initiative will be coordinated by PD Dr. Börje Sellergren from the In-stitute of Environmental Research in the Chemistry Department at TU Dortmund University (picture). The kick-off meeting took place at the end of January 2012 here in Dortmund.

A cAreful exAmInAtIon of A neIGhbor-hood: A booK About „u-WeStend“

Dear InternatIonal alumnI anD FrIenDs, “urbAn AGrIculture”: InternAtIonAl Student WorKShoP

eu SPonSorS reSeArch ProJect: PlASTiC ANTiboDiES

muSIc IS In the AIr: tu dortmund unIverSIty‘S muSIcAl enSembleS

AlumnI ProfIle: muStAPhA hArunA

International alumni newsletter 03/2012 2 3 4International alumni newsletter 03/2012 International alumni newsletter 03/2012

Info

would you like to share your story, too?

we are now looking for alumni profiles for our upcoming newsletters. Please get in touch with us via email (alumni-international@tu-dort-mund.de) or fill out an alumni profile form at www.aaa.tu-dortmund.de.

Your Alumni International team

march 2012

may 2011January 2012

december 2011february 2012

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