Editor’s note: This story is part of Dispatches from Abroad, a series highlighting UChicago community members who are researching, studying and working around the world.
A chill in the air signals the start of a new academic year and the return of many University of Chicago students and faculty from a summer abroad. Some UChicagoans pursued research questions in the field, while others studied big questions from a global perspective.
From researching algae evolution in France to studying climate change in India to engineering medical devices in Germany and leading workshops to identify natural dye species in Mexico, learn about their travels in the dispatches below.
Documenting natural dye species in Mexico
In Teotitlán del Valle, a small village near Oaxaca, Mexico, a community of textile artists examined familiar plants and animals under a microscope.
For centuries, their families have carefully cultivated and processed these species to extract natural dyes: indigo for blue, grana cochinilla insects for red and caracol purpura sea snails for purple.
“These textile communities are some of the oldest ones in the Americas,” said Oscar Pineda-Catalan, a senior associate instructional professor in the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division.
This summer, a group of UChicago scholars partnered with local artists to combine traditional expertise with scientific methodologies to better understand—and manage—the biodiversity of the region.
The team led two four-day workshops to identify species morphologically, or based on how something looks, and genetically. Using their own harvested specimens, participants learned how to press and dry plants, take high-magnification photographs and extract DNA for barcoding analysis.
The workshops, in their second year, are part of The Biodiversity of Color, a multidisciplinary project funded by the Neubauer Collegium.
“This is, to our knowledge, one of the first scientific projects doing genetic and morphological analysis by community members posing their own research questions,” said Research Associate Professor Sonia Hernandez, a member of the Biodiversity of Color team.
For example, participants were interested in whether their grana conchinilla population was native to the region or had been reintroduced from Peru after a decades-long knowledge gap caused by the introduction of synthetic dyes.
The results, Hernandez noted, will be owned by the artists, who will participate in and have final say on publishing data obtained through the project. Next summer the team hopes to plan a conference to share findings across the members from five participating communities.
“From the historical and anthropological perspective, from the arts and scientific perspective, I think the project is producing really interesting results,” Pineda-Catalan said, “that we have been able to actually put together by working with these communities.”
Studying sustainable growth in India
This summer, the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth launched a new India Summer Fellows Program. The pilot project sent 15 UChicago College students to Ahmedabad University in the state of Gujarat along India’s western coast.
Students studied energy, climate and sustainable growth in the Indian context, alongside students from Ahmedabad University. Faculty from both institutions participated in the program, which combined classroom activities with fieldwork.
At the beginning and end of the three-week program, UChicago students spent several days in Delhi, participating in excursions and meetings focused on this pressing global issue.
During the program, rising second-year in the College Parjanya Tiwari found a lecture on gender and climate particularly eye-opening.
“I was struck by how vulnerable home-based women workers are in Indian cities with little to no infrastructure that accounts for sanitation, heat protection and access to transportation,” recounted Tiwari. “It made me wonder, if we reframe the narrative to prioritize their needs, would we still engage in our climate action?”
Molecular engineering and chemistry major Samantha Alderden was most interested in the discussions around air pollutants’ health effects.
“It was fascinating to hear, at the molecular level, how the pollutants I’ve learned so much about this past week do damage to the body,” wrote the rising second-year in the College. “It was also interesting to see an example of how climate science is still constantly evolving, and that there’s still so much research to be done before we get a full understanding of how climate issues like air pollution affect human health.”
Collecting algae on the coast of France
Max Bogan spent this past July on France’s Atlantic coast. A Ph.D. candidate with the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, Bogan researches the evolution of intertidal algae, with a particular concentration on kelp.
Typically, Bogan studies the Pacific Ocean. But through a serendipitous meeting at the John W. Boyer Center in Paris, she met a team based at the Station Biologique de Roscoff, a research station in the Brittany region.
Bogan applied for a grant through IRC Discovery, a multi-disciplinary hub for partnerships between UChicago and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, to continue her research with the French team.
Bogan and her Roscoff counterparts were studying a particular biochemical feature of kelp—the accumulation of iodine and other halogens like chlorine and bromine.
“Kelp has this really weird, unique chemistry; it's something the Roscoff team was already working on,” Bogan said. “We wanted to come at it from both the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean sides and try to combine the resources that we had. I think it's turned out really beautifully.”
Bogan spent the month at Roscoff, incorporating the fieldwork she and her advisor, Cathy Pfister, a professor of Ecology and Evolution, had already done along the Pacific coastline of Washington state.
Her daily work at Roscoff consisted of time in the biochemistry lab, analysis and gathering samples along the coast. Bogan’s experience in Roscoff made her aware of the unique advantages of international fieldwork.
“So much of our interpretation of science comes from language and metaphor,” she said. “When you have another language's set of metaphors, those associations can help spark ideas. It can be really productive.”
Jokingly, Bogan claimed that international research also made her more resilient.
“Even if you have jet lag, you have to also go to work,” she said. “Luckily, my colleagues had a good sense of humor.”
Engineering life-saving machines in Germany
Third-year College student Michael Bolgov spent the summer in Germany interning at Bruker, a life sciences company that makes scientific instruments and medical devices.
At UChicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, Bolgov studies the origin of life on Earth. This summer, Bolgov learned how to save lives while working on machines designed to help identify bacterial infections that cause sepsis—a crucial step to treatment and preventing a leading cause of death.
“This summer has opened up the world of industrial customer-focused applications of engineering,” said Bolgov. “I have enjoyed working on medical devices that will be used by hospitals in the next few years.”
Outside of his internship, Bolgov enjoyed traveling across Europe during his summer abroad, including to Latvia—his family’s home country. He also enjoyed the benefits of immersing himself in German culture and interacting with coworkers from around the world.
“I gained a lot of insight into German work culture, which struck me as very healthy: Everyone worked hard, but breaks were respected, free fruit baskets were provided and colleagues always greeted one another,” he said. “Even the typical lunches were fresh and balanced, which motivated me to eat healthier too.”
—This story contains material previously published by the Institute for Climate & Sustainable Growth and UChicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.
