CARIPLO-UniBS Visiting Professors Program

Acronims for this webpage (and links to the institutional websites):

UniBS = the Università degli Studi di Brescia

MIT = the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

DME-MIT = the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering

Abbreviations for this webpage:

Faculty = faculty member (personale docente) of any rank at MIT (professor, associate professor, assistant professor) and at UniBS (professore ordinario, professore associato, ricercatore)

Student = doctoral student at UniBS

1. Program objectives and agreement details

The faculty exchange program agreement is designed to consolidate an existing collaboration and to promote new long term scientific collaborations between faculty members of UniBS and DME-MIT.

In addition to maintaining the existing collaboration which initiated this Agreement, the program will sponsor several new independent research collaboration projects, indicatively between 8 and 12 projects over a period of three and a half years, between June 1st, 2009 and February 28th, 2013.

The new collaboration projects will be selected among research proposals jointly submitted by one UniBS faculty and one DME-MIT faculty. Each proposal must motivate and describe the scientific goals of the cooperation project, which must include and hinge upon activities to be jointly performed during reciprocal visits by the two proponents. In particular, it is expected that each project includes a 2 to 4-month visit to DME-MIT by the proponent UniBS faculty and a 2 to 4-week visit to UniBS by the proponent DME-MIT faculty; in addition, it may also include a 3-month visit to DME-MIT by a UniBS doctoral student. The possibility of repeating the visits in successive years is contemplated up to a limit of 12 months per individual over the lifetime of the exchange program. During each approved visit to MIT, UniBS professors (professore ordinario), associate professors (professore associato) or tenured assistant professors (ricercatore confermato) will be appointed ‘CaRiPLo-UniBS Visiting Professor’, untenured assistant professors (ricercatore non confermato) will be appointed ‘CaRiPLo-UniBS Visiting Scholar’, and doctoral students will be appointed ‘CaRiPLo-UniBS Visiting Scientist’.

Each UniBS participating faculty will receive a fellowship including an airfare allowance from UniBS of up to €1000 and a generous stipend from MIT that will depend on her/his rank (€250/220/190 gross per diem for ordinario/associato/ricercatore), in addition UniBS will maintain her/his full salary during the entire leave of absence (provided all standard approvals required by UniBS have been obtained). Each DME-MIT participating faculty will receive a fellowship including an airfare allowance from UniBS of up to €1000 and a generous stipend from UniBS (€400 gross per diem). Each UniBS participating student will receive an airfare allowance from UniBS of up to €1000 and a fellowship from UniBS, in addition UniBS will provide her/his full salary increased by 100% during the entire leave of absence (provided all standard approvals required by UniBS have been obtained).

Neither MIT nor UniBS will provide any visitor with employment benefits, social security, medical expenses, or insurance. Participants in the program shall be individually responsible for obtaining any and all the necessary work permits, residence permits, medical insurance, visas or other documents necessary and required for his/her visit abroad. MIT and UniBS will provide reasonable support to facilitate obtaining these documents however they cannot guarantee that such documents can be obtained.

Any person who participates in this Program will be subject to all of the policies and procedures of his or her host institution during his or her visit. Key among these policies and procedures is the intellectual property policies of the host institution. MIT's intellectual property policies are found at: http://web.mit.edu/tlo/www/community/policies.html. As a condition of participation in the Program, all visitors to MIT will be required to sign MIT's standard Inventions and Proprietary Information Agreement. As a condition of participation in the Program, all visitors to UniBS will be required to sign a UniBS ad-hoc Invention Disclosure and Proprietary Rights Agreement specific to this program.

2. Call for proposals and deadlines

Every six months, two independent Scientific Committees, one at UniBS and one at DME-MIT, will examine and rank independently the proposed collaboration projects and then will jointly select which one(s) to approve and add to the program. To maintain some flexibility to the program as it evolves in time, no more than two projects will be approved each time (exceptionally three).

Proposals not awarded will not be automatically reconsidered for the next round, however proponents may choose to resubmit by the next deadline.

Proposal submission and committee selection decision deadlines will be as follows (NOTICE: these deadlines are still tentative, as they have not yet been approved by the two Scientific Committees) :

Proposals are to be submitted in a single pdf file complying with the following rules:

- a “project title” page signed by each proponent (print, sign, scan, send to partner, who wil prints, sign, and scan)

- a “list of references” with explicit paper titles (no more than 6000 characters)

- a “proposed program” section (no more than 5000 characters), because the budget for doctoral students is limited to 5 visits of 3 months each for the overall program, if a student’s participation is requested, proponents must indicate explicitly whether the project’s objectives cannot be met without such student’s participation or else what project’s objectives can be guaranteed in case the proposed project is awarded without the student’s participation

- a “conclusion” section explaining (in no more than 2000 characters) the expected results and their coherence with the objectives of the Cariplo Exchange Program, and stating in which ways the proposed project is likely to promote a long term scientific collaboration between proponent faculty members and/or their respective institutions

- a CV section for each proponent, of no more than 10000 characters for each proponent, including a “summary of scientific leadership profile”, a “funding ID”, a “list of main publications” with explicit paper titles

- a budget sheet according to the template Cariplo-UniBS-MIT-Project-Budget-Template.xls including the specification of a Project Start Date and of initial and final dates of the planned visit periods. NOTE on DATES: proposed dates are not binding and may be changed during the project, provided both proponents agree and the lengths of the visits are neither extended, nor reduced below the program bounds. Exact dates must be communicated to MIT at least two months in advance, to allow proper time for the formal appointment procedure. All visits should be uninterrupted (except for unforeseen events in which case a short interruption is of course acceptable, but amounts in excess of the airfare allowance will not be reimbursed).

Proposals should be submitted via 'return-receipt' email with object “Cariplo exchange proposal” to both prof. Ghoniem (ghoniem@mit.edu) and prof. Beretta (beretta@ing.unibs.it). Deadlines are strict. Proposals received after midnight (Boston time) of the deadline will not be evaluated.

Within six months after the end of the proposed activities of each approved project, the proponents are expected to sumbit a short progress report listing the results obtained until then and those to be expected later on. Such report is required before one or both proponents can submit a new proposal. The report should contain at least a part in the format of Section 5 of this webpage, where it will be added for the record.

3. Expected results

The program seeks not only direct scientific research benefits for the participants and their institutions, but also direct and indirect repercussions which are consistent with the philanthropic purposes of the CARIPLO Foundation as well as with strategic objectives of both UniBS and DME-MIT, such as:

(1) The creation of new opportunities for research funding through international collaboration and increased "training" of the participants to devote attention to the different mechanisms and criteria for research funding which are gradually growing and varying in the international scene.

(2) The upgrading and broadening of research and teaching activities and methods by interaction and exchange of experiences between the faculty involved.

(3) The updating of the formulation of courses of study based on better understanding international trends, which may be valuable in this moment of great reforms of curricula and role of universities.

(4) The promotion and strengthening of high-level research and scientific excellence with consequent benefits in competitiveness and ability to attract national and international research funding.

(5) The recognition through the "CARIPLO-UniBS" denomination of the visiting positions sponsored by the program, of the contribution made by the Cariplo Foundation to make the program possible, thus spreading and making its mission and philanthropic objectives more visible internationally.

Direct scientific research benefits for the participants and their institutions, may be as follows:

(1) joint publications submitted to or published in international journals in which UniBS and DME-MIT faculty are co-authors, these should explicitly acknowledge “the UniBS-MIT faculty exchange Program co-sponsored by the CARIPLO Foundation, Italy under grant 2008-2290",

(4) promotion of other collaborations between UniBS and MIT faculty and researchers;

(5) other publications of articles, monographs or educational or scientific texts, even with single author, provided with explicit acknowledgment and explanation of the role played by the CARIPLO program;

(6) documented restructuring of teaching and/or courses of study made possible by the reciprocal exposure occurred within the project.

4. List of UniBS faculty who express explicit interest in the program and provide links to their research web pages in english

The following is a list of UniBS faculty who chose to add here a brief profile and some links to their personal, research webpages as a means to increase their visibility towards DME-MIT faculty members interested in this program.

The presence in this list is not a prerequisite, as of course contacts may be generated and pursued in many other ways. However, it is highly recommended that interested UniBS faculty add their links here to webpages describing their research interests and activities in english, as the UniBS official website provides them mostly in italian and hence not accessible to DME-MIT colleagues.

DME-MIT faculty are already visible through the official MIT webpages in english. However, any DME-MIT faculty is welcome to add some links here.

Any individual UniBS or DME-MIT faculty may submit a few lines (no more than 600 characters) starting with their first and last name, and including a description of research interests and links to the relevant webpages with detailed descriptions. These lines will be edited for uniformity and promtly added to the list below.

A list of UniBS- faculty profiles and link to personal, research web pages ( provided by individuals, listed by department, added as they come)

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Gian Paolo Beretta is professor of Thermal and Fluid Sciences. His primary interests are in the foundations and applications of thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, energy conversion, quantum theory. He heads the Thermal and Fluid Sciences group. His current research involvement is in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, quantum thermodynamics, the maximum entropy production principle, liquid-liquid spinodal decomposition and the diffuse interface model, cross effects of Onsager type. For links to his current and past activities and publications, see his personal website.

Pietro Poesio is assistant professor in the group of Thermal and Fluid Sciences. His primary interests are in fluid mechanics; in particular he is doing research on multiphase flow (liquid-liquid and liquid-liquid-gas through horizontal pipes), on liquid-liquid spinodal decomposition of low viscosity binary liquid alloys, and more recently on diffusion in partially miscible fluids. He is in charge of the Thermal and Fluid Sciences Laboratory. For an updated list of publications and research interests, see his personal website.

Laura E. Depero is professor of Fundamental Chemistry for Technology (see her personal website). She leads the of Chemistry for Technology Laboratory, devoted to the characterization and synthesis of new materials, the of study thin layers and nanostructured coatings, and the optimization of self-assembling techniques (see www.chem4tech.eu). She is also Scientific Director of the Research Center in Archaeometry, a multidisciplinary field where the rigorous methods of exact sciences are applied to conservation and restoration studies, and to the cultural heritage in general (www.archaeometry.net).

Elza Bontempi is associate professor in the Chemistry for Technology group. Her research activity is focalised in synthesis of ultra-thin films by means of the Atomic Layer Deposition technique (see her personal website). She has several years of experience in the characterisation of nanostructures by means of X-ray techniques (XRD, GIXRD, XRR). She is involved in a project to detect heavy metals in the environment and biological samples by means of Total Reflection X-Ray Fluorescence (TXRF). She's co-author of a patent for a novel methodology to study air particulate matter filters.

Paolo Bergese is assistant professor in the Chemistry for Technology group teaching in both the Schools of Engineering and Medicine. He works in physical chemistry of surface- and nano-systems, currently focusing on biomolecular interactions confined at solid-liquid interfaces and nanomechanical biosensors. He is also interested in the characterization of materials at the micro- and nano-scale. He leads activities within national and international projects in the Chemistry for Technology Laboratory (www.chem4tech.it). For more details on research, grants, publications, and teaching please visit his personal website.

5. Running report on the approved projects and the results of the program (added as they come)

This CARIPLO faculty exchange program will start on June 1st, 2009 and end on February 28th, 2013. Below we list the projects as they are approved, and the results that are produced.

This project has been approved directly as part of the founding Agreement between UniBS and DME-MIT that sets up the CARIPLO faculty exchange program. Its award recognizes explicitly that the feasibility of the eachange program is a result of an existing collaboration between a UniBS faculty, Prof. Gian Paolo Beretta, and the DME-MIT, which dates back to the period 1981-1986 when he was an assistant professor in the DME-MIT. The program approved by Cariplo is designed in part to strengthen this existing collaboration.

In autumn 2007, he has been invited as a visiting professor for one semester to teach an advanced topic course “2.997 - Quantum Thermodynamics” and to help organize the International Symposium on Thermodynamics in Honor and Memory of the late Professor Joseph H. Keenan, held at MIT on October 4 and 5, 2007. He later co-edited the proceedings of the symposium together with prof. Ahmed F. Ghoniem of DME-MIT and dr. George N. Hatsopoulos (a Member of the Corporation, Emeritus, of MIT and a former faculty member and sponsor of DME-MIT). The proceedings are now published in the following book

G.P. Beretta, A.F. Ghoniem, and G.N. Hatsopoulos, Meeting the Entropy Challenge, Edited AIP CP Series Volume 2033, ISBN 978-0-7354-0557-8, Melville, New York, pp. 1-382 (2008). Proceedings of the International Thermodynamics Symposium in Honor and Memory of Professor Joseph H. Keenan, MIT, October 4-5, 2007.

G.N. Hatsopoulos and G.P. Beretta, Where is the entropy challenge? in Meeting the Entropy Challenge, Edited by G.P. Beretta, A.F. Ghoniem, and G.N. Hatsopoulos, AIP CP Series, Volume 2033, pp. 34-54 (2008).

E. Zanchini and G.P. Beretta, Rigorous Axiomatic Definition of Entropy Valid Also for Non-Equilibrium States, in Meeting the Entropy Challenge, Edited by G.P. Beretta, A.F. Ghoniem, and G.N. Hatsopoulos, AIP CP Series, Volume 2033, pp. 296-310 (2008).

G.P. Beretta, The Second Law from Locally Maximal Entropy Generation Quantum Dynamics, in Meeting the Entropy Challenge, Edited by G.P. Beretta, A.F. Ghoniem, and G.N. Hatsopoulos, AIP CP Series, Volume 2033, pp. 180-187 (2008).

In the Fall term of 2008, prof. Beretta was appointed Visiting Scholar at DME-MIT to collaborate with prof. Todd Thorsen in the Hatsopoulos Microfluids Laboratory to learn some microfluidic techniques. This visit was originally meant to be the first of the CARIPLO program. However, in order to move its starting date forward and allow a better and broader time span for the program, prof. Beretta chose to self-support this visit with other research funds. In any case, the visit has resulted in the writeup of a joint paper currently under review and in the definition of a set of experimental research activities that are now being programmed in the UniBS Thermal and Fluid Sciences Laboratory.