Current Research on Biotech and Electrical Engineering was Presented at the Bincang karya (Bianka) Webinar by Indonesia’s Postdoc Fellows in the US
Washington, DC, (03/01/2022), the Indonesian Embassy (KBRI) in Washington DC through the Educational and Cultural Attaché (Atdikbud) in Washington DC continues to expand its cooperation between Indonesia and the United States in the fields of education and research by opening up opportunities for cooperation of post-doctoral fellowship program. This was conveyed by the Indonesian Ambassador in Washington, DC. Rosan P. Roeslani at the online opening of the webinar series Bincang Karya (Bianka) on Tuesday (1/3).
Ambassador Rosan stated, “Let’s together accelerate the emergence of new ideas and make them happen. I am happy because there will be a lot of new information discussed at this event and I believe we will all find new ideas and promising collaboration opportunities.”
This 24th Bianka was also attended by Teuku Faisal Fathani, Director of Research, Technology and Community Service, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia. Faisal said this webinar activity was a very good breakthrough and he really appreciated the initiative taken by the Indonesian Embassy in Washington DC.
Meanwhile, Andin Hadiyanto as President Director of the Indonesia Endowment Funds for Education (LPDP) said that LPDP strongly supported the continuation of research for doctoral program graduates with a post-doctoral fellowship.
Harvard Medical School and the University of Michigan are two universities that offer postdoc fellowship programs. Through their representatives, Atdikbud Popy Rufaidah managed to dig up various important information related to this program.
The program manager for Harvard Medical School Teaching University, Boston Children’s Hospital, Lu-Ann Pozzi said that in order to join the program, students must have adequate educational qualifications such as Ph.D., MD, and MD Ph.D. They must also have high self-motivation as well as the desire and ability to work independently. In addition, they must have a critical mindset and one important thing, problem-solving is what made them choose the candidate. Furthermore, Lu-Ann also added that flexibility, tenacity, the ability to think the box, journal publications, and good scientific presentation skills were also needed.
Meanwhile, Mingyan Liu as Peter, and Evelyn Fuss Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Michigan, Ann Arbor said that there were at least a few things to consider when joining this program such as sufficient knowledge of the research to be carried out, understanding the duration of the program, the expectations of the mentor, the track record of the research group, the support and mentoring system, and whether there were any opportunities to teach and write proposals.
This opportunity was also used by Novalia Pishesha, Junior Fellowship at Harvard Society of Fellows, Harvard University to share stories from her educational journey to her experiences during the post-doctoral program there.
Nova stated that she has submitted two patents under the license of Cerberus Therapeutics, Cambridge, MA, the company she established. During her presentation, she gave a glance explanation of her research interests such as in the area of Protein Engineering, Cellular Engineering, and Single Cell Genomics. It was stated that she mostly worked on vaccines and treatment for autoimmunity.
On the other hand, Sebastian A. Nugroho, who is a postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, shared his research focus which was on the Control and Optimization of cyber-physical infrastructures.
However, his current research was on the Control and Optimization of Power Systems for Grid Modernization. He said, “There are many challenges in current power system infrastructure, due to uncertainty in renewable generation, and also the reduction of inertia.”
Sebastian and his team were focusing on tackling these issues through Demand Response Program. Demand response is a way to change the consumer’s consumption behaviour to help us match up between power supply and demand. So, they were using PCLs like air conditioners, water heaters, and refrigerators to manipulate the operation of these air conditioners to balance power and demand.
“So, my role is to design implementable low complexity control algorithms to enable demand response on an application of PCLs,” explained Sebastian.
For information, the recording of the live broadcast of the Bincang Karya (BIANKA) Series-24 webinar can be accessed on the official Atdikbud USA Facebook page with the link https://bit.ly/fb-watch-bianka24