LISER recognises the importance of international research exchange and collaboration with researchers in the various fields of socio-economic research. In doing so, the institute encourages researchers to take part in the international mobility scheme for established researchers (INTER Mobility). The programme aims to foster innovative, internationally competitive research – and support the exchange of key knowledge and technological know-how.

We interviewed three LISER researchers to learn of their exchanges and share their experiences below:

What was the aim of your visit?

At Purdue I served as Senior Visiting Researcher, working jointly with Dr. Bryan Pijanowski, an internationally recognised specialist in the field of land use science. The research visit has extended Pijanowski’s Land Transformation Model-LTM that allows cells in cellular automata model to hold membership in more than one land use class.

What were the results of your sabbatical?

In this research framework, in 2017 I published six articles in peer-reviewed journals with high impact factors such as Transactions in GIS, GIScience & Remote Sensing, Journal of Environmental Informatics , Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Ecological Informatics and two articles in refereed international conferences.

What are your next challenges?

Looking forward, my research agenda will aim to develop research ideas targeting a joint a research proposal between the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Now back in Luxembourg, what do you miss most about the USA?

I appreciated a lot the research environment at Purdue University as it was inspiring and gave me fresh ideas for future challenges. I miss my US colleagues who I now count among my friends (Bryan, Kristen, Jack, Maryam, Javier, Chris, Dente, Ben, Zhao, Ling) from Pijanowski’s Lab. I might have left the US but thanks to smartphones we will keep in touch and will continue collaborating even from a distance which is exciting! Last but not least, I have plans to invite some US colleagues as Visiting Scholars to LISER in order to discover the research landscape in Luxembourg and collaborate on International publications/projects.

Listen below to the song my US colleagues wrote and sang on my last night at Purdue University.

What was the aim of your visit?

At the University of Arizona, Department of Economics, I studied the specialisation of women and men in the field of Economics. The field of economics is very broad --- from very descriptive to quite abstract and theoretical. I investigated the reasons why there is little diversity in the field with women concentrating in health and labour economics and men in theory and more quantitative methods. My goal was also to expand my network in the field and create opportunities for longer term collaboration between the department and LISER.

What were the results of your sabbatical?

By presenting our work to a varied audience we learned about additional data sources for our study. At the moment, we are putting together a broad database, which will allow us to answer many more questions regarding the behaviour of individuals in the labor market, their job choice and field of study preferences. In other words, my year in the desert was not only fruitful in terms of a completed project and networking, but potentially could keep me and my colleagues busy for years to come! While in Tucson, I was also asked by the department to teach an Econometrics course, which was a fantastic experience and allowed me to find a new passion I didn’t realise I had.

What are your next challenges?

My next challenge is to create an architecture for the amazing data we have and present our results to a broader audience in a paper that is already in the making.