PRAGMA Students

  • Organize student workshops and poster sessions as part of the bi-annual PRAGMA Workshops;
  • Host online seminars for the broader PRAGMA community; and
  • Work together to develop a unique model to involve graduate students in the unique Pacific Rim collaborations that define PRAGMA scientific research.

How PRAGMA Students Interact with Core PRAGMA Community

The goal of PRAGMA Students is to develop technically knowledgeable, culturally inclusive, and interdisciplinary scientists capable of leading global research. Students who participate in PRAGMA Students have opportunities to become involved in PRAGMA scientific research teams as well as in the broader PRAGMA community. There are five types of opportunities for students in PRAGMA (following in bold): Education and mentoring will be provided within the PRAGMA core research community. PRAGMA Students will generate its own networking opportunities, and be a vehicle for leadership opportunities both within the student group and influencing PRAGMA overall. PRAGMA Students will also strengthen the PRAGMA core through the infusion of new ideas.

History

At the PRAGMA 22 Workshop (April 2012, Melbourne), a group of graduate students and their mentors met to discuss the value, role, activities and goals of a student group inside of PRAGMA. Institutes represented included Indiana University, Konkuk University, Osaka University, University of Tsukuba, Monash University, and Kasetsart University. To provide an example of the value of an active student program in a research network, the president-elect of the GLEON Student Association (GSA), Kohji Muraoka (Waikato University) attended. GLEON, the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network, is a grassroots network of limnologists, ecologists, information technology experts, and engineers who use the network of people, sensors and data to understand issues such as eutrophication or climate change at regional to global scales. GLEON, established and based on an early PRAGMA expedition to deploy sensors on a lake in Taiwan, evolved a very successful Graduate Student Association. In particular, Kohji emphasized the role of the GSA in providing mentoring, information, training, research and networking opportunities for students. An interim steering committee was established with representatives from Konkuk University (Meilan Jiang), Osaka University (Taiki Tada), and Indiana University (Umashanthi Pavalanathan and Yuan Luo).

Student Activities

Two key activities of PRAGMA Students occur at each PRAGMA workshop. First, PRAGMA Students organize a workshop that allows fellow students to talk and share their own research activities with each other. In addition, the workshop includes discussions relevant to students, often engaging mentors from around PRAGMA. PRAGMA Students also organize the poster session for the overall PRAGMA Workshop, allowing students to review abstracts and select the strongest posters for presentation.

The following students were recognized during recent PRAGMA Workshops:

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The Best Poster Award: Rhia Trogo-Pantola, Jed Barry Ebardaloza, Delfin Jay Sabido IX, Edgardo Tongson, Gerry Bagtasa, Orlando Balderama. IBM. Enabling Philippine Farmers to Adapt to Climate Variability Using Seasonal Climate and Weather Forecast with a Crop Simulation Model in an SMS-based Farmer Decision Support System.

The Best Poster Award, 2nd Place: Lemuel Clark P. Velasco, Joshua Dave E. Gomora, Leonard N. Aguanta, Joanna Marie D. Acibar, John Paul S. Postrano, Lyka Cristina T. Diaz, Leo Anthony T. Catane. Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology. Data Visualization of Schistosomiasis Community Health Data Using Google Maps and Google Charts.

The Best Poster Award, 2nd Place: Pongsakorn U-chupala, Yasuhiro Watashiba, Kohei Ichikawa, Susumu Date. Nara Institute of Science and Technology and Osaka University. Practicality and Feasibility of Improving Linux Container Utilization with Task Rebalancing Strategy.

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Best Poster Award: Chawanat Nakasan, Kohei Ichikawa, and Hajimu Iida. Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Implementing and Testing Ceph Distributed File System with Multipath TCP.

Best Poster Award, 2nd Place: Takuya Yamada, Keichi Takahashi, Masaya Muraki, Susumu Date, and Shinji Shimojo. Osaka University. A Proposal of Access Control Mechanism Towards User-dedicated PRAGMA ENT for IoT Era.

Best Poster Award, 3rd Place: Phuripat Akarasiriwong. Mahidol University. EddvisAR: Augmented Reality Within Web Browser Technology.

In addition, the PRAGMA Students group organizes a distributed seminar with speakers from the PRAGMA community on topics of interest to the students. The first such distributed seminar was held in February 2013, featuring Dr. Philip Papadopoulos speaking about “Building the PRAGMA Multi-Cloud.” The video of his talk can be found at http://connect.iu.edu/p1un2k6gqy6/. Finally, the group encouraged all students in PRAGMA to become involved in activities of expeditions and working groups as equal collaborators.

How to Get Involved

PRAGMA Students’ activities are open to all. Membership in PRAGMA Students is open to students associated with PRAGMA member institutions, and advised by a PRAGMA faculty member. As with PRAGMA, the best way to learn more is to participate in a workshop, particularly in the PRAGMA Student Workshop held prior to each PRAGMA Workshop (see above). Students are also encouraged to contact others in the PRAGMA Students group, to subscribe to the mailing list and to participate in other PRAGMA activities (pragma-student-list {AT} googlegroups {DOT} com).


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