UGA international

Advancing knowledge and strengthening ties between UGA and U.S. laboratories is the goal of the new partnership agreement signed in 2023 between UGA and Fulbright France. This agreement has already borne fruit with the creation of new research grants for UGA researchers wishing to visit a U.S. university or research institute for a mobility period of 3 to 12 months. This partnership also allows the university to host American researchers, master's students, or PhD students who wish to pursue their research at UGA.

In 2024, 10 scholars will benefit from this exceptional collaboration:

• Four American scientists (two researchers, one PhD student, and one master's student) will settle in Grenoble to pursue their research in UGA laboratories.
• Six UGA scientists (three PhD students and three senior researchers) will travel to the United States to deepen their knowledge and develop new collaborations.

This exceptional number of scholars highlights UGA's strong international appeal and the success of the partnership in its very first year.

Meet the 2024-2025 UGA Fulbright Awardees

Giovanni Ghigliotti

UGA lecturer-researcher at the Laboratory of Subatomic Physics and Cosmology (LPSC - CNRS, UGA, Grenoble INP - UGA), will be hosted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to work on low-temperature fluid behavior, particularly in the field of energy storage.

"Since joining UGA in 2014, I have developed numerical simulation approaches at the Laboratory of Geophysical and Industrial Flows (LEGI - CNRS, Grenoble INP - UGA, UGA) to predict fluid behavior, particularly when heat sources cause a phase change from liquid to vapor. Currently at the Laboratory of Subatomic Physics and Cosmology (LPSC), I am interested in both the fundamental understanding of the physical phenomena involved and their industrial applications, especially in the energy sector, such as nuclear reactors and energy storage in liquid-phase energy carriers like hydrogen.
As part of my Fulbright project for the 2024-2025 academic year, I am collaborating with colleagues from the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, who study boiling fluids through experimental approaches. The project aims to develop predictive numerical models of low-temperature fluid behavior using data from these experiments. These fluids, called cryogenic fluids, are stored at low temperatures, where they boil due to heat flux from their environment. They play an important role in the energy transition, as they enable energy storage, such as in the case of liquid hydrogen, and allow for better utilization of renewable energy sources like solar or wind, which are intermittent.
The Fulbright project, through the synergy of simulations and experiments, also aims to explain the fundamental physical phenomena underlying heat transfer. A better understanding of these phenomena and the establishment of predictive models will enable better planning and use of energy storage, thus contributing to the energy transition."

Sophie Giffard-Roisin

IRD lecturer-researcher at the Institute of Earth Sciences (ISTerre - CNRS, UGA, USMB, IRD, Université Gustave Eiffel), will work at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Observatory in the USA to develop machine learning algorithms to enhance the performance of new surveillance cameras installed at the observatory.

"Volcano monitoring requires the automatic acquisition and processing of real-time data. Explosive volcanoes in subduction zones release fragmented lava into the atmosphere in the form of ash and gas plumes. This is the case with the Sabancaya volcano in Peru, which has been continuously active since 2016 and threatens nearby valleys with ash clouds. At the Lamont-Doherty Observatory (Columbia University, USA), a new generation of surveillance cameras is being developed. The goal of this project is to develop the machine learning algorithms necessary for the automatic processing of data collected by this new sensor. My experience in machine learning and image processing for natural disaster monitoring will be applied to this new interdisciplinary project, on which we will work from February 2025 to February 2026."

Christophe Roncato Tounsi

UGA associate professor and member of the Institute of European, American, African, Asian, and Australian Languages and Cultures (ILCEA4 - UGA), focuses on socio-ecological issues. He is currently conducting research on active mobility between France and California. Thanks to the Fulbright grant, he will work for five months at the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA.

"By adopting a sectoral approach and noting that both French and Californian institutional transition scenarios underestimate the efforts needed to reposition human activities within an environmental ceiling and a social floor—conditions necessary for fair and equitable living conditions for the greatest number of people—I propose to evaluate the potential of bicycles and electric-assist bicycles (EAB) as a quick and effective way to reduce the environmental footprint of the transportation sector. My project, the U.S. portion of which is funded by the Fulbright Franco-American Commission, takes place in two phases and in two geographical areas: France (2024) and California (2025). I am particularly interested in long-distance trips (i.e., over 5 kilometers) made in the context of daily mobility, evaluating the potential for replacing individual combustion-engine vehicles.
Informed by the literature on the Anthropocene, donut economics, Decent Living Standards, consumption corridors, and sobriety, this project aims to characterize truly sustainable lifestyles and to identify desirable and equitable societal trajectories. It seeks to reflect on the sharing of ‘resources’ in a constrained world and to explore behavioral practices and public policies at a territorial scale that, in some cases, are already aligned with environmental goals as defined in institutional transition scenarios."

Alice Bordes

A PhD student at UGA in quantitative ecology within the Mountain Ecosystems and Societies Laboratory (LESSEM - UGA, INRAE, OSUG), during her mission at the University of Central Florida, she will develop numerical methods to analyze and quantify the impact of winter tourism activities on the populations of Black Grouse in the ski resorts of the Northern Alps.

"My research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying wildlife responses to environmental changes and human disturbances. My PhD consists of analyzing the effects of these stressors on the survival and behavior of Black Grouse populations. This bird, emblematic of mountain ecosystems, inhabits semi-open areas on the forest edges where most outdoor winter recreational activities are concentrated. This coexistence often occurs to the detriment of wildlife, whose spatial usage patterns are generally poorly understood. It is therefore essential to characterize the movement strategies of the Black Grouse by analyzing GPS data from over 200 tagged individuals in major ski resorts in the Northern Alps. In this context, my collaboration with Dr. C. Fleming from the University of Central Florida (Orlando, USA) aims to develop numerical methods to analyze and quantify the impact of different types of disturbances on wildlife movements."

Juliana Mazzucotelli

A PhD student at UGA in geography within the PACTE social science laboratory (UGA, CNRS, Sciences Po Grenoble – UGA), she is conducting a comparative study of environmental inequality in the context of global change, particularly focusing on water stress adaptation in the cities of Los Angeles and Cape Town. She will be hosted at the University of California, Los Angeles, to conduct her second fieldwork and collect data.

"As part of my PhD, which I began in September 2023, my research includes fieldwork in Los Angeles in January 2025, supported by the Fulbright Commission. During this period, I will be a visiting scholar at the Department of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). This project explores the intersection of socio-environmental challenges and water scarcity issues faced by the cities of Cape Town (South Africa) and Los Angeles (USA). I am particularly interested in water conservation measures and their implications for social inequalities. In the context of global change, hydro-climatic risks exacerbate inequalities between those with the necessary resources to adapt to water shortages and those without. In Los Angeles and Cape Town, wealthy populations are developing a repertoire of actions and narratives around water access and control, transforming the residential landscapes of the city and altering the water supply networks at a metropolitan scale. Given that more than half of domestic water consumption in these areas is linked to landscaping practices, I examine the shift toward so-called sustainable alternatives, such as the use of native plants and the emergence of 'water-wise' designs as water-saving solutions. This fieldwork in Los Angeles will allow me to gather empirical data to compare with that collected in Cape Town in the spring of 2024. Although both cities are marked by recurrent droughts and significant socio-racial segregation, they provide different contexts to study the influence of the water crisis on changing practices. This comparison falls under the 'Southern Turn' epistemological approach, which aims to analyze urban processes by going beyond the North/South divide. An innovative aspect of my work is its focus on affluent neighborhoods, an unconventional approach in political ecology. To study elite water practices, I select several neighborhoods where I conduct participant observations in places where these norms are created and conduct interviews with various actors involved in the transformation of residential landscapes (residents, public actors, landscapers, workers maintaining the gardens). I also experiment with an innovative method of urban ethnobotanical analysis, which aims to create, with my respondents, an herbarium of the plants present in these neighborhoods. This method helps understand, in a relational and sensitive dimension, how these landscapes are constructed and perceived, and what role water-saving plays in this construction."

Davy Million

A PhD student at UGA and a member of the Techniques of Informatics and Microelectronics for Integrated Systems Architecture (TIMA – UGA, Grenoble INP – UGA, CNRS) laboratory, his stay at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will allow him to enhance the American OpenPiton project, which enables various types of processors to operate together.

"In recent decades, the design of microprocessors and their memory systems has become an essential and critical technology. Powerful microprocessors are used in all domains, from smartphones to laptops and data center servers. Previously, microprocessors were implemented on a single piece of silicon called a die (or chip). However, in recent years, we have witnessed a shift toward processors built by stacking multiple dies, known as chiplets, using a technology called 2.5D or 3D integration. The expertise needed to develop high-performance processors is highly centralized and based on proprietary technologies, concentrated within a few large multinationals such as Intel, ARM, NVIDIA, and AMD, which control almost all the market shares. The closed nature of these technologies leads to global inequalities in opportunities and wealth. In the long term, this closed approach limits innovation, as researchers and academics have limited access to these cutting-edge technologies. In the 1980s, the software world experienced a similar situation where operating systems were proprietary. This was followed by an Open-Source software revolution, giving rise to the Linux operating system and a plethora of associated software. Here, Open-Source means that the software’s source code is freely usable. This enables developers worldwide to collaborate effectively, leveraging the creativity and inventiveness of the brightest minds on the planet. In particular, it is possible because contributors don't have to worry about negotiating licenses. A decade ago, the world of processor design also started an Open-Source revolution, and there is now a dynamic and growing community with hundreds of projects under development. As part of my thesis, I am conducting research on Open-Source heterogeneous multi-core computing architectures partitioned into chiplets. This thesis is supervised by César Fuguet and Adrian Evans (CEA-List, Grenoble) and co-directed by Frédéric Pétrot (TIMA Laboratory, Techniques of Informatics and Microelectronics for Integrated Systems Architecture) and Jonathan Balkind (University of California at Santa Barbara, UCSB). In the Open-Source hardware community, Jonathan Balkind is a recognized contributor through his OpenPiton research project. This project allows various types of processors to operate together within a shared memory system. In September 2024, for a period of six months, I will join Jonathan's ArchLab at UCSB. This stay will allow me to add a major feature to OpenPiton, which involves partitioning this multi-core architecture into chiplets. This feature is a critical part of my thesis and requires close collaboration with Jonathan. Moreover, this research stay will allow me to establish links with other ArchLab researchers, supervise students on exploratory topics related to the thesis, and, more generally, discover how research works in North America."

David E. Breen

A computer science researcher at Drexel University, he will be hosted at the University of Grenoble Alpes in the Elan laboratory (Inria Grenoble Alpes) to develop software to simulate the self-folding behavior of knitted fabrics.

The Fulbright scholarship will allow Dr. David Breen, with his knowledge and experience in textiles, to join the Elan laboratory at the University of Grenoble Alpes, renowned for its expertise in modeling the mechanics and friction of yarns, fabrics, and hair. The objective will be to develop a software system capable of simulating the self-folding behavior of knitted fabrics at the meso-scale. The specific knowledge gained from the project will impact several smart textile application areas, including medicine, architecture, and advanced clothing manufacturing. David E. Breen is a professor of computer science at Drexel University’s College of Computing & Informatics. He has held research positions in the United States and Germany. His work focuses on textile modeling and design, biomedical computing, geometric modeling, and bio-inspired self-organizing algorithms.

Robin Kodner

A researcher at Western Washington University, he studies the impact of climate change on the proliferation of algae in snow and glaciers and how this accelerates ice melt. He launched the Living Snow project to collect data on these algae with the help of volunteers engaged in outdoor activities. During his stay at the University of Grenoble Alpes, he aims to extend the Living Snow project to Europe in coordination with the French counterpart project ALPALGA.

"Climate change poses a severe threat to snow, ice, and glaciers worldwide. The loss of cryospheric habitats impacts environments far beyond alpine and polar regions, as snow and ice play a major role in regulating the climate and serve as an important freshwater resource for many communities across the globe. Snow and ice environments experience algae blooms in spring and summer, which color the snow red or pink due to the pigments in the algae. When algae bloom in the snow, the high concentration of biomass darkens the snowfields and increases the rate of snow and glacier melt. It has been suggested that snow algae blooms are worsening due to climate change; however, there is very little data available to assess changes in snow algae blooms over space and time, and historical records are scarce. Moreover, fundamental questions remain about bloom formation, the dispersal of snow and ice algae worldwide, and how their life cycle relates to snow habitat and seasonal dynamics. To address these critical questions, we need large datasets that include observations and samples from vast and diverse alpine and polar landscapes across the world over time. In response to this challenge, I launched the Living Snow Project in 2017, a community-supported science program (also known as 'citizen science') aimed at engaging outdoor recreation enthusiasts to help scientists generate robust observation datasets. Volunteers from the Living Snow Project (LSP) assist in studying snow algae and tracking changes over time by making observations of snow algae blooms during their outdoor activities using an app and collecting samples for DNA analysis. he LSP has now compiled the most comprehensive dataset in the world of snow algae observations and samples in North America (nearly 1,000 samples from 2017 to 2024), and we are only beginning to tap into the potential of this program.
My project at the Université Grenoble Alpes, in collaboration with Éric Maréchal, will aim to expand the Living Snow Project to Europe in coordination with the French counterpart project, ALPALGA, led by Mr. Maréchal. We will develop new partnerships and systems to enable the program to operate in France and other European countries, and we will assess the opportunities and challenges of managing a community science program at an international scale.

Jennifer Laffick

PhD candidate at Southern Methodist University. She will come to Université Grenoble Alpes within the Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARAH - CNRS, Université Lumière-Lyon 2, Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3, UGA, ENS de Lyon) to develop her research focused on the career of French painter Benjamin Rolland, a former Caribbean slave who became an important figure in French Neoclassicism, with a special focus on his role as a museum curator in Grenoble and his strategies to make art accessible to the public.

Jennifer Laffick is a PhD candidate in art history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she began working on her dissertation titled "Atlantic Currents of Neoclassicism: French Painting and Power in the Early 19th Century." This project explores the transatlantic nature and spread of French Neoclassical painting between 1789 and 1830, a period marked by shifting political and imperial powers on both sides of the Atlantic. During her ten-month Fulbright scholarship, Jennifer Laffick will conduct research on one of the central figures of her thesis, painter Benjamin Rolland. Born into slavery in the French colony of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, Rolland was emancipated and, after settling in France, achieved great success as a painter, moving within the political and artistic circles of the elite in France and Italy. For nearly forty years, Benjamin Rolland lived in Grenoble, where he served as curator of the Musée de Grenoble and director of the École de dessin from 1817 to 1853. Despite his exceptional biography and prosperous career, he has not yet been the subject of in-depth studies. To better understand his life and work, Jennifer Laffick will conduct research in the archives and art institutions of Grenoble and other parts of France. With her interest and experience in museology, she will also analyze the conservation strategies Benjamin Rolland implemented to make art accessible to the public in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region throughout the first half of the 19th century. During her stay at UGA, Jennifer Laffick will work alongside Marlen Schneider, a specialist in 18th-century French painting, and will join the LARHRA (Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes) research group.

Eseosa Omorogieva

Master's student in cybersecurity at the University of California Davis, she will join Université Grenoble Alpes for a two-year program, allowing her to conduct research on artificial intelligence security and digital privacy protection.

"As a Fulbright student, I will pursue my master's degree in cybersecurity at Université Grenoble Alpes. During the first year of my master's, I will follow the joint UGA and Ensimag program called MoSIG (Master of Science in Informatics at Grenoble), where I will work alongside a cohort of international and French students to deepen our understanding of fundamental computer science principles. In the second year, I will specialize in cybersecurity and conduct research on artificial intelligence (AI) security as well as ways to empower individual users to protect their privacy in the digital space. I intend to use this opportunity to enhance my academic and professional experiences and contribute to research on global cybersecurity practices, with the hope of making the digital space safer for all."