Scholarships awarded for summer courses at Caltech

Three University students in undergraduate studies are leaving for California in the next few days for a ten week project this summer at the California Institute of Technology - Caltech in Pasadena, California. The students going to Caltech are Anna Huyen Ngo, biochemistry and molecular biology who will be supervised by dr. Bil Clemons, Freyr Víkingur Einarsson, electrical and computer engineering, supervised by dr. Wei Gao, and Iðunn Björg Arnaldsdóttir, chemistry who will work with dr. David Anderson. 

They will be taking part in the SURF – Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship – program, which allows undergraduate students to work with a supervisor on a research project. Over 40 UI students have taken part in the SURF program at Caltech since the two institutions signed a partnership agreement. Many Caltech students have also completed SURF projects here at the University of Iceland under the guidance of UI academics. 

Caltech is one of the best research universities in the world, a position which has often been confirmed by international rankings. 
The scholarships of USD 7,740 awarded to Anna, Freyr, and Iðunn come from the Kiyo and Eiko Tomiyasu Fund. Kiyo Tomiyasu was a world-famous academic in the field of electrical engineering and played a key role in establishing the partnership agreement between Caltech and the University of Iceland in 2008. 

Two Caltech students are also due to spend this summer conducting research at the University of Iceland. Virginia (Gigi) Pistilli who will be supervised by Ingibjörg Svala Jónsdóttir, professor at the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, and Mehul Jangir stationed at the Institute of Earth Sciences under the guidance of Sæmundur Halldórsson, Research scientist and Simon Matthews, research specialist.