Memorial University
On April 18 th , five faculty members of Memorial who are Fellows of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany, got together for a dinner, with their spouses, to celebrate the bicentennial of the scientific expedition to the rivers, jungles, plains, mountains and volcanos, of much of present day Venezuela, Equador, Columbia, Peru, Cuba, Mexico, and the adjacent seas by Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a towering figure in European Science during the early nineteenth century. Humboldt = s expedition from 1799 to 1804 contributed greatly to his reputation as a founder of the disciplines of physical geography, climatology, ecology and oceanography. In April and May1804 he was the guest of Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, before returning to Europe to honours and renown and many years of work compiling, studying and publishing the results of his research, as well as further travel in Asia.
A Humboldtianer is the German term for a Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation, an organization first established in 1860 to sponsor research travel abroad by German scholars. The Foundation was re-established in 1953 under the auspices of the Department of External Affairs of Federal Republic of Germany, to sponsor scholars (under the age of 40) from all over the world for visits of up to two years at universities and research institutes in Germany . More than 20,000 scholars from 125 countries have been sponsored to date. The five current members of Memorial faculty who were in Germany as Humboldt Fellows at different times over the last twenty-nine years are Dr. James Bradley (Philosophy), Dr. Vit Bubenik (Linguistics), Dr. John Molgaard (Engineering), Dr. Bruce Shawyer and Dr. Jie Xiao (both in Mathematics). They have now banded together as Humboldtianer at Memorial (HAM), the local chapter of a world-wide fellowship. A sixth member of Memorial, Dr. Hongchao Li (Chemistry) has just taken up a fellowship in Germany.
All the members of HAM will be pleased to advise anyone interested in applying for a Humboldt Fellowship
