Fulbright Scholars From India and Israel Study at Rice

Two researchers—Rathinasabapathi Ramasamy and Oded Hod—have left their home countries to study at Rice University through the Fulbright Scholar Program.

Ramasamy is from India, where more than 1,000 people die from tuberculosis (TB) every day. But the Fulbright Scholar, who is studying at Rice for six months, hopes to reduce that statistic by establishing an electronic information center in his home country for free, rapid exchange of information about TB, a curable infectious disease caused by an airborne bacterium.

Rathinasabapathi Ramasamy

He selected Rice University for his research residency as a Fulbright Scholar after reading an article in India’s national newspaper, The Hindu, about digital libraries. The article quoted Geneva Henry, executive director of Rice’s Digital Library Initiative, so Ramasamy emailed her to inquire about conducting research at Rice.
“I have a long-standing research interest in developing a digital network library that will assist healthcare professionals to effectively navigate the information superhighway,” Ramasamy says.

For the past 10 years in Chennai, India, he has been designing and developing the library at the Tuberculosis Research Center, which the U.S. National Institutes of Health identified as an International Center for Excellence in Research. Ramasamy changed the library’s focus from print to electronic media, and nearly 85 percent of the library’s journal collection now is available digitally. His goals are to establish a hub in India for providing high-quality information in a timely manner, to develop a digital network library among the institutes of the Indian Council of Medical Research and, later, to establish this network to all the health science libraries in India.

During his time at Rice, Ramasamy wants to learn more about information technology and computer science relevant to libraries and the Internet and to develop skills required for effective dissemination of knowledge about TB. His goal is to develop paperless, electronic information centers with multimedia capabilities and open-access resources for TB at the Tuberculosis Research Center in India for rapid, intelligent information retrieval.

“Rathina’s interest in developing an open-access repository of tuberculosis materials that can be made freely available to researchers and clinical practitioners in rural areas throughout India—and the world—is a very worthy endeavor,” Henry says. “I’m pleased to have him working with the Digital Library Initiative here at Rice, helping us to grow our open collections through DSpace (dspace.rice.edu), which will benefit the medical community. His interest also is creating alliances between Rice’s digital library activities and those at the medical center libraries across the street.”

A native of Chidambaram, India, Ramasamy has a master’s degree in economics from AVC College and a master’s degree in library and information science from Annamalai University, both in India.

Hod, a native of Israel, is grateful for the opportunity to study at Rice as a Fulbright Scholar, but he’s also eager to return to his homeland to share his knowledge and experience.

Oded Hod

“The Fulbright Scholar Program really fits the spirit of my dreams perfectly,” says Hod, who hopes for an academic career in Israel. “Part of being a Fulbright Scholar includes signing a promise that you will go back and try to find a position in your home country, and I want nothing more than that because, for me, Israel will always be home.”

Hod, who has been on campus since last fall, is studying computational quantum chemistry in the laboratory of Gustavo Scuseria, the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry. Hod’s first project involves the study of the electronic properties of crystalline systems, focusing on highly correlated materials, using state-of-the-art electronic structure methodologies. One interesting outcome of such studies can be the evaluation of their ability to serve as components in future nanometer-scale electronic devices, Hod explains. For this, he is developing a computer model that can calculate the electrical conductance through very large, finite-sized systems.

Electrical conductance typically is calculated either on small, finite systems—usually a single molecule—or on infinite systems. Hod says the precise properties of large, finite systems—imagine a section of carbon nanotube containing thousands of carbon atoms—aren’t typically calculated because it simply takes too many computer resources to precisely determine the flow of electrons through such a large structure.

He is employing a “divide-and-conquer” method to the problem, developing an approach in which he can calculate the properties in small sections of the whole system and then aggregate the results for the small sections to see the bigger picture.

“The work will inform both experiment and theory,” he says, “and that’s one reason I’m excited about it, because I’d like to establish relationships with experimental groups in molecular electronics during my time here.”
The experimental side of the physical sciences is his favorite, largely because he enjoys tinkering with machines and working with his hands. “That’s what I do when I’m at home,” he says, “and I think part of me would like to be an experimentalist, but the theoretical side of chemistry has fascinated me since the second year of my graduate studies.”

Hod earned his doctorate from Tel Aviv University, under the supervision of Eran Rabani and Roi Baer, and did his undergraduate work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His decision to leave home was a difficult one, he says, but he knew he would have to study abroad to have a successful career in Israeli academia.

“Every researcher that I know in Israel has studied in the United States or Europe, and I can see why,” he says. “There are a lot of brilliant scientists in Israel, yet there are so many opportunities for new collaborations and new ideas here. You get the feeling you are in the heart of the scientific action. It’s not that easy when you are 7,000 miles away.”

—B. J. Almond and Jade Boyd