Penn State, National Taiwan Normal University announce collaborations for 2019

The awards cover multiple disciplines across campuses

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State and National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) have announced the awardees for the 2019 Joint Collaboration Development Fund. Seven projects were chosen for funding, in a variety of disciplines, from math education to geosciences to information sciences and technology.

Penn State and NTNU have collaborated closely in the recent past. The partnership began in 2013 in the areas of education and psychology. Since then, the two universities have held a Joint Workshop on Advanced Learning Sciences every year, with each year’s conference being held in a different location.

The two institutions also work closely on benchmarking initiatives focused around three main themes: first year experience; leadership and civic education; and online learning. In fact, a delegation from NTNU visited Penn State within the last week to discuss these initiatives.

“The collaboration between the two universities has been going quite strongly,” said Rose Tan, strategic initiatives coordinator, who works with Penn State’s partners in Asia. “We have been lucky to have strong champions like Dean [David] Monk [College of Education] and Professor Ping Li [Department of Psychology], who is the faculty champion.”

Monk and Li sat on Penn State’s review committee for the projects this go-around. Three projects were fully funded and four were partially funded. The professors who received the funding will work with counterparts at NTNU to carry out their research:

  • Martin K.-C. Yeh, assistant professor, College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State Brandywine
  • Roman DiBiase, assistant professor of geosciences
  • Hartono Tjoe, assistant professor of mathematics education, Penn State Berks
  • Sadan Kulturel-Konak, professor of management information systems, Penn State Berks
  • Dannis Lin, distinguished professor of statistics
  • James Kasting, Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences
  • Esther Obonyo, associate professor of architectural engineering

“We are so excited that the partnership has grown into a cross-disciplinary collaboration,” said Tan. “We see great things in the future.”

For more information on the Penn State-NTNU partnership, contact Rose Tan, Office of Strategic Initiatives, at [email protected].