Early-Career Collaboration Awards: Reflections from previous awardees

In recent years, the power of virtual collaboration has become undeniable, yet there are moments when nothing compares to the depth and impact of in-person engagement. Time spent at other institutions – especially abroad – offers unparalleled opportunities to access specialised expertise, advanced facilities and fresh perspectives that can reshape research and innovation.

For early-career researchers, the absence of such opportunities has been particularly challenging, limiting their ability to initiate new projects, gain critical experience and cultivate professional networks. These early connections often serve as the foundation for a researcher’s professional growth, laying the groundwork for enduring collaborations.

Since its launch in 2023, the IARU Early-Career Collaboration Grant Scheme has been a vital support for emerging academics, funding short-term research visits to partner IARU universities. This year IARU granted eight awards to Early Career Researchers for the 2024-2025 cycle. The awardees are:

• Dr Andy Tay Kah Ping (NUS)
• Dr Cecile de Villiers (UCT)
• Friedolin Merhout (UCPH)
• Dr Katherine Turner (ANU)
• Dr Leo Boozaier (UCT)
• Dr Peter Marcus Kristensen (UCPH)
• Dr Fernando Tulio Salva Rocha Franco (ETH)
• Dr Tadiwa Madenga (UC Berkeley)

Reflections from previous awardees:

Dr Xin Peng

Assistant Professor, Film and Screen Studies and History of Art

Home university: University of Cambridge

Host university: University of California, Berkeley

As a film and media historian, my work interrogates how racial, and gender differences informed and shaped the conception and development of media technologies in the first half of the twentieth century. My research trip to the University of California, Berkeley enabled me to consult important archival materials housed at the Ethnic Studies Library for my first book project on the Chinese telephone exchange in San Francisco’s Chinatown, a tourist landmark for decades before its closing in 1949 as a result of the transition to automatic dial. Among the most important materials was an oral histories interview conducted by Chinese American community historian Him Mark Lai with telephone operator Choy Chan in 1975, preserved on cassette tapes. The interview was conducted in Cantonese. No previous accounts of the Chinese telephone exchange have referenced it, and even the grandson of Choy Chan did not know the tape’s existence. I am now in the process of collaborating with the Asian American Studies librarian to digitise the tape so that it could be made available to the families of the telephone operator.

While in Berkeley, I finished an essay based on the materials for one of the book chapters, drawing from the new archival documents in the university’s collections. The essay won the Race and Histories of Technology Prize at the Society for History of Technology. It traces the origin of the Chinese telephone exchange in relation to the history of early telephony, where the Chinese language—perceived as gibberish and noise—figured significantly in the debate around the telephone’s social use. For early telephone men, and later, cyberneticians, the unintelligibility of the Chinese exemplifies the unruliness of human communication, understood as analogous to the indiscriminate transmission of signal and noise in the nascent forms of telecommunications. The ambivalent attitudes towards sociality afforded by the telephone in the early twentieth century thus indexed how meanings were defined against stigmatised – gendered and racialised – forms of non-instrumental and promiscuous communication: in short, against noise.

I connected with important scholars in the field of Asian American studies, film studies, and East Asian studies, including Lok Siu, Weihong Bao, and Ling Hon Lam. I also visited the informants of my project – descendants of the telephone operators – whom I only met online before this trip. These interactions were especially fruitful as I was able to share my findings with colleagues at another institution and the community that the research is about. It made me realise more than ever the importance of my work as I am excavating family and community history hitherto largely unknown.

In addition to the research for my current book project, I also made discoveries and collected materials that will be the base for my next book on the renowned Chinese American cinematographer, James Wong Howe. I consulted newspaper clippings in the Him Mark Lai collection at the Ethnic Studies Library as well as oral histories (both transcripts and cassette tapes) preserved in Bancroft library. Prof Weihong Bao pointed me to further sources in Hong Kong and Los Angeles for future research upon hearing about my findings.

Being in the Bay Area for a month also offered opportunities for me to visit the historical site of my study as well as participating in the cultural events at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). I want to thank the IARU for this grant that made this indispensable trip for my research possible.

Dr Rosephine Georgina Rakotonirainy

Lecturer, Department of Statistical Sciences

Home university: University of Cape Town

Host university: University of Copenhagen

I conducted my research visit at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, from 3 to 28 June 2024. The primary aim of my visit was to cultivate networks and opportunities for lasting collaboration and long-term research projects with the host professor, Giovanni Pantuso, from the Department of Mathematical Sciences. This was fulfilled by various meetings with Prof Pantuso during which we discussed a collaborative project on risk averse modelling in the context of logistic capacity planning under uncertainty. Prof Pantuso is an expert in the field of stochastic and risk modelling. With his technical skills we planned to investigate the development of robust techniques to solve a real-world problem sought in logistics, known as the generalised bin packing under uncertainty. In this case, uncertainty relates to the dynamic of the system, mainly with respect to demand fluctuations and price oscillations. During the visit, we defined the scope of the project, determined the methodology to be applied, and the data to be considered. The work is still in progress, though a skeleton of a draft article has been compiled. Numerical experiments are carried out and it is expected to get results toward the beginning of next year. It is anticipated that the project is completed by the end of next year and that an article is submitted for publication by then. Moreover, it is envisaged to recruit an assistant researcher at Masters or PhD level to get involved in the project, especially to assist in the computational work.

Apart from the research meetings with Prof Pantuso, I had the opportunity to interact with the Operations Research group of his department, including Prof Trine Boomsma and Miss Jiali Deng (doctoral student). We discussed potential research collaborative work, project-based research grant applications, student’s supervisions, and conference participation. I shared my plan on organising a symposium on Operations Research in my department at the University of Cape Town to promote the research field to postgraduate students. In fact, I organised a 2-day symposium on Operations Research on 5-6 September, to popularise the research area to postgraduate students with the objectives to expose them to different aspects of the field from theory to practice. The research group was very supportive and provided valuable comments on the planning. We also had the opportunity to exchange our teaching and research practices which was very enriching. Such type of exposure and interaction is a channel for learning opportunity and skills development and has broaden my professional experience, especially as an emerging academic researcher.

From 25 to 28 June, I attended the 2nd Copenhagen school of stochastic programming held at the University of Copenhagen and organised by Prof Pantuso and his team. The school was mainly targeting PhD students who wish to work on stochastic programming in research and practice. It provided necessary concepts, practical and research-oriented introduction to the field of stochastic programming. The course was given by a number of experts in the field, including Prof Alois Pichler, Prof Asgeir Tomasgard, Prof Francesca Maggioni, and Prof Michal Kaut. Though the course aimed at PhD students, I benefited from attending it, as it provided solid introduction to decision making under uncertainty which is relevant to the project I am collaborating with Prof Pantuso. I also had the opportunity to interact with the lecturers to discuss potential collaborative projects and any research-related work.

To this end, I would like to thank the International Alliance of Research Universities for giving me the opportunity to conduct the research visit. It was fruitful and especially a long-lasting collaboration between the University of Cape Town and University of Copenhagen would be formed and maintained through postgraduate student supervision and further collaboration.