USC has signed agreements with two European institutions that will bolster the University's research efforts in fuel cell experimentation and marine science.

Harris Pastides, USC's vice president for research and health sciences, recently returned from Europe, where he met with key officials of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg, Germany, one of the world's leading fuel cell research centers. Pastides advanced negotiations on behalf of USC's Next Energy initiative that will lead to faculty exchanges, joint research appointments, and, potentially, a contingent of Fraunhofer Institute scientists on USC's new research campus.

“Top universities around the world are interested in working with top U.S. universities as a way to speed research breakthroughs and other developments," Pastides said. “Similarly, we want USC to be closely connected with advances in our priority areas, wherever they are being
made.”
John Van Zee, director of USC’s Center for Fuel Cells, concurs: “Just as USC's NSF Center for Fuel Cells fosters cooperation with industry, collaboration with an institute such as the Franhofer, known for its world-class engineers and scientists, will alleviate duplication, leverage resources, and enhance research for Next Energy solutions for South Carolina, the Southeast, and the world.”

In Greece, Pastides and emeritus marine science professor John Mark Dean met with oceanographers at the University of Athens to sign a memorandum of understanding that deepens research links in marine science with USC's Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences. The University of Athens has one of the major ocean research groups in the Mediterranean region.

“John Mark Dean and other USC faculty have had a long standing collegial relationship with their peers at the University of Athens, and this agreement will allow us to build on this by developing better coordination and proposing additional joint efforts,” Pastides said.

Dean and his colleagues in Greece and Turkey are currently developing advanced techniques for estimating the age of fish, which is of vital importance in determining the size of fish stocks as well as the impact of pollution on fish and on human consumers of fish.

“International collaborations such as this are essential to the pursuit of many important marine research questions,” said Madilyn Fletcher, director of USC’s Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences. “The oceans cover 70 percent of our planet's surface, and highly migratory fish, such as tuna, inhabit broad expanses of the oceans with no consideration for international boundaries.”

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