The GYA Young Scientist Ambassador Programme (YSAP) promotes the efforts by GYA members to bridge the international scientific gap by facilitating cultural, scientific, intellectual, or educational interactions. The ambassadorships are non-traditional; that is, interactions occur between two countries that are at different stages of scientific development, or between two countries that historically have had minimal scientific contact. The YSAP organises and funds Ambassadorships, wherein GYA members travel between developed and developing countries, transferring expertise and knowledge and otherwise increasing engagement between nations of different scientific development.
Membership of GYA activities is reserved to current or former GYA members only.
Active members – Active group members are current GYA members proactively participating in the group’s overall work and progress, by contributing to discussions or (text) outputs, or organising and running workshops and other (online) meetings.
Followers – Followers of a group are subscribers to the mailing list, but are not expected to actively contribute. Followers may be current members or alumni of the GYA.
Past Members – Past members are GYA members and alumni who have previously been active in the group. They are no longer included in group communications/mailing lists.
For GYA members and alumni: please use the form below to set or change your membership status for this group.
Non-GYA members: sign up for the monthly GYA newsletter by using newsletter sign-up form at the very bottom of this page.
We currently have no links to external websites to offer by this activity.
For GYA members and alumni only: connect to the group, collaborate and discuss with other members on the GYA-internal Agora platform here.
Virtual Missions 2021
GYA members Bernardo Urbani (Venezuela) and Manuel Fernández-Götz (UK) have been selected to carry out a YSAP virtual mission in 2021 still. They will work on a project on “Sharing views about the past during the pandemic: From archaeoprimatology to conflict archaeology”. Their chosen topic links the research agenda of both applicants, archaeology as the study of the human past through material culture and biological remains. They are planning to explore dissimilar but currently relevant topics in the field: the relatively new subdiscipline of archaeoprimatology, on the one hand, and conflict archaeology, on the other. The former examines the liminality between humans and nonhuman primates, or how members of the Primate order interconnected in prehistory, whereas the latter studies the materiality of past conflict (from battlefields to memorials). They will conduct a one-day “basic mission” and e-traveling with the purpose of delivering “outgoing-receiving” presentations via Zoom between Venezuela and the United Kingdom. These talks will benefit from virtual but factual exposition of ancient archaeoprimatological remains from western Venezuela and conflict remains from Europe ranging from late prehistory to the 20th century.
Virtual YSAP Missions 2020
After a call to the GYA membership in August, the group has chosen two proposals for online missions in 2020. Pradeep Kumar (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa) and Filippo Rossi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) will collaborate to introduce their students to advanced molecular mechanics simulation techniques. Their YSAP mission will include a virtual tour of both their labs. Chandra Shekhar Sharma (Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, India) and David Fernandez Rivas (University of Twente, Netherlands) will conduct a tutorial and experiment with ultrasound jointly with both their teams.
General Information
The YSAP accomplishes its objectives by (1) serving as a medium to connect various GYA members who might have common interests and (2) locating money or funding opportunities to pay for the international activities. The YSAP currently operates with a budget from the GYA. The amounts are not comprehensive for a given Ambassador, but serve as financial assistance to complement other funds available for the Ambassadorships.
The primary outcomes of the Ambassadorships are Mission Reports posted here on the YSAP website. As of December 2020, there have been 26 funded YSAP Missions, and six volunteer outreach activities:
Funded Missions
2020
# 26 Virtual Mission India & the Netherlands
# 25 Virtual Mission South Africa & Italy
2019
# 24 Lahcen El Youssfi visits Chile [mission video here]
#23 Flávia Pires visits Argentina
#22 Mahesh Kumar visits Israel
# 21 Koen Vermeir visits Romania
2018
#20 Mirabbos Hojamberdiev visits India
#19 Thomas Edison dela Cruz visits Serbia
#18 Science Caravan visits Cambodia
2017
#17 Mirabbos Hojamberdiev visits Tanzania
#16 John Malone visits Costa Rica
#15 Almas Taj Awan visits Pakistan
#14 Thomas Edison dela Cruz visits Myanmar
2016
#13 Dmitry Maslov visits Serbia
#12 Vidushi Neergheen-Bhujun visits the United Kingdom
2015
#11 Alexander Kagansky visits Mauritius
#10 Ghada Bassioni visits Germany
#9 Thomas Edison dela Cruz visits Austria
#8 Ghada Bassioni visits The Netherlands
2014
#7 Javier Garcia Martinez visits Peru
2013
#6 Thomas Schwarze visits Botswana
2012
#5 Five Ambassadors visit Fochville, South Africa
#4 Four Ambassadors visit Pretoria, South Africa
2011
#3 Stephen Miller visits Indonesia
#2 Johan Akerman visits Vietnam
#1 Caradee Wright visits Réunion Island
Non-funded YSAP Outreach Activities
2018
Mahesh Kumar visits Uzbekistan
Young Scientist Ambassador Programme builds connections at Burapha University, Thailand
2017
YSAP participates in Skype a Scientist
Mahesh Kumar held an outreach activity in India
outreach activity on “Synthetic Biology and the Future”
2016
Shamsun Nahar Khan started a series of science outreach activities in Bangladesh
