On 16 January 2008, AIT President Said Irandoust met with a group of Indian faculty member, namely Professor S. P. Pawadee, Dr. Mrs. Gauri Rane, and Mr. Anil Rao, from the Khandesh College Education Society, Jalgaon, India, (www.jalasri.kces.in). The group had participated in the HealthGIS 2008 Conference, organized by Dr. Nitin Tripathi and colleagues from our Remote Sensing and GIS field of study.

Professor Sudip Rakshit, Vice President for Research was invited to join the editorial board of the new journal Recent Patents on Biotechnology which is brought out by Bentham Science Publishers.  Their journals are indexed by the major indexing media such as, Medline / PubMed, and the Science Citation Index.

A research publication of Dr. Suthasinne Nilsang, a student of Professor Sudip Rakshit, "Monoclonal Antibody Production Using a New Supermacroporous Cryogel Bioreactor" has been the most-accessed article published in the journal Biotechnology Progress in the 3rd quarter of 2007.  It is currently featured on the journal's Most-Accessed Articles Web site of ACS. This was part of Dr. Suthasinnee's doctoral thesis and was done with close collaboration with the biotechnology program at the University of Lund in Sweden.

Professor Peter Haddawy's doctoral student in Computer Science Field of Study, Mr. Hameedullah Kazi, has been accepted to serve on the Student Editorial Board of the international journal Methods of Information in Medicine. This is an innovative program in which a few students from around the world are selected to serve on the editorial board in order to gain experience in the editorial process.

On 16 January 2008, AIT President Said Irandoust met with Professor Vilas M. Salokhe, who has returned from his sabbatical at Kyoto University and resumed his duties at AIT. The AIT community welcomes Professor Salokhe, whom AIT President has assigned to follow up on the integrated-bachelor’s master’s initiative with Shivaji and Singhania Universities.

AIT faculty members recently received research grants from various organizations as follows:

Professor Ram M. Shrestha of Energy field of study, School of  Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) has received a new research grant from the UNEP Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific (RRC.AP) for a project on Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC), amounting to US$ 129,500. This will run up to 31 December 2008.

During the week AIT signed a new MOU with the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center, Thailand (NECTEC) for the project coordinated by Professor Kanchana Kanchanasut, Director of intERLab, amounting to 1.9 million Baht entitled "Interconnectivity between Mobile Ad Hoc and Fixed Infrastructure Networks for Multimedia Disaster Emergency Communications".

AIT also signed an agreement for a Tsunami Science and Preparedness Program with the University of Washington, which is coordinated by Dr. Amrit Bart, from the Aquaculture and Aquatic Resources Management field of study, SERD. The total budget for the project that will run for one year is US$137,000.

Dr. Lal Samarakoon from the Geoinformatics Center, School of Engineering and Technology (SET) has received a new research grant from the Center for Spatial Information Science, University of Tokyo for the project entitled "Thailand Geographic Information System Development" with a total budget of 3.4 million Yen for 1.5 year duration.

In honor of His Majesty the King of Thailand's 80th Birthday Anniversary, the Office of the Supreme Commander has granted approval for the Army Training Command Department to send 3 applicants from the Office of the Supreme Command Secretary to study at AIT at the master's level.

On 15 January 2008, AIT President Said Irandoust met with Professor Mohammad Mahdi Mazaheri, Vice President for Cultural Relations, Islamic Azad University (IAU), Iran, expressing a common interest in the establishment of a "Spatial Data Infrastructure and Management Center". The Center would develop projects on SDI, spatial networking and management, academic programs, and conduct other related activities.

A new disaster preparedness manual titled “More Sweat Less Blood” has been published by the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) with collaborative support from the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS) Program, USAID.

The manual includes seven modules covering all aspects of disaster preparedness, including the role of local institutions in building up community resilience towards natural disasters such as tsunamis, cyclones, floods and droughts.

CNBC Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Award 2008

The Asian Institute of Technology’s own distinguished Thai alumnus Dr. Anusorn Sangnimnuan was recently awarded the prestigious Corporate Social Responsibility Award for 2008 at the 6th Annual CNBC Asia Business Leaders Awards (ABLA), organized by Asian business news broadcaster CNBC on 20 January in Seoul, Republic of Korea.