Speaker

Dr. Linda Birnbaum is Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Toxicology Program Division. she will give a presentation to and engage with the Science Diplomats Club of Washington, DC on Thursday, April 12, 2012.

Biography

As NIEHS and NTP director, Dr. Birnbaum oversees a budget that funds multidisciplinary biomedical research programs, prevention, and intervention efforts that encompass training, education, technology transfer, and community outreach. The NIEHS supports more than 1,000 research grants.

Dr. Birnbaum has received numerous awards, including the Women in Toxicology Elsevier Mentoring Award, the Society of Toxicology Public Communications Award, EPA's Health Science Achievement Award and Diversity Leadership Award, and 12 Science and Technology Achievement Awards. She is the author of several hundred peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, abstracts, and reports. Dr. Birnbaum received her M.S. and Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Illinois, Urbana. A board certified toxicologist, Dr. Birnbaum has served as a federal scientist for 30 years - 19 years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development, and the first ten years at NIEHS as a senior staff fellow at the National Toxicology Program, then as a principal investigator and research microbiologist, and finally as a group leader for the Institute's Chemical Disposition Group.

Documents

No documents are currently available for this event. To register, please email assistante-stic.dc at ambascience-usa.org

Where : Swissnex Boston, Consulate of Switzerland 420 Broadway, Cambridge (map)

When : February 23, 2012 – 6:30 – 8:30pm

The Science and Technology Service at the Consulate General of France in Boston is hosting a Café des Sciences featuring a lecture titled, “L'intelligence musicale à portée de doigts," or "Musical intelligence at your fingertips."

During this Café des Sciences Tristan Jehan, co-founder and CSO at Echo Nest will be discussing the ways in which music has changed with the development of new technological innovation and digital applications. Echo Nest is a start-up company that focuses on smarter music applications for customers such as MOG, Spotify and iHeartRadio.

The event is in French – Networking Reception to follow.

Registration: Free

In order to pursue efforts of the international scientific community in the fight against cardiometabolic syndrome, Emory University hosted a CEO roundtable discussion on February 2, 2012 to develop a model of prevention against this syndrome for Georgia, which could ultimately inspire other States and countries. France was represented by the scientific department of the Consulate General of France in Atlanta.

This meeting follows a summit on this topic at Emory held in October 2011. Upon the invitation of Omar Latouff, Professor of surgery at the Emory School of Medicine, the Scientific Attaché of the Consulate General of France in Atlanta was involved in the creation of a common database to collect data and hospital practices (methods of prevention, diagnosis and treatment) at the international level. The summit also fixed the initial stages of an international clinical study for the prevention of cardiometabolic syndrome. To view the speeches made at the summit, click here.

According to Omar Lattouf, cardiometabolic syndrome includes a set of signs: obesity, hypertension, high blood glucose levels that usually cause type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and strokes. The main causes of these diseases include being overweight and a genetic predisposition.

Professor Lattouf thinks that “cardiometabolic syndrome is a global epidemic affecting every country, yet it is very little talked about.” He also noted that bringing scientists from different countries together can create new research and educational opportunities that can potentially improve life for patients, expand health care services and reduce the overall cost of health care at Emory and elsewhere.

The fight against cardiometabolic syndrome has become a priority in industrialized countries, for its obvious human costs, but for financial reasons as well. Worldwide, about 18 million people die each year from diseases grouped under the cardiometabolic syndrome.

This issue could lead to a scientific cooperation project between Toulouse and Atlanta, within the framework of France-Atlanta.

" Environmental and economic issues related to the movement of goods in very large cities, with a focus on Paris, Los Angeles and Atlanta "

This free event will take place on January 30th at 5:00pm, at the USC University Club.

For more information, please consult the website of the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles. To RSVP, kindly email deputy-sdv.la@ambascience-usa.org.

Presentation abstract

Freight transportation is an often forgotten but crucial activity for large metropolitan areas. In Atlanta, the number of warehouses has tripled since 1998, making it the fastest growing industry (in number of new facilities) in the city over the past twelve years. Los Angeles is the main logistics hub for North America, and more than one million containers go through its two main ports every month, serving the rest of the country and the world. In the Paris region, more than 1 million deliveries are made every day, and the logistics and freight industries employ more than 100,000 people. These activities also have an important environmental impact. 25% of transport based CO2 emissions are related to the urban movement of goods. Freight accounts for 30% of NOx and 50% of particulate matters' emissions related to urban traffic. These last two pollutants are particularly dangerous for the health of the urban populations. In her talk, Laetitia will present the economic rationales behind urban freight transportation, as well as its environmental challenges. She will present the preliminary results of her analysis of local policies implemented to achieve a cleaner urban freight mobility

Biography

Laetitia Dablanc is a senior scientist from the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR). Her areas of research are freight transportation, freight and the environment, urban freight and logistics, rail freight, freight transport policies. She received a PhD in transportation planning from Ecole des Ponts-ParisTech, and a Master's degree in city and regional planning from Cornell University. She was initially trained in policy analysis and economics at Science Po Paris. With the financial support of IFSTTAR and ADEME, she is currently working on logistics sprawl issues and freight transportation planning in U.S. and European mega-regions. For that, Laetitia was a visiting scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology during academic year 2010-2011 and is a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California/METRANS during 2011-2012 academic year.

Documents

Flyer - Laetitia Dablanc - January 30, 2012

Partners

The Young Engineers + Scientists Symposium 2012 is a three-day event to be held March 20-22, 2012, at the UC Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. Aimed at fostering industrial and research collaborations between the United States and Europe in the field of nanotechnologies and energy, this event is headed by The Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in United States, the group for nanosciences at CNRS, and the Grenoble Innovation for Advanced New Technologies (GIANT).

The focus of the YESS 12 symposium is to connect young researchers (PhD candidates and Post Docs) and engineers from each side of the Atlantic to develop long-term exchanges.

The symposium also aims at gathering researchers from different domains related to clean energy (PV, battery, CCS, biofuels, energy efficiency, thermoelectricity, etc…) around the use of nanotechnologies. This might be also the occasion to discuss public policies, regulations and other subjects which might have different outlook in Europe and the US.

The symposium will include group plenary sessions, technical sessions focusing on specific content areas, poster sessions, and a panel discussion.

To learn more, please consult the YESS 2012 website.

Toulouse will host the most important players in the global aerospace industry, particularly those focusing on space applications.

It will provide the opportunity to meet with more than 1000 experts, service providers, clients, users, researchers and students from all over the world.

Click here for more information

Speaker

Robynn Sturm Steffen is Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

She will give a presentation to and engage with the Science Diplomats Club of Washington, DC on Thursday, February 9, 2012.

Steffen will examine how distributed innovation is changing scientific discovery and problem-solving. She will discuss the track record of prizes in spurring innovation, potential benefits of prizes, and steps the Obama Administration has taken to accelerate public sector adoption of these innovative tools.

02-21-2012 update : Report of the meeting (fr)

Biography

In her role as Senior Advisor, Steffen serves as the Administration lead for accelerating public sector adoption of prizes and challenges to stimulate innovation, advance open government, and bring the top talent and best ideas to bear on our nation's most pressing problems. Before joining the Obama Administration in February of 2009, Steffen served as Deputy Chair of the Clinton Global Initiative Education Working Group, Executive Director of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, and Project Manager for YUVA Consulting. She also worked on Senator Patrick Leahy's Judiciary Committee staff during law school. Steffen holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Political Science from Yale University and she received her J.D. from Yale Law School.

To learn more about Ms. Steffen's work at OSTP, please consult the following recent articles she has authored:

• Illinois Team Wins Prize for Innovative Oil Spill Cleanup Technology
• Opening Up Local Data with Prize-Inspired Apps
• New Center for Excellence Fuels Prize to Help Modernize Tools for Patent Examination

Documents

No documents are currently available for this event. To register, please email assistante-stic.dc at ambascience-usa.org.

The research schooner Tara, which provides samples and data to the scientific community worldwide to learn more about the impact of climate change on ecosystems, will make a port call in Savannah on January 20-26, 2012. This call is part of an ambitious project entitled Tara Oceans.
Tara Oceans is the very first attempt to make a global study of marine plankton. Marine plankton is the only ecosystem that is almost continuous over the surface of the Earth. Recently, scientists have discovered the great importance of plankton for the climate: populations of plankton are affected very rapidly by variations in climate. But in turn, they can influence the climate by modifying the absorption of carbon. Studying plankton is like taking the pulse of our planet.

During their six-day port call, a number of events have been planned to raise environmental awareness among the general public, and particularly young people. Among the many activities scheduled are:

- On January 19th, there will be a phytoplankton collection stop in NOAA Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary..

- On January 19th, 7pm, a scientific seminar will be presented by Romain Troublé, Secretary General and Operations manager of Tara Oceans at the NOAA Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary..

- On January 20th, a flotilla of local vessels (research, recreational, government, commercial, etc.) will accompany Tara into port. Cannons fired from two historic forts, Fort Jackson et Fort Pulaski, will welcome the flotilla as it approaches on their trip up river. The Mayor and City Council, as well as state and local dignitaries will welcome the crew at Savannah's historic City Hall.

- During the weekend, the ship's crew will engage the public dockside with an overview of their programs and projects.
- Monday to Wednesday, the ship's crew will welcome pre-registered groups of students from Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties aboard the vessel.

- A series of scientific seminars are also scheduled: Monday at 3pm Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (10 Ocean Science Circle (30 minutes drive from Savannah) where the crew will briefly present their research projects. On Tuesday, from 3pm to 5pm, a scientific seminar will take place at Savannah State University (Student Union, Activity Room C (second floor) - 3219 College St)

- Early on January 26th, TARA will depart for New York.

Update 01-31-2012 - pictures of the event

When: January 20, 2012
Where: Hotel Hyatt Regency, Cambridge, MA

Europe has a vibrant and exciting science and technology culture and offers many excellent and generous career and funding opportunities for researchers and innovators, no matter where they come from in the world. The objective of this conference is to raise awareness of these opportunities and to promote Europe as a research and innovation destination.

Presentations by high-level speakers, representing some of the major funding organizations and research intensive industries in Europe, will be illustrated by testimonials from researchers who have taken advantage of the opportunities offered to develop their careers in Europe.

The Conference is the first of a series of events planned for the USA and has been organized by the European Commission and the European Research Council in consultation with EU Member States and the Strategic Forum for International Cooperation.

Program: http://destinationeurope.teamwork.fr/en/programme
More information: http://destinationeurope.teamwork.fr

When: Friday, Feb. 10, 5:45 p.m.
Where: La Maison Française, 4101 Reservoir Rd. NW, Washington DC

The Embassy of France's Office of Science and Technology, in collaboration with Tara Expeditions, invites you to a presentation and film screening marking the near conclusion of a 30-month scientific voyage to distant seas and oceans.

The event will take place on Friday, February 10th at 5:45 p.m. A screening of "The Big Bloom" will following a presentation of the expedition and its discoveries by Dr. Eric Karsenti, Scientific Director of Tara Oceans.

Registration closed. For additional information, please contact Marc Magaud : attache-envt@ambascience-usa.org

Video presenting the TARA Oceans expedition:

Invitation - Tara Oceans Feb 10th