Smarr, DeFanti, and Brown Visit CICESE to Further Mexican/Calit2 Collaborations

3.29.04 -- Calit² director Larry Smarr and OptIPuter collaborators Tom DeFanti and Maxine Brown (from the University of Illinois at Chicago Electronic Visualization Lab) visited CICESE March 25-26 to explore areas of collaboration between Mexican R&D institutions and Calit². CICESE stands for El Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (translation: The Center for Scientific Investigation and Higher Education in Ensenada). Joining the meeting was Carlos Casasús, director of CUDI, Mexico's Internet2. One specific goal was to define a set of cross-border projects that could be leveraged by creating a dedicated fiber-optic link.

Carlos Casasús
Carlos Casasús, director of CUDI, Mexico's Internet2

The format of the meeting included short summaries of the capabilities of various units at CICESE and proposed topics of collaboration. Then a discussion ensued to home in on topics of mutual interest and specific projects that might worked on collaboratively. Calit² personnel heard 15 30-minute reports, including on such topics as intelligent buildings, applied physics, geophysics and information technology, oceanography and remote sensing, computer science, Internet2 development in Mexico, MEMS development, telecom research and development, and sensor networks.


Carlos Duarte
Carlos Duarte, director of the CONACyT-U.S.A

The group from UCSD included Carlos Duarte, director of the CONACyT-U.S.A. project and sole CONACyT representative to the U.S. CONACyT stands for Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, which translates as the National Science and Technology Council, which is comparable to the National Science Foundation in the U.S. The Calit² group was hosted by the director general of CICESE, Javier Mendieta Jiménez.



This was a follow-up visit to a visit by CICESE and CONACyT to Calit² at UCSD January 23. SDSU collaborator Eric Frost was instrumental to the success of both visits.



A number of distinguished members of CICESE and CONACyT will be attending the Calit² All-hands Meeting on April 12.

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