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Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics

Volume 55, 2023

Advancing Access to Cutting-Edge Tabletop Science

  • Michael F. Schatz1, Pietro Cicuta2, Vernita D. Gordon3, Teuta Pilizota4, Bruce Rodenborn5, Mark D. Shattuck6 and Harry L. Swinney3
  • 1School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; email: [email protected] 2Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 3Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA 4School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom 5Physics Program, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, USA 6Benjamin Levich Institute and Physics Department, The City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
  • Vol. 55:213-235 (Volume publication date January 2023)
  • First published as a Review in Advance on September 28, 2022
  • Copyright © 2023 by the author(s).
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See credit lines of images or other third-party material in this article for license information

Abstract

Hands-On Research in Complex Systems Schools provide an example of how graduate students and young faculty working in resource-constrained environments can apply key mindsets and methods of tabletop experiments to problems at the frontiers of science. Each day during the Schools’ two-week program, participants work in small groups with experienced tabletop scientists in interactive laboratories on topics drawn from diverse disciplines in science and technology. Using modern low-cost tools, participants run experiments and perform associated data analysis together with mathematical and computational modeling. Participants also engage in other scientific professional activities; in particular, they learn best practices for communicating their results visually, orally, and in writing. In this way, the Hands-On Schools foster the development of scientific leaders in low- and middle-income countries.

Keyword(s): graduate education, research under resource constraints, science in LMICs, scientific career professional development, tabletop experiments
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2023-01-19
2025-06-24
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Advancing Access to Cutting-Edge Tabletop Science
Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 55, 213 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-fluid-120720-025348
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-fluid-120720-025348
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-fluid-120720-025348
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Supplementary Data

  • The Supplemental Materials for this manuscript can be accessed at the Hands-On Research in Complex Systems website: https://handsonresearch.org

    (Direct link to supplemental materials page: https://handsonresearch.org/arfm-supplemental-material)

    The URLs provide access to the page "Supplemental Materials for Advancing Access to Cutting-Edge Tabletop Science," which contains materials explicitly referenced in the paper. They are organized by the section and subsection headings given in the paper; additional materials presented at the Hands-On Schools (but not discussed in the paper) are also included as downloadable files or as links to other freely available materials.

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