Harvard-UAI Funded Projects

With support from the Harvard-UAI Collaborative Research Fund, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Office for Urbanization, and the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (UAI) Research Center for Ecology, Landscape, and Urbanism will convene a group of Harvard GSD and UAI faculty and students for a field study, which will focus on the status of decommissioned or abandoned airfields in Latin America, and will consider how urban airfields can be repurposed as socially relevant and ecologically functional landscapes following their closure as active airports.

The proposed collaboration will work with the Airfield Manual and complement the publication with a range of measures, diagrams, charts, graphs, and other analytical tools to exemplify the manual’s principles. Also, it will test this research through a focused field study on the Aeroparque Ciudad de Mendoza, an abandoned airport in Mendoza, Argentina. With support from a DRCLAS faculty grant, faculty and students from both collaborating institutions will convene in Mendoza, Argentina, in January 2017, for one week to work across disciplines of architecture, landscape, urbanism, and ecology with a series of discreet adaptation, conservation, and redevelopment strategies for the transformation of the airfield. The resulting design strategies and specific technical tools will be applicable in other comparable contexts. Following the field visit, the results of the study will be documented at the Harvard GSD. This project extends this research towards issues of site specificity in the context of the Latin American city through cross-cultural dialogue with faculty and students in urbanism, landscape, and ecology at UAI.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Charles Waldheim, John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture and Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Collaborating Faculty: Felipe Vera, Associate Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Collaborating Institutions: Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Office for Urbanization; Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (UAI) Research Center for Ecology, Landscape, and Urbanism

This project will be the second phase of a project on airport landscapes started last year through this fund. It follows the successful results from mapping decommissioned and abandoned airfields in Latin America, followed by a case-study project on the future transformation of a decommissioned airfield in Mendoza, Argentina (Aeroparque Ciudad de Mendoza). The objective of the second phase is to consolidate the results obtained in the first phase and set the basis for future research projects focused on infrastructure, landscape, and urbanism in Latin America. The team will work across disciplines of architecture, landscape, urbanism, and ecology with a series of discreet adaptation, conservation, and redevelopment strategies for the transformation of the airfield. This project builds on and consolidates prior research on airfields, led by Professor Charles Waldheim, and is part of the Landscape as Urbanism in the Americas initiative, started by Charles Waldheim in collaboration with UAI, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and several other partners in South America.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Charles Waldheim, John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture and Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Collaborating Faculty: Felipe Vera, Associate Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Collaborating Institutions: Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Office for Urbanization; Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (UAI) Research Center for Ecology, Landscape, and Urbanism

The present study has two aims: to undertake an exploratory analysis of the cultural and sociological antecedents of violence in the Chilean school system and to initiate exploratory, school violence-prevention grounded in the application of multi-media literacy methods and Chilean story- telling in the context of prevention science and applied practice principles. The proposed project’s foundation lies in the possibility of seeking ways to approach new forms of student expression and to build ethical-aesthetical narratives from a perspective that critically explores the collective, affective forces constituted within the school environment, understanding that these forces also make up complex current socio-political scenario. To this extent, current research methods developed by Professors Robert Selman and Randy Testa provide an empirically oriented possibility to explore the phenomena described. Cross Media Lab studies constitute a concrete and real contribution to these problems from a methodology focused on the ethical-aesthetic analysis which shows how the promotion of story building processes around academic, ethical, and aesthetical ways of knowing and valuing makes use of multi-media content platforms to enable new ways of understanding educational experience by:

1. deepening student close cross media understanding of stories.
2. helping teachers understand how students make meaning of these stories.
3. giving direction to educational resource designs specifically focused on stories of violence and its amelioration.

In complementary fashion, within the interdisciplinary research group Languages and Materialities at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Professor Pedro Moscoso et. al have been developing studies regarding the relationship and impact that things and materiality have in different forms of experience construction from an interdisciplinary perspective. As part of their research team foundation, we believe that the exploration of historical based translation processes in relation to the interaction between different material platforms gives new ways to understand and create new practices to critically intervene reality.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Robert Selman, Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Collaborating Faculty: Pedro Moscoso Flores, Philosophy Department, UAI

Collaborating Institutions: HGSE, UAI 

In Chile, the lack of fresh water, especially in the north of the country, has important ecological, societal, and economic impacts. The goal of this project is to uncover unique plant adaptations to acquire water from fog under the extremely dry conditions found in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The collaboration between Harvard and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez will investigate the extent to which Nolana (endemic plant species) relies on water pulled from the soil versus the air and how the epicuticular salt levels needed to condense water are maintained. Also, a survey of interesting adaptations in other plant species thriving in the fog-dominated regions of coastal Atacama will be performed. These observations will provide the basis for a proposal seeking additional funding from CONYCIT’s Programa de Cooperación. This proposal fits naturally within the broad goal of promoting research and development within Chile by allowing the country to develop its expertise in fog collection and to become a hub for biomimetic research in plant water relations. The mentioned collaboration will facilitate the logistic of doing experimental work in this remote region and bring together our combined expertise in plant physiology and biophysics on this interesting class of problems.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Noel Michele Holbrook, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry, Harvard University

Collaborating Faculty: Jacques Dumais, Professor Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Collaborating Institutions: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Harvard University; Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

CrowdLaw Research at the Chilean Congress is a two-year project that aims to design and run field experiments at different stages of the lawmaking process in collaboration with the Bi-Chamber Commission of Transparency of the Chilean Congress- a parliamentarian commission dedicated to promoting transparency and engagement of citizens to involve the public at various stages of law and policy making cycles, from agenda setting to evaluation.

With very low rates of trust in public institutions, the legitimacy and effectiveness of traditional representative methods of decision-making, often dominated by political party agendas and done behind closed doors, are called into question. For this, disruptive technology must be used. A term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen in his 1997 best-selling book, a disruptive technology is one that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or a ground-breaking product that creates a completely new industry.

Disruptive technologies offer the promise of improving the ways in which public institutions tackle social problems and generate public value by connecting them to diverse forms of expertise and know-how. Around the world, there are already hundreds of examples of public institutions in all branches of government increasing their presence and accountability online, to involve the public at various stages of law and policy-making cycles, sometimes from agenda setting to evaluation.

In the second phase, the team plans to build on the results obtained in the first phase, to design and run field experiments at Chilean Congress gatherings during different stages of the lawmaking process to:

• deepen understanding of the demand for, use and impact of collective intelligence in governing
• provide evidence for the premise that collective intelligence has the potential to improve the workings of public institutions
• deepen shared understanding of what works and why
• provide actionable insights to policymakers, civil society representatives, entrepreneurs, researchers and others interested in collective intelligence processes, platforms, and policies in an easily digestible and persuasive format

To do this, the team reached an agreement of collaboration with the Bi-Chamber Commission of Transparency of the Chilean Congress- a parliamentarian commission dedicated to promoting transparency and engagement of citizens. The Commission leads the “Chilean Open Parliament Commitments”. They were able to access the Virtual Senator platform to run and monitor these experiments and we then evaluated the obtained results.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack, Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government; and Victoria Alsina Burgues, Democracy Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

Collaborating Faculty: Luis E. Santana, School of Communications & Journalism, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

By focusing on cultures of reading, this project approaches reading as a social and cultural complex system, which includes: writing, duplication, indexing, archival and circulation technologies, as well as concrete degrees and forms of alphabetization, social practices, affects and body gestures. Reading cultures also has a close relation to institutions that regulate and promote reading and to the material dimension of textual objects. The proposal focuses on “Revistas de revistas”, a group of magazines that proliferated during this period in Latin America, which literally mean “magazines made out from clipping other magazines”. These periodicals included material from such magazines as Sur, Acción and Clave but also materials gleaned from articles translated from European and American periodicals. The project seeks to study “Revista de revistas” as a medium that articulates a reading culture based on mechanical reproduction, copying and appropriation, but also on the operation of international intellectual and affective communities by means of concrete exchanges as well as discursive strategies.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Mariano Siskind, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature & Chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University 

Collaborating Faculty: Antonia Viu, Associate Professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez & Chair of the Departament of Literature

Collaborating Institutions: Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, FAS, Harvard University; Department of Literature, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

This proposal is a continuation of the previously awarded 2017 Harvard–UAI collaborative research grant, under the supervision of Professor Lisa Randall and Professor Tallarita.

The 2017 grant was extremely successful, initiating a deeply motivating research Project involving the precise shape of galaxies in relation to the dark matter distribution in which they are enveloped. The problem is the following: dark matter is a completely mysterious source of gravitational interactions which permeates the universe. As far as we know, it isn’t composed of ordinary matter, but rather of some exotic particle content which only interacts with the “ordinary” matter through gravity. Galaxies, and indeed the universe in general, are shaped by how the matter we can commonly observe interacts with the more “exotic” dark matter. However, we can indeed observe the shape of ordinary galaxies directly, through terrestrial or space telescopes. Can an observation of the galactical shape tell us something about how the dark matter must be distributed close to the galaxy? Furthermore, if we consider the gravitational back-reaction of the ordinary galaxy on the dark matter distribution, can we learn something new about how this exotic matter interacts?

These extremely important questions lend themselves to a numerical treatment, led by Professo Tallarita’s expertise in numerical simulations. Several new results have already been obtained through the previous grant, and we are currently in the process of deepening our research in order to publish our results. This year, the collaboration will continue in order to conclude this fundamental project.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Lisa Randall, Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science, Department of Physics, Harvard University

Collaborating Faculty: Gianni Tallarita, Department of Physics, UAI

Collaborating Institutions: FAS, UAI

Dark Matter and the shape of Galaxies-II, a project begun in 2017, investigates the precise shape of galaxies in relation to the dark matter distribution in which they are enveloped. Dark matter is a completely mysterious source of gravitational interactions which permeates the universe. It isn’t composed of ordinary matter, but rather of some exotic particle content which only interacts with “ordinary” matter through gravity.

This proposal is a continuation of previously awarded 2017 and 2018 Harvard–UAI collaborative research grants, under the supervision of Professor Lisa Randall (Harvard) and Professor Gianni Tallarita (UAI). During Professor Tallarita’s two visits to the Theory group at Harvard University, a long-term and deeply motivated research project was begun, involving the precise shape of galaxies in relation to the dark matter distribution in which they are enveloped. The problem is the following: Dark matter is a completely mysterious source of gravitational interactions which permeates the universe. As far as we know, it isn’t composed of ordinary matter, but rather of some exotic particle content which only interacts with “ordinary” matter via gravity. Galaxies, and indeed the universe in general, are shaped by how this “ordinary” matter that we can observe, interacts with the more “exotic” dark matter. Since, we can indeed observe the shape of ordinary galaxies directly, through terrestrial or space telescopes, the question remaining is whether observation of the galactical shape can tell us something about how the dark matter must be distributed close to the galaxy? Further, if we consider the gravitational back-reaction of the ordinary galaxy on the dark matter distribution, can we learn something new about how this exotic matter interacts with ordinary matter?

These extremely important questions lend themselves best to numerical analyses. Professor Tallarita has devoted most of his career to numerical simulations and coding in Mathematics, implementing Newton-Rhapson, direct finite differences or pseudo-spectral solving methods especially for the resolution of partial differential equations, and for which he is considered an expert. Similarly, Professor Randall has world-renowned expertise in theoretical physics. During Professor Tallarita’s visits, the team was able to apply his expertise along with that of Professor Randall's to this project. Furthermore, Professor Randall’s Phd student, Linda Xu, has been actively involved in the project, and collaboration with her has been tremendously fruitful. On the same lines, the 2018 project led Professor Tallarita to visit Harvard in April 2019 to continue the collaboration. The team further developed the theory of galaxy shapes through dark matter compositions and ran further numerical simulations on disk galaxies.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Lisa Randall, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science

Collaborating Faculty: Gianni Tallarita, Facultad De Artes Liberales, Departamento de Ciencias, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Measurement of Water Transport Properties of Membranes Made of Bacterial Cellulose is used by plants to fulfill diverse functions such as structural stability (wood) and the control of cell expansion (primary walls). Yet, the most remarkable use of cellulose in plants is as smart membranes able to control the flow of water. Although the pit membrane and the absorbing trichome membrane play a fundamental function in plants, it is still unclear how cellulose and perhaps other molecular constituents such as pectins favor the unique water transport properties of these membranes. To address this question, it would be useful to produce large cellulose membranes where both the structure and chemical composition can be controlled. Bacterial cellulose offers a great opportunity in that context because it can be produced in large quantity and with high crystallinity and purity (Iguchi et al. 2000). Such bacterial cellulose membranes have already been produced by Thomas Ledger's group at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez using the bacterium Gluconacetobacter xylinum, but they have not be characterized in terms of their water conducting properties. Thus, the goal of this proposal is to characterize the structure, water diffusivity, and air seeding pressure of membranes made of bacterial cellulose.

Participating Harvard Faculty: N. Michele Holbrook, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry & Professor of Biology, Harvard University;  Shmuel Rubinstein, Associate Professor of Applied Physics, Harvard University SEAS

Collaborating Faculty: Jacques Dumais, Associate Professor;  Thomas Ledger, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Collaborating Institutions: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the School of Engineering and Applies Sciences, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Harvard University; Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

At a macroscopic scale, that of galaxies, clusters and the universe as a whole, dark matter has long been a central problem of modern theoretical physics. It is thought to account for the observed rate of acceleration and of almost 30% of all the matter plus energy content of the universe. Why else would the universe be expanding so slowly? What is this mysterious dark matter sector made up of? Where does it come from? No-one knows. If it exists it is certainly made up of particles we don’t observe in modern day accelerators, it must be something new and therefore terribly exciting as a prospect for new physics. In the opposite end of the scale spectrum, that of atoms, particles and microscopic phenomena confinement of quarks plays a similar role. What mechanism is responsible for quark confinement in nuclei? What is the origin of this mechanism? How does it work? Once again, no one knows. It is however equally important, without confinement nuclei could not be held together and we would effectively have no stable atoms. This project will work on, Non-Abelian Strings and Dark Matter: a deep link between microscopic and macroscopic phenomena, will combine advance numerical coding with my knowledge of dark matter and potential implications to deepen the understanding on this unsuspected relation and therefore shed light on some of the central problems of modern day physics.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Lisa Randall, Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science, Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, Harvard University

Collaborating Faculty: Gianni Tallarita, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Collaborating Institutions: Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, Harvard University; Faculty of Liberal Arts, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Phenological synchrony and symbioses: assessing climate change impacts on plant-insect interactions in the Atacama Desert of Chile is a collaborative proposal that aims to characterize phenological mismatch among plants and insects due to global climate change. The study is focused on plant-insect interactions in the Atacama Desert of Chile. This Harvard-UAI collaborative investigation plans to use an invaluable collection of multispecies community-phenological data collected over 30 years from a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) station in Chile.

There is strong evidence from all continents that ecosystems have been adversely affected by regional and global climate change, particularly by increasing temperatures. Numerous studies have demonstrated dramatic shifts in species' phenology – the timing of life-cycle events of plants and animals – because temperature is an essential signal for the development of many species. Climate change may disrupt phenological synchrony when interacting species exhibit different sensitivities to environmental cues leading to negative consequences of both mutualistic (plants and pollinators or seed dispersers) and antagonistic (plant and herbivores) ecological interactions. Yet, there are relatively few compelling examples of such phenological mismatches, which results largely from a lack of data to address this question. Our collaborative proposal seeks funding to break this impasse by using an invaluable collection of multispecies community phenological data collected over 30-years from a Long-Term Ecological Research station in Chile. Here, we seek to characterize phenological mismatch among plants and insects to evaluate future changes to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in this iconic Mediterranean region of the world.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Charles C. Davis, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Curator of Vascular Plants in the Harvard University Herbaria and Director, Harvard University Herbaria

Collaborating Faculty: Dr. Karin Maldonado P., Departamento de Ciencias, Facultad de Artes Liberales, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Collaborating Institutions: Harvard FAS, UAI

Chile is known for its unique geography populated by equally unique plant and animal species. Plant Water Relations in the Fog Oases of Chile aims to analyze the water relations of the Olivillo tree, endemic to Chile and Argentina, to uncover its unique structural and physiological features. Results will contribute to land management and forest conservation planning by enhancing predictions of climate change impacts on the biodiversity and future survival of Chile’s fog oases.

Chile is known for its unique geography populated by equally unique plant and animal species. One such species is the Olivillo tree (Aextoxicon punctatum), the only member of the family Aextoxicaceae and which is endemic to Chile and Argentina. The Olivillo tree is thought to be the keystone species responsible for the survival of isolated micro-rainforests known as fog oases in the otherwise desolate Norte Chico of Chile. The goal of this project is to analyze the water relations of the Olivillo tree to uncover the unique structural and physiological features that allow these trees to capture the large amount of water required for the maintenance of fog oases. This goal will be addressed with field work in the fog oasis of Cerro Santa Inés (Region IV) and with laboratory experiments performed in Chile and the United-States. A fog tunnel available at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez will be used to obtain the first direct measurement of the rate of fog collection by individual Olivillo leaves. Harvard's complementary expertise in sap flow measurements will help quantify foliar uptake of fog water to estimate how well fog interception contributes to the water balance of these micro-rainforests. These questions are of fundamental and practical importance as climate change is predicted to decrease the frequency and intensity of coastal fog events. This work will contribute to land management and forest conservation planning by enhancing predictions of climate change impacts on the biodiversity and future survival of Chile’s fog oases.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Noel Michele Holbrook, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry; Professor of Biology

Collaborating Faculty: Jacques Dumais, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Pre-Texts has developed an efficient and democratic approach to teaching and learning over the past ten years, by including popular practices from various regions of Latin America and adding local dynamics that literally turn critical theory into child’s play. On the other hand, the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI) has also spent years developing collaborative relationships with neighbourhood schools in Peñalolén (a district in Santiago, Chile) where UAI students and faculty have made significant contributions to children’s skills in design and innovation. This collaboration between Pre-Texts and UAI aims to investigate the effects of this arts-based literacy program designed to foster innovation and critical thinking. After a week-long training workshop on an approach that is easily replicated and incorporates the skills of new facilitators and students, we will measure the impact of this alternative pedagogy. We will track the effects on both the facilitators and on their young participants, the children and youth from public schools located in Peñalolén (the area in which the UAI is housed). For this existing practice, Pre-Texts would add the values of literacy and “cultural capital” for students by appropriating classic literature and any other academic texts as the raw material of art projects. This collaborations hopes to raise levels of literacy and innovation among children and youth in underserved areas and bring this research to the attention of policy makers in economics and education.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Collaborating Faculty: Sergio Araya, Dean Design Lab, School of Design, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Collaborating Institutions: Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University; School of Design, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Superstring field theory in the pure spinor formalism is related to theoretical physics. It studies the pure spinor string in non-trivial space-time backgrounds, in particular their quantum regime. The covariant quantization of the superstring using the pure spinor formalism can be useful to understand some issues of the string field theory introduced by scientist Ashoke Sen.

This project, related to theoretical physics, addresses in particular the topic of string theory. Of particular interest is the covariant quantization of the superstring using the so-called pure spinor formalism. The team proposes to study the pure spinor string in non-trivial space-time backgrounds, in particular, in their quantum regime. In this way, the team can gain a better understanding of the pure spinor string. Other line of research is the reformulation of superstring field theory in the pure spinor form which can be useful to understand some issues of the string field theory introduced by Asoke Sen. Here the project aims to study the dynamics of strings in Ramond-Ramond backgrounds where the pure spinor formalism may be more efficient compared to other formalisms.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Xi Yin, Professor of Physics

Collaborating Faculty: Osvaldo Chandia, Ciencias, Facultad de Artes Liberales, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Among the many tailed bipedal animals, jerboas are highly manoeuvrable bipedal rodents with multiple tail behaviors. The goal of this project is to elucidate the jerboa tail’s biomechanical role through biologically-informed computational and physical models. The collaborative examination of jerboa tail functional morphology, between Harvard University and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, will help establish jerboas as a model system for understanding the biomechanical advantages conferred by tail-like appendages. Also, this collaboration offers a compelling opportunity to test various jumper designs and the exciting opportunity to work with undergraduate students of Talleres de Ciencias Aplicadas, who are trained in 3D printing and bioinspired design. This project involves a short term project focusing on the use of the jerboa’s tail for static support, and a long term project analysing the tail contribution to jumping locomotion. Animal research will be performed at Harvard's Concord Field Station, and rapid prototyping and theoretical analyses will be performed at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.

Participating Harvard Faculty: Andrew A. Biewener, Charles P. Lyman Professor of Biology, Harvard University

Collaborating Faculty: Sergio Rica, Professor of Physics, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Collaborators: Mary Carmen Jarur, Ph.D. Engineering for Complex Systems, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez; Talia Moore, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Michigan

Collaborating Institutions: Harvard's Concord Field Station; Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Harvard University; Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez