Commentary

Dr. Da Hsuan Feng: Comments at the Opening Ceremony of the US-Mexico Workshop on “Nanoscience for Advanced Applications: on Crossroads of Disciplines” -- A Love of Two Regions

Text of speech delivered at The University of Guanajuato, Mexico in Feb. 2005

The Honorable Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, governor of the great State of Guanajuato; Rector Arturo Lara Lopez of the University of Guanajuato; CONACYT Director General Jamie Parade Avila; General Secretary Guadalupe Martinez of the University of Guanajuato; esteemed colleagues from the University of Guanajuato, the Centro Instituto de Matematica (CIMAT) -- especially its director Jose Carlos Gomez; colleagues from other universities and research institutes in Mexico and abroad, and UT Dallas, especially Alan MacDiarmid, Volodya Agranovich, Ray Baughman and Wolfgang Rindler; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen, and last but not least, outstanding students from the University of Guanajuato, CIMAT and UT Dallas:

First, for an obvious reason, I want to beg your forgiveness for my inability to deliver these comments in your native tongue.

Second, I must take a moment to mention six distinguished colleagues who poured their hearts, souls and some blood in the organization of the workshop and other activities this week throughout Guanajuato City to ensure their successes, intellectually and logistically. They are Professors Jose Luis Lucio, Yuri Garstein, Anvar Zakhidov, Austin Cunningham, Juan Gonzalez and, last but not least, Rodolfo Hernandez.

I am confident that all the participants will sense that Guanajuato City is permeating with a strong and deep intellectual flavor. It is not an exaggeration that the University of Guanajuato, which is sprinkled throughout both the city and state of Guanajuato and CIMAT, are two of the fundamental contributors to this flavor. As my esteemed colleague Alan MacDiarmid, the keynote speaker of this workshop has said, Guanajuato City is reminiscent of Cambridge, England, in which the intellectual activities from Cambridge University are woven into the city’s intricate fabric.

Ladies and gentlemen, what we have tonight can best be characterized as a love story. It is love between two universities in two countries with two thousand miles of border, University of Guanajuato and the University of Texas at Dallas.  And as in all love relationships, success will be tested by time. This relationship began nearly a decade ago. The love between these two universities grew stronger by the day, and by now it includes not just the two universities, but also the institute which has intricate ties with the University of Guanajuato -- CIMAT, a world renowned CONACYT center and one of the few anchor points for pure and applied mathematics in Latin America.

Mexico and the United States are intricately linked together geographically and culturally. They also are both situated in the center of the world’s two great cultural, intellectual and commercial “Rims,” the Atlantic and the Pacific Rims. For our two countries, the past four centuries have seen deep cultural and commercial activities along the Atlantic Rim, we have begun to feel the connections arising from the Pacific Rim.

In this quickly changing and highly competitive global landscape, Mexico and United States stand much to gain if we can be partners - both intellectually and commercially. We should and must learn how to collaborate closely with our brothers and sisters on the other side of the border - no matter which side of the border we call home. It is this way that we can become one of the world’s vital regions in the 21st century.

What we have established during the past ten years should be regarded as one of many shinning examples of how our two countries can collaborate for a mutually beneficial outcome. This workshop, the series of lectures on gravity delivered by Professor Rindler in CIMAT, the students and faculty from the Guanajuato region who studied and worked in UT Dallas, and the many joint workshops this year alone are only a sample of the exciting collaborations between our two regions. All these activities allow the people of Guanajuato and Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to enhance mutual trusts, and deepen their love for each other.

Finally, in my role as vice president for research and graduate education at The University of Texas at Dallas, I have seen the relationship continue to blossom. In fact, as UTD continues to become a globally known research university, the strong ties with our many colleagues across Mexico, and especially Guanajuato, will be one of our best features.

Thank you so much for your attention.

Da Hsuan Feng
Vice President for Research and Graduate Education and Professor of Physics
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/research

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