The 8th Winter School of Nuclear Science was held at the Faculty of Science from 10th to 12th December 2019. This Winter School is an annual event with the previous edition of Winter School being organized by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. This winter school program aims to foster young talents in the field of nuclear physics with an emphasis on the theoretical aspect.
For this 8th edition of the Winter School, we had two invited speakers: 1) Prof. Philippe Quentin from the University of Bordeaux who has been around since the first edition of the School, and 2) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Luis Robledo from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Prof. Philippe Quentin is not a new guest to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia having visited the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science almost every year. He is also the key person in the successful first Joint Degree program between UTM and University of Bordeaux. His continuous support to the School and to the research collaboration between UTM and Bordeaux is very much appreciated.
On the other hand, it was his first visit to Malaysia for Assoc. Prof. Dr. Luis Robledo, being supported by the Erasmus+ KA107 International Credit Mobility Programme. The contact with Dr. Luis Robledo was initiated by one of the authors (K.M.H.) when he first proposed to apply for a bi-directional visit in December 2018. Hopefully, these visits would be a start to a fruitful collaboration between the two institutions in the future.
This 8th Winter School saw a rather interesting fusion of both local and international participants coming from the University of Yangon, Myanmar (3 lecturers and 2 masters students), UPM (2 students), and UKM (2 students). It is interesting to note that the participation of the Myanmar group is made possible through contacts established by K.M.H during the International Conference on Applied and Engineering Physics organized by the Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science in October 2019.
Overall, it has been a great event and hopefully, the Winter School would result in deeper ties and collaboration between both local and international institutions. Finally, on behalf of the local organizing committee, we would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Malaysian Institute of Physics and Malaysian Nuclear Society which was vital to the running of the Winter School.
Group photo at the end of the first day of the School.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Luis Robledo from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid giving his lecture.
Professor Dr. Philippe Quentin who participated actively in the School since its first edition.
Group photo during the last day of the 8th Winter School.
Reported by: Kelvin Lee Kai Wen and Dr. Koh Meng Hock