DAAD-funded RISE stipendiat Allen Poapst hosted by Axel Gerik (TUM PhD-student under THESIS)

From May to August 2008, the Munich GeoCenter's International Graduate school THESIS (Complex Processes in the Earth: Theory, Experiment, Simulations) welcomed Allen Poapst in the framework of a DAAD RISE scholarship. The RISE program, launched in 2004, encourages North American undergraduate students to take up an internship at a German university or research facility.

From May to August 2008, the Munich GeoCenter's International Graduate school THESIS (Complex Processes in the Earth: Theory, Experiment, Simulations) welcomed Allen Poapst in the framework of a DAAD RISE scholarship. The RISE program, launched in 2004, encourages North American undergraduate students to take up an internship at a German university or research facility.

Allen Poapst is a fourth-year student of Computer Science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. The aim of his internship is to incorporate methods for automated fabric quantification developed by Axel Gerik within the THESIS project „Quantification of rock structures“ into the software package GeoVision (GV). GV is a well-established program for computer-aided analyses in petrographic microscopy and is used in a wide variety of Earth Sciences. Its continuous development is driven and overseen by Dr. Frank Fueten, Professor of Earth Sciences at Brock University.

Being to Europe for the first time, Allen greatly appreciated the possibility to both experience the European culture and, at the same time, be involved in the scientific cooperation between Brock University and Technische Universität München, as well as attending a number of guest lectures. Besides a meeting of stipendiaries in Heidelberg organized by the DAAD in August, he also seized the opportunity to travel to more than a handful of European metropolises in his spare time. However, he of course also enjoyed his stay here in Munich : “It's just so different from Canada, and with so much to do... Everybody has been so nice to me as well, and I have met some great people here, too. I will miss Munich when I have to leave!”