The scholarships will cover tuition and living expenses during their graduate program in Geology.

July 4, 2019

Cristhian Salas and Doménicca Guillén, both students of the School of Earth Sciences, Energy and Environment, were awarded the ‘Natale and Maria Luisa Tormen Endowed Scholarship’ to do a Master’s Program at Michigan Tech. The Scholarship program is meant for Ecuadorian or Italian students who wish to do a graduate program at the institution. Only one Ecuadorian has received this scholarship before. Both students are about to begin their last semester in Yachay Tech and, in the meantime, they are working on their capstone project.

Both scholarships, which round the $55,000 USD each, will cover all tuition costs of the program, as well as living expenses and any research supplies that the students may need. The selection process was done in collaboration with the Director of the Geology Department from Michigan Tech. Pre-selection was done at Yachay Tech with the help of Elisa Piispa, PhD, Celine Madon, Ph.D., and Ana Foster, Ph.D., professors of the School of Earth Sciences, Energy and Environment, who recommended four students for the scholarship. At last, after the formal application process Domenicca and Cristhian were awarded the scholarship.

Both students will begin their graduate program in January 2020 and finish in 2021. In Cristhian’s case, his program will focus on Geophysics, where he’ll study the seismic activity of the Reventador volcano. For this, he will install a network of seismic stations in the volcano. The outcome is to develop methods that are useful in short-time predictions of volcanic events in Ecuador.

In Domenicca’s case, her program will focus on Geology. She will develop a research project related to very small-scale measurement of encapsulated fluids within crystallized minerals. This research will be useful for geothermal prospections. Specifically, Domenicca’s study seeks to identify potential geothermal sites in the north of Ecuador for the production of clean energy.