Dr Wallis and Prof. Muraca at the University of Brescia, Italy
Dr Steve Wallis of the School of the Built Environment recently returned from an invited visit to the University of Brescia in Italy.
The invitation was a result of collaboration with Prof Alessandro Muraca of Brescia's Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Land and Environment. Diego Bonardi, one of Prof Muraca's MSc students, spent about nine months at Heriot-Watt University during 2009 and 2010 working on his dissertation on dispersion in rivers under the supervision of Dr Wallis.
Prof Muraca and Dr Wallis discussed opportunities for publishing Diego Bonardi's work and for applying it to Italian watercourses, including natural and man-made channels. The latter included Dr Wallis advising on the suitability of some channel reaches close to Brescia for tracer experiments.
During the visit Dr Wallis presented two Research Seminars on his work on the numerical modelling of pollutant transport in rivers and on the similarity of observed solute concentration profiles in rivers, the latter being based on tracer experiments conducted on the University's Riccarton Campus.
Dr Wallis also took the opportunity to discuss opportunities for strengthening the existing Erasmus Exchange activities between the Department at Brescia and the School at Heriot-Watt University. To this end, meetings were held with Professors Marco Pilotti and Roberto Ranzi; topics discussed included Brescia's new MSc in Civil & Environmental Engineering (taught in English) and increased Teacher Mobility.
Towards the end of the visit Dr Wallis renewed contact with about ten University of Brescia students who had been Erasmus Exchange Students at Heriot-Watt University during recent years.