ICHARM held an online event, the ICHARM Webinar, on January 11, 2024, for the first time in two years. The purpose of this event was to widely disseminate its globally unique activities to students and young researchers at universities and research institutions in Japan and abroad. It was attended by 62 people, including students currently studying at ICHARM.
The webinar began with the plenary session. Executive Director KOIKE Toshio made opening remarks, and Deputy Director MORI Noriyuki provided an overview of ICHARM’s activities. On behalf of the young research staff at ICHARM, Researcher NAITO Kensuke briefly spoke about working at ICHARM, while representing the students at ICHARM educational programs, a master’s student, El Hamri Fatima Ezzahra from Morocco, and two doctoral students, Sanjeewa Punsiri Bandara Illangasingha from Sri Lanka and KURIHARA Yuta from Japan, shared their thoughts and experiences with the audience.
Following this, four researchers explained the four main research themes worked on at ICHARM: Senior Researcher USHIYAMA Tomoki about meteorology, Senior Researcher Mohamed Rasmy about hydrology, Research Specialist HARADA Daisuke about sediment transport and channel change, and Researcher KAKINUMA Daiki about disaster risk communication.
The webinar moved on to Parallel Thematic Discussions in its second half. The participants joined maximum two of the four groups addressing the four main research themes, where they talked about their research interests and asked questions to ICHARM researchers.
Answering the post-event questionnaire, 76% of the participants responded that they were satisfied with the webinar. Some commented that they were pleased to learn about insightful research topics and enjoyed excellent presentations and discussions. On the other hand, some pointed out that voices were hard to hear online and that the presentation materials should have been shared in advance. ICHARM will make necessary improvements for a better webinar in the future by taking these suggestions into account.
Finally, we at ICHARM hope that the webinar helped the participants have a better understanding of our institution and activities. We also hope that many of them will be interested in working with us as colleagues or partners in the future.
 |