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• ANNUAL REPORT 2013
Fulbrights in the Arctic
It is considered a great honour for a university to host
a Fulbright scholar, one of America’s most distin-
guished and respected academic awards. In 2013,
SAMCoT welcomed not one, but two Fulbrights: Erland
M. Schulson, the Fulbright Arctic Chair 2013-2014, and
Hansen Johnson, a Fulbright research scholar who
visited SAMCoT scientists in Svalbard.
A passion for ice
You could say that Professor Erland Schulson has a
passion for ice. As Dartmouth College’s first George
Austin Colligan Distinguished Professor of Engineering,
Schulson has spent more than 30 years exploring the
properties of this material.
He founded Dartmouth’s own Ice Research Laboratory
in 1983, which he continues to lead, and is author, with
Paul Duval, of “Creep and Fracture of Ice,” published
in 2009 by the Cambridge University Press. After two
visits to NTNU in 2010 and 2012 to give guest lectures
at NTNU/SAMCoT, it seemed almost inevitable that
Schulson should return to Trondheim as a Fulbright.
Schulson says his approach to understanding ice fitswell
with the kind of work being done by SAMCoT research-
ers. While SAMCoT’s scientists and students are
engaged with developing numerical models to predict
the behaviour of different kinds of ice, Schulson studies
ice as a material. Combining these two approaches
provides stronger models, he says.
“Here (at SAMCoT) is a group of people who are really
interested in understanding ice as a material so they can
better develop their models,” he says.
International activities
SAMCoT’s success in achieving innovative breakthroughs is due to our ability to build
competence through strong international research collaboration. Combining this with the
acquisition and use of valuable full-scale data results in value creation.
A key objective in 2013 was the compilation of full-scale data to validate the modelling
work that is crucial to the research in the different SAMCoT work packages.
Associated Projects and other field activities enabled us to accomplish this objective.
These activities also strengthened our research cooperation groups and established new
valuable connections to other research programmes and international activities.
This section presents a series of short articles that tell some of the stories behind
SAMCoT’s field activities and international networks.
Schulson, Fulbright Arctic Chair 2013/14, came out to the
Kapp Amsterdam research station to examine fracture
patterns in the ice.
Photo: SAMCoT