IUCr Visiting Professor to Latin America

Edwin Parthé.

Prof. Erwin Parthé, an IUCr Visiting Professor to Latin America, gave his inorganic crystal chemistry course in Campinas, Brazil in English and in Merida, Venezuela and Puebla, Mexico in Spanish. His two month lecture tour began just days after an unexpected emergency eye operation in Geneva.

The Escola Latino Americana de Cristaloquimica, held in the Physics Institute of UNICAMP, State University of Campinas, was organized by I. Torriani. Other lecturers came from Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. Parthé presented his twelve hour course on crystal chemistry to 65 participants from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay using his "Elements of Inorganic Structural Chemistry" as a text.

Newsletter editor attempts Venezuelan line dance with Graciella and Miguel Del Gado, organizers of Crystallographic Schools in Venezuela. Editor decides to keep day job.

At the intensive course on Inorganic Structural Chemistry in the Chemistry Department of the University of Los Andes, Merida, organized by M. Delgado, 40 participants from Venezuela and Columbia attended 18 hours of lectures by Parthé. In Mexico, he presented an abbreviated version of the course (7.5 hours) to 50 participants at a school organized by C. and M.-E. Tabares at the Physics Institute of the Universidad Autómoma de Puebla. In Venezuela and Mexico the students were provided with a Spanish language translation of Parthé's text. At all three schools, Parthé demonstrated his PC computer programs that simulate powder diffraction  diagrams (LAZY PULVERIX) and standardized crystal structure data (STRUCTURE-TIDY).

Parthé also presented a lecture on "Valence Electron Rules for Tetrahedral Structures and Tetrahedral Anion Complexes" at CINVESTAV of the National Polytechnical Institute in Guadalajara, Mexico, organized by G. Castellanos.

Prof. Parthé comments: "Students in Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico were highly motivated and interested in the course. The students in Venezuela and Mexico appreciated my efforts to hold my lectures in Spanish, although my knowledge of Castellano is limited. It certainly helps that when I speak Spanish, I talk much slower than when I use English. It is important that students have lecture notes and problem sets preferably in the language of the country. The creation of the IUCr visiting professorship has been greatly applauded by all the university officials I had contact with on my trip."