This Tuesday (March 28), West Virginia University hosted representatives from the Canadian Embassy after their initial visit to Charleston on Monday.
Deputy Ambassador to the U.S. Denis Stevens and Senior Trade Commissioner Jason La Torre joined Provost Joyce McConnell and Assistant Vice Presidents for International Affairs David Stewart and Radhey Sharma for lunch, then spent the day on campus in several collaborative sessions.
The visit was initially organized to continue an ongoing conversation about research collaboration between WVU and Canadian institutions. This past October, WVU’s Office of Research coordinated La Torre’s visit to Morgantown and the National Energy Technology Laboratory.
Their afternoon was spent in a roundtable discussion, where the representatives joined faculty members from a several different WVU departments to explore potential areas of collaboration and focus on ideas of innovation and sustainable energy, emphasizing ways for both parties to help the other to move forward.
“Developing our relationships in Canada will allow prosperous partnerships for WVU in the areas of academic research and corporate collaboration,” said Sharma.
The representatives ended their visit with a presentation to an introductory International Relations class taught by Dr. Boris Barkanov, where they shared information on diplomacy, geopolitics and other political topics with more than 50 students.