ATPAC Technical Groups

Business and Economics Team:  (Dr. Chuleeporn Changchit) The Business and Economics team is a new initiative of ATPAC. The team currently provides support and guidance to higher education institutions in Thailand regarding research publication, opportunity for teaching collaboration, and curriculum review. We are recruiting new members to this team. It is our hope that, together, we can brainstorm for more ideas/projects and new initiatives that will make Thai institutions and organizations become globally competitive.

Energy, Nanotechnology, Transportation Team: (Dr. Sirivatch Shimpalee) This group consists of several research areas and they all give significant impact to Thailand. Energy is the critical force driving business, manufacturing, and transportation of goods and services to serve Thailand and world economies. Its supply and demand play an important role in our national security and the economic output. Energy related area in ATPAC consists of nuclear energy and other renewable energy sources like solar, hydrogen, biomass, and wind. Nanotechnology and Materials Research is one of the focal research areas in Thailand because this technology can applied in many significant areas including health care, energy, agriculture and many more. Transportation research is to keep traveling public safe/secure, increase the mobility, and have the transportation system contribute to the nation’s economic growth.

Environmental Team: (Anne Kochaon) The E-Team members are experienced Thai professionals who reside and work in the US. They are full-time employees of the US government, universities, or private companies. Like everybody else, they are required to fulfill our job requirements, family needs, and other personal commitments. But all of them have one thing in common, they strive for the better environment of Thailand, our home-land. Due to the lack of highly qualified environmental discipline specialists in Thailand, assistance from the E-Team became very popular among the environmental professors in Thai universities and government agencies that manage the environmental quality of the nation (e.g. the Pollution Control Department). Over the years, the E-Team has grown from just a few to more than 30 people collectively. Many of the E-Team members regularly travel to Thailand during their vacation to conduct technical workshops for government agencies and Thai universities. They also provide remote assistance such as project review, curriculum development, student exchange programs, and technical tour arrangements. When Thailand requests resources that are not available among the Thai members of the E-Team, non-Thai family and friends (a so-call E-Team Associates) with expertise in the respective fields are identified and invited to participate in this mission. Contributions from the E-Team Associates have been tremendous thus far covering the area of solid waste management, emergency preparedness and responses, air quality management, and wastewater treatment plant design and operations. It is always amazing to see how much these non-Thai professionals are willing to lend their hands without asking for any return. The E-Team members and associates have contributed their personal time accounting for more than 10,000 professional hours of service since the E-Team was officially formed. This service has translated into a multimillion Thai baht savings for the Thai government in their fiscal budget. The continued beneficial impacts on the improvement of Thailand’s higher education in the environmental field, as well as the beneficial environmental impacts for the people of the country, are much larger and cannot be quantified monetarily.

Food-Agro Industry Team: (Dr. Witoon Prinyawiwatkul) The Food & Agro-industry team consists of 9 active members, of which 4 are from academia, 4 from private corporations, and 1 from government. The team has ATPAC Annual Meeting 2009 ATPAC Introduction
10 established a long-term relationship with Thai counterparts, mainly Universities and government agencies. Our involvements and activities are generally aimed at (1) improving the quality of raw materials, food ingredients, and food products for domestic consumption and exportation and (2) improving the quality of higher education in Food Science and Technology and related curricula. Examples of recent and ongoing projects include (1) accreditation and standardization of the undergraduate Food Science and Technology curriculum; (2) development of Ph.D. degree programs in Food Science and Technology; (3) mentoring exchange Ph.D. students and hosting faculty and researchers; (4) a number of seminars, short courses, intensive lectures, and workshops in the area of food safety, food packaging, consumer food safety education, bakery technology, postharvest technology, sensory sciences, value-added product development, etc.; (5) translation of selected parts of the 21 CFR. We are soliciting new members with research interests in food and agriculture, especially those with expertises in the areas of Thailand’s needs (e.g., improvement of animal and plant lines, packaging technology and agricultural machinery, food and agricultural innovation).

Global Education Team: (Dr. Kris Rugsaken) Due to the economic crises and political challenges in the late 1990’s, Thailand was forced to step up its global competition. Among many means for achieving this goal is the enhancement and improvement of English language skills for the Thai students. One answer to this need is the “Thailand Summer Intensive English Camp Program” that brings native English speakers to teach English to Thai students in Thailand. It was initiated in 2003 at Prince of Songkla University with cooperative supports from ATPAC and Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The summer English camp program was later adopted by Khon Kaen University, Ubon University, Valaya Alongkorn Rachabhat University, and Rajamangala University of Technology Pra Nakorn.

Information Technology Team: (Dr. Rattikorn Hewett) To increase our capacity to serve Thailand, we do not use the term IT in a traditional sense. We are soliciting new members with experiences in various disciplines including but not limited to computer science, information science, electrical and computer engineering and systems engineering. We are especially interested in those with expertise in the areas of Thailand's needs (e.g., hard drive technology, radio frequency identification - RFID, embedded system, sensor and security technology, data and knowledge engineering, simulation for design and manufacturing). Our current team members are active in a variety of areas including IT management, information system security and privacy, network security, software engineering, intelligent control, signal processing, data mining, computational modeling, high performance computing, advances in manufacturing, and other IT-enabled applications.

Medical and Life Sciences Team:  (Dr. Soontorn Oraintara) The Medical and Life Sciences team focuses on diverse multidisciplinary research that integrates science and technology with life sciences and medicine, ranging from medical diagnoses, health care delivery, bioinformatics, and clinical trials. Members in our team are engaged in brain research ranging from decision-support tools for brain diagnosis as well as brain modeling of fluid transport to better understand the drug delivery. We are also working on improving computation efficiency of medical imaging in cancer research as well as optimizating treatment planning and delivery of radiation therapy. We believe that advances in our research will assist the health care providers in becoming more efficient and effective. We are soliciting new members with research interests in medicine and biology, especially those with expertises in the areas of Thailand’s needs (e.g., emerging diseases, intelligent medical system, technology for the disabled, genome sequencing).