College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Cuba bound

Just because there is a ban on travel to Cuba doesn't mean that U.S. citizens can't get there.
Alicia Carriquiry wanted to make sure she wasn't wasting her time.

By the same token, William David still remains a little hesitant that his trip will actually come off.

Carriquiry and David had a right to be concerned. Travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba has been banned since Fidel Castro took over the island over 40 years ago. But it appears it's all systems go for two separate groups of faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences who plan to travel to Cuba later this academic year.

"I went directly to the specific program director in the NSF (National Science Foundation) to make sure I wasn't wasting my time submitting a grant proposal to travel to Cuba," Carriquiry said. "He eventually called back and told me there was nothing in NSF regulations prohibiting funding scientific travel to Cuba."

As a result, Carriquiry, professor of statistics and associate provost, has received a $31,000 grant to fund travel for several faculty members to attend the 8th annual Latin American Congress on Probability and Mathematical Statistics. Carriquiry and Wolfgang Kliemann, assistant vice provost of research and professor of mathematics, along with one to two graduate students will represent Iowa State.

The grant Carriquiry coordinated will also cover travel expenses for faculty members from several other U.S. colleges including the California-Berkeley, Duke, Florida, Harvard, Colorado State, Carnegie-Mellon, Ohio State, California-Davis, and the University of Chicago.

"NSF is also funding the travel expenses for six faculty members from both Venezuela and Uruguay," Carriquiry said.

This is the fifth Latin American Congress on Probability and Mathematical Statistics that Carriquiry has attended, and the third for which she has secured NSF funding. She is also an invited speaker this year, speaking on her research on nutrition and dietary assessment.

"From a statistical standpoint it is surprisingly difficult to work with this type of data," she said. "Generally we're working with things that are non-observable, such as requirements for a nutrient and habitual intake of the nutrient. There is no standard that we work with, so we get to develop new methodology."
David, professor of music and member of the Ames Piano Quartet, Iowa State's resident chamber music ensemble, has a trip scheduled in March to Cuba.

The group has been invited to give concerts and teach gifted students at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba, as part of an American charitable group's (Send a Piano to Havana) efforts. That organization repairs pianos in Cuba that have fallen into disrepair.

David's research indicates that the Ames Piano Quartet's journey to Cuba will be the first by an U.S. chamber group in over 40 years.

"Since we have only one week in Cuba, we're going to focus our efforts on a couple of schools in Havana," David said. "We (members of the Ames Piano Quartet) all like the notion of the philanthropic aspects of this trip. Especially that we'll be able to bring a different type of music to people that they normally don't have the opportunity to listen to."

While the members of the Quartet (David, piano; George Work, cello; Mahlon Darlington, violin; and Jonathan Sturm, viola) are donating its services for the trip, the group it is attempting to raise funds to help pay travel costs. A special benefit concert will be held Sunday, Oct. 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall and will include performances by the Ames Piano Quartet of works by Turina, Brahms and Walton.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for students.