รองศาสตราจารย์ พญ. วีระนุช นิสภาธร อาจารย์ประจำสำนักวิชาสหเวชศาสตร์ ได้รับเชิญ เป็น "Panelist Speaker" ในที่ประชุม The Asia Pacific Consortium of Researchers and Educators International Conference 2018 หัวข้อ "Advancing Multidisciplinary Research towards a Spectrum of Opportunities" ซึ่งจัดขึ้นระหว่างวันที่ 31 ตุลาคม – 2 พฤศจิกายน 2561 ณ The Westin Resort Guam ประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกา
ในโอกาสเข้าร่วมการสัมมนาในครั้งนี้ รองศาสตราจารย์ พญ. วีระนุช นิสภาธร ยังเป็น 1 ใน 10 ที่ได้รับการเสนอชื่อเพื่อรับ The Dr. Matthew Eichler Research and Education Awards โดยได้รับรางวัล "Research Fellow Award" พร้อมได้กล่าวสุนทรพจน์ขอบคุณต่อที่ประชุม
I am pleased, honored and humbled to accept this award and to join past recipients whom I have long admired and respected.
– A very special thanks to the “Asia Pacific Consortium of Researchers and Educators (APCoRE) Board for selecting me and befit this citation.
– Thank you also to those who nominated me and supported my nomination.
And, of course, thank you to my family and friends, University of Malaya, Malaysia and Walailak University, Thailand for always supporting me. In part, I would like to give you a little perspective on my life as an educator:
I worked for nearly 2 decades at the University of Malaya, Malaysia, beginning as a naïve academic lecturer at the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine. Having a background as a medical doctor, it was such an incredible journey to work outside my home country-Thailand. This was a challenging experience to groom myself in transforming from a plain medical doctor to a teacher, who transferred knowledge to students in the same field. And indeed, what a gift to me that throughout my years at the University of Malaya, I had the opportunity to get to learn not only in teaching (e.g., the old, new integrated curriculum and e-learning based curriculum management system modules-UMMP) for undergraduate medical students, Master programs (e.g., MSc (Parasitology) and Master of Pathology) and PhD levels for postgraduate students and as a visiting Professor in Centro Escolar University, Philippines and Walailak University, Thailand. The experiences geared me to broaden my horizon not only dealing with students of different educational and cultural backgrounds who were eager to learn but also various research aspects related to “Clinical Tropical Medicine” with a special focus on medical parasitology. The challenges I accepted, helped me in uplifting my skill and expertise at international levels in various aspects from publications, speakerships (e.g., Keynote, Plenary, invited), editorial board member, peer reviewer, associate and guest Editors. I find myself in those experiences, also provided me the opportunities to improve the well-being of communities that I met in so many ways.
Walailak University is under the leadership of Professor Dr. Sombat Thamrongthayawong and his dedicated team. Our university is currently in the process of transforming from a conventional teaching to a new paradigm using UKPSF-HEA as a standard recognized framework of teaching and learning support. Interestingly, WU is also rapidly moving to become a Research University. I first joined Walailak University about a year ago, and in that time I have witnessed the growing trend of this institution to be more focused on research activities and encouraging international collaboration foreseeing and seeking greater recognition. In education, there is no boundary and barrier to limit what we can achieve. In my teaching career, I have the opportunity to share valuable teaching experiences with both local and international (e.g., ASEAN) students to pave way for student exchange activities.
In closing, I would like to add that UM and WU which I have the opportunity to work with scientific and cultural facilities, have made me realize a greater appreciation in this diverse yet exceptional excellence that enriched my teaching career and to work with individuals who bring their talent and expertise contributing milestones to these two(2) universities. Overall, we must continue to work together as a united group in making the scientific and cultural communities as significant players in education, economic development, tourism, health and human welfare and build innovative communities.
May we all continue to work together, nurture and support each other and help transform our higher learning institutions as a dynamic, creative place to live and work, I would like to end in this pondered quote:
As Albert Einstein says: “Education is not the Learning of Fact but the Training of the Mind to Think”.
My heartfelt Thank you to everyone.
