The excellent infrastructure of Switzerland made it very easy to travel and deal with administrative tasks associated with extended stays in a foreign country (e.g. registering with the town and canton or extending my student visa). The language barrier was rarely a problem despite working and living in a small town. Looking back, I would have been interested in taking a language course before or during the exchange to facilitate integration and communication. There are some cultural differences that may also arise and requires sensitivity to navigate. This is an important skill for scientists because often times, research groups and scientific meetings are composed of individuals from many ethnicities and backgrounds. Finally, the only major drawback of my exchange was the high cost of living in Switzerland coupled with the weak Canadian dollar that made living and working at PSI financially stressful at times and limited my ability to go home and visit friends and family.

Overall, my impression of conducting research at PSI was very positive. The Surface Chemistry group has unique access to state of the art instrumentation, dedicated and competent support personnel, provides intellectual stimulation through informal regular coffee breaks and formal group meetings and seminars. Seminar topics were wide ranging from very specific research topics such as the processes of ice nucleation onto various substrates to more applied topics such as the policy implications of the COP21 meetings in Paris 2015. In addition to the physical resources available, I greatly benefited from working and exchanging ideas with scientists at PSI.

I am very grateful to my supervisors,… for letting me pursue this project and supervising me from afar, IACPES for creating this opportunity and funding, and TBR and folks at PSI for hosting and providing me with a very rewarding research experience.