Departing Kuopio

I left Kuopio on Saturday (May 21st) after completing my first of two one-month long stays associated with my Fulbright grant. The second visit will come later this year in November.

My last week in Kuopio was busy and included the Fulbright reception in Helsinki, completing the systematic review course, and attending a seminar given by Pauli Seppänen. Pauli’s masters project was an offshoot of the first systematic review course that I gave at UEF in 2020. His project focused on the early treatment of Parkinson’s disease. It was an excellent research project and Pauli did an outstanding job. We’ll be working on publishing the work later this year.

I enjoyed the past month in Kuopio and my time at UEF. I didn’t manage to accomplish everything I planned, there is still a manuscript to complete and more data to analyze. I’ve used this month to teach and begin creating a new future workshop. I have also used it to visit the local area and other parts of Finland. It’s hard to know exactly where the time went.

I am very grateful to the faculty, staff, and students at UEF for allowing me to have this experience. I appreciate the many friendships that I have formed with the UEF faculty, only a few of whom are pictured below. They have been extremely gracious and wonderful hosts. They have helped me learn more about Finnish culture and history as well as teaching at UEF.  Thank you.

This past month has seen quite a few changes – Kuopio transitioned from late winter to Spring. Spring is a wonderful time to visit Finland – the air remains cool and crisp and the days are long allowing for plenty of sunlight to hike and explore the countryside.

The journey isn’t over. My wife, Melanie, is joining me in Helsinki this weekend and we will be heading to Tallinn Estonia for the combined Finnish and Estonian Societies of  Toxicology meeting. Afterwards, we will be starting a one-week driving tour of Finland. I’ll be sharing my observations from that trip as well. So stayed tuned – we’ll be visiting Karelia so maybe we’ll see wolverines and bears…