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Synergistic Partnerships between Industry and Academia
by Kari Siegle
Because funding for scientific research in higher education is declining, academia is joining forces with industry to create resources such as the University's Center for Interfacial Engineering.
Interfacial engineering focuses on the molecular interactions that occur at the boundaries of vapor-liquid-solid materials, which are present at every stage of microelectronic fabrication, as well as in optical and magnetic recording coatings. It also encompasses the processes, systems, and devices that work in the regions of these boundaries. Interfacial engineering pioneered the development of new composite systems offering materials with high strength-to-weight ratios for use in transportation and other fields.
The Center was founded in 1988 as a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. Supported by the University, the state of Minnesota, and industry, along with funding through 1997 by the NSF, it has an annual budget of over seven million dollars.
D. Fennell Evans, Center director and a professor of chemical engineering and materials science, said the Center exists to build a partnership between the University and industry and to more effectively educate students and carry out research between the two groups. The center focuses on three areas: research, industry and education.
Over 50 companies, including 3M, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Xerox, and Dow Corning, have formed industrial relationships with the Center. These partnerships support researchers who seek the answers to technical problems facing industry today.
Eighteen University of Minnesota faculty members serve as principal researchers at the Center. Participants in the Center's activities include members of the engineering departments in the Institute of Technology, researchers in the basic science departments of the Medical School, and clinical physicians. The Center's interdisciplinary approach, rather than the traditional individual or departmental involvement, makes it unique.
Matthew Tirrell, head of the chemical engineering and materials science department and program leader for the Center's bio-interfacial engineering program, noted that research at the Center is collaborative. Collaboration, he explained, also occurs in departmental research, but it is generally applied to a specific aspect of the project late in its formation. At the Center, however, researchers begin to collaborate as soon as an idea is conceived. "It's not just 'where does our expertise run out?' but 'what can we really do?'" Tirrell said.
The biomedical interfacial engineering program studies medical devices and other specialty areas. Investigators are discovering how conditions at the tissues/implant interfaces affect biocompatibility, infection and bioactivation.
Jack Lewis, a professor of orthopedic surgery and mechanical engineering, said research at the Center involves a collection of people working toward a common goal: making the Center successful.
Lewis' group is studying how cartilage degenerates and how the cells reassemble it. Although he has worked at the Center for only three years, his research in this area dates back more than a decade.
"Most biological problems are so large and complex that it's difficult for one person to get far working on them on their own," Lewis said. Because group members have different techniques and areas of specialization, they can sometimes see what others have missed.
The Center also sponsors another group researching coating processes. Many products, including photographic and graphic arts materials and optical fibers, are dependent on these coatings. This group's goals include troubleshooting possible production problems, boosting production efficiency, computationally modeling coating processes, and producing coatings and films by liquid deposition and solidification. The researchers also study thin-film processing and investigate phenomena such as chemical vapor deposition.
The group studying polymer micro structures investigates interfaces that may be internal or external to the bulk structures. Internal interfaces are necessary in structures like membranes and polymer-impregnated ceramics; external interfaces are important in thin film application and adhesives. As a result of the molecular mechanisms and time-dependent processes associated with the construction of interfaces, current processing methods are not optimal. Research in this area is key to improving effectiveness and is relevant to industry.
In addition, the coating processes group studies surfactancy and self-assembly, which involve materials and processes such as detergents and lithography. Research areas include characterizing surfactant micro structures, developing a running computer simulation of the self-assembly, and process development.
Since its conception, the Center has invested 3.5 million dollars to create a state-of-the-art Characterization Facility, available for use by Center personnel. The Facility houses electron microscopy, including a Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM) whose system allows for energy-dispersive spectroscopy and a video camera that allows magnifications of up to 10 million times actual size.
Also available are scanning probe microscopy, small angle neutron scattering and a neutron reflectometer, a high-speed video system, a coating process fundamentals laboratory, optical microscopy, and film characterization and x-ray scattering.
Because interfacial engineering is a specialization, it probably will not be an undergraduate major offering. "It's not a primary kind of engineering," Tirrell said, adding that it requires an extensive scientific background.
"Recently they (NSF) have been more insistent with educational outcomes," said Karl Smith, an associate professor of civil engineering and the Center's associate director of education.
Evans believes that education should not rely on traditional lecture classes as it has in the past. "I think we should be doing something novel and providing a cutting edge where departments want to go," he said. "The challenge is how to use the teaching arena and use it in a way that preserves what is good and provides students with a richer learning environment."
A lecture consists primarily of body language and signals given to students about what material is or is not important. "It's an effective way of transmitting information, but it's not an effective way of learning," Evans said.
Both Smith and Evans said that they think undergraduate students have a highly developed sense of visual learning, partly because they have grown up with television. "Words are the enemy and images are the friend," Evans said.
Using visuals is beneficial, Smith said. Evidence also indicates that allowing students to grapple with a problem and solve it before teaching them the underlying theory helps them to understand it better. The traditional approach, by comparison, is to teach the theory and applied science first before allowing students to practice solving problems.
Smith said the center is trying to integrate cooperative learning, in which small groups of students work together to solve problems. Problem-based learning involves giving students the problem first and then helping them find the solution to it. Using computer-based multimedia allows for a visual presentation of material that may otherwise be difficult to conceptualize.
The Center is developing two projects, each with different aims and audiences in mind. One is an interfacial engineering module intended for graduate students and engineers already working in industry. It is self-contained, meaning that it doesn't refer users to textbooks or other materials.
So far, eight modules of the upper graduate interfacial engineering project have been completed. The beginning module is the introduction to interfacial engineering. It explains the importance of and gives a general description of interfacial engineering.
The second module, entitled "Forces in Interfacial Systems", details fundamental concepts. After this module, the content is split into two sequences: fluid interfaces and solid interfaces.
Evans added that the modules could be used to complement a professor's lecture. The modules would provide the basic instruction, leaving more class time for discussion of projects and interaction between the students and the professor.
The program, which is icon-based, allows a story to be developed by putting required information in the icon and building off it. Key words are highlighted, and visuals dominate the screen. One module involves amphiphilic materials, which have polar and non-polar ends.
"There is a certain rock bottom of text and equations that are simply essential," said James Horswill, a Center consultant. Key concepts, he said, can be communicated entirely with pictures.
The modules are self-based, which means that viewers can proceed at their own pace. A paging routine allows viewers to back up to past information.
One limitation of the modules is the time needed to produce the material. Technology changes rapidly, and these modules alone have taken over two years to develop. Changes can be made to them, but they require a significant amount of time.
The advantages, however, are also substantial. The second set of modules, whose subject is fluid mechanics, is programmed for the undergraduate sophomore level. Because all IT undergraduates except those majoring in electrical engineering and computer science must take a fluid mechanics course, "it has the potential for use by lots of students in lots of departments," Smith said.
Many students have difficulty understanding fluid mechanics, but using a computer allows them to guess and check to see what will happen with the information.
The module's introductory level assumes that the user has little previous knowledge. By clicking on any of eight images of pipe pieces, for example, the user can get a description of the parts. When new equations are introduced, previous equations are displayed to demonstrate the progression. In the future, the modules should have a practice problem for students that tests them on the material covered in each section. One exercise already developed involves placing different pieces of pipes into a row and observing one of the 12 possible outcomes.
These types of problems can be solved individually or by a group of students. Information on the screen can be printed, which eliminates for students the distraction of taking notes while trying to focus on the problem at hand.
Michael Mahler, a civil engineering senior working on the fluid mechanics module, said that its basic purpose is to allow users to choose the information they view. This freedom encourages users to explore and gives them a sense of control over what they learn.
Mahler said that working with the modules offers him insight into the practical applications of the information he learns in his college courses, which tend to focus on theory.
Evans said that the training undergraduates receive while working at the center helps them with their studies and later in life. He cited a review of 21 similar centers in the United States that compared the amount of time needed to find a job after graduation among students who worked in the centers and those who didn't. Of the students who worked at the centers, around 98 percent had jobs after they graduated, compared to just 60 percent of other students. Evans said that this research suggests that the centers have a considerable impact on students and their futures.
Future plans for the modules include developing a collection of chapters from which a program fitting the user's needs may be created, Evans said. Users would be able to indicate what they wanted to learn and at what level they needed to start.
This flexible learning system could be particularly useful in industry, where people need to learn information quickly for projects and other applications. Easy access to this material would improve their efficiency. At universities, this body of knowledge could also help eliminate one of the major barriers to undergraduate research: the time needed to teach essential background material. With this program, Evans said, a chunk of material specific to the undergraduate's needs could be found.
"That is not to say courses are not necessary," Evans advised. He said that some faculty like the new ideas while others don't, but instructors must ultimately choose whether and how to effectively use this type of technology in their courses.
"I'd a lot rather blow a million bucks and have a honest failure than have a lot of the same old stuff," he said.
