ken vickers – director research professor, physics (1998 – present)

Microelectronics-Photonics (microEP) Graduate Program: Lessons Learned at the Five-Year Point

University of Arkansas

Ken Vickers – DirectorResearch Professor, Physics (1998 – present)

Eng Management, Texas Instruments (1980 – 1998)

479 575-2875 [email protected]

http://microEP.uark.edu

ASEE Annual Conference

Session 1432 – New Trends in ECE Education

June 21, 2004 Salt Lake City, Utah

February 27, 2004 microEP Industrial Advisory Committee MeetingSlide Number

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Acknowledgements Dr. Len Schaper PI IGERT

– UA Professor, Electrical Engineering Dr. Greg Salamo Co-PI IGERT

– UA University Professor, Physics

National Science Foundation IGERT (DGE-9972820) Department of Education FIPSE (P116B000981A) National Science Foundation REU Site (EEC-0097714) Other NSF programs

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.


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Interdisciplinary Case for ActionIssues• Required knowledge content in degree always increasing• State-of-the-art advances often appear at degree boundary layers• Academic training emphasizes individual achievement• Business aspects of technology minimized in technical degrees• Industrial success requires individual and team excellence

Responses• Define flexible interdisciplinary degree for the boundary layer• Maintain vigorous technical content of curriculum• Add extra course for entrepreneurship of high tech research• Hire experienced industrial technical manager• Organize graduate program as industrial technical group• Hold each student accountable for all students’ academic success


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Comparison of Academic and Industrial Professional EnvironmentsPractice Industrial Academic

Job goal alignment Management defined to support group goals

Individual voluntary alignment to departmental efforts

Creative work Balanced between management assigned tasks and self defined tasks

Self defined, with possible voluntary collaborations on large projects.

Work hours Coordinated to optimize group performance

Self scheduled to meet personal goals and institutional assignments

Work location All work at common location to support ad-hoc work groups

Independently set hours at home and campus to meet personal needs (and office hours).

Compensation system

Rewards group performance, then individual contribution

Rewards individual accomplishments, not departmental success

Problem solving Collaboration is necessary for success and is strongly coordinated across groups

Collaborations are theme based voluntary coordination of individual research projects


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microEP Enhancements of Traditional Departmental Degree ElementsTraditional Departmental Education

Technical Knowledge•Core classes in undergrad dept•Most electives in department•Few other technical electives

Research Methods•Slow student initiated linkage to research prof•Professor’s group meetings

Team Skills•Project teams in classes

Supplemental microEP Elements

Technical Knowledge•Core of interdisciplinary classes•Applied technical electives•Business classes

Research Methods•Design of Experiments class during summer•Quick assignment to research prof•Formal research project plan

Team Skills•Pseudo-industry engineering group•Weekly operations management seminars•Intro summer camp for all microEP students

Invention and innovation•Individual mentoring within research group

Invention and Innovation •Summer inventiveness workshops•Personality and learning methods mapping

Results in

Sound technical graduate degree•Broadened technical knowledge•Rapid acclimation to first job•Early leadership roles•Earlier significant personal success


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microEP Mission

The educational objective of the microEP program is to produce graduates that create and commercialize electronic and photonic materials, devices, and systems.

This will be accomplished through rigorous interdisciplinary science/engineering graduate education; supplemented with soft skills, management, and entrepreneurial training.


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Student Recruitment MethodHistorical

DepartmentalApproach

Department or Program

Degrees

Courses

Career

StudentCenteredApproach

Department or Program

Degrees

Courses

Career


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Core Curriculum Pre October 2002

– Operations Seminar (4)– Ethics– One course from each of

four core areas: photonics, microelectronics, materials & processing, commercialization

Current– Operations Seminar (4)– Ethics– Proposal Management– PHYS 5774 Intro to

Optical Properties of Matter

– ELEG 4203 Semiconductor Devices

– ELEG 5213 IC Fab Technology

– MGMT 5383 Intra and Entrepreneurship of Technology


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Courses Developed under microEP Influence Commercialization of Research

– MGMT Intra/Entrepreneurship of Technology (Mgmt/Physics)

Interpersonal and Management Skills– MEPH Organizational Management (Physics - 1 hour)

– PHYS Research Management (Physics - 1 hour)

– MEPH Proposal Writing and Management (Physics/ME - 1 hour)

– MEPH Ethics for Scientists and Engineers (Physics - 1 hour – NSF REU financial)


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Courses Developed under microEP Influence Interdisciplinary Academic Subjects

– MEPH Nanotech I (materials – Chemistry, Peng)– MEPH Nanotech II (devices – Physics, Salamo –

FIPSE financial support)– ELEG Quantum Structures and Devices (EE,

Manasreh – replaces MEPH Nanotech II)

– MEEG Nanotech III (manufacturing – ME, Malshe)– MEEG Introduction to MEMS (ME, Tung/Malsh)– MEEG Advanced MEMS (ME, Tung/Malshe)– MEPH Integrated Passives (ChE, Ulrich)– MEPH Numerical Modeling for Scientists and

Engineers (Civil Engineering, Selvam)


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International/Industrial Co-op

Most valued by non-US students as entry way into permanent job.

Currently lower than 5% participation. International internships financially

sponsored for IGERT Fellows. IGERT Fellow participation is less than

30%.


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Student Practice in Management

Object is to give real responsibility for microEP operational aspects to students– Computer network responsibility– Listserv maintenance– Annual undergrad research conference– etc

In general, this has not worked in any iteration


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Student Research Seminars Objectives

– To give cross-cohort research exposure for resource awareness

– To give practice in public presentations– To use most senior microEP students to inspire

performance in less senior students Results are good.

– First Monday of every month, two students– Other Mondays are used for operations seminars– Presenters receive formal feedback forms from all

students viewing the presentation – Changing to industrial 10 minute format in 04/05


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microEP PhD Candidacy ExamTraditional University of Arkansas Science/Engineering Process• Research proposal presented to committee for review.• Written exam based on content of specific undergraduate and

graduate course knowledge content.• Oral examination by faculty of all subject matter.

Experimental microEP approach• To provide guidance to student and faculty on likelihood of

student’s success in PhD studies.• Research proposal in NSF format submitted to committee, and

presented in open forum for comments and approval.• Written exam is a scenario based complex technology problem

• One week duration (spring break), answer limited to 15 pages• Open written resource, no discussion allowed• Includes technical solution, implementation method, etc.• Oral presentation may be required by committee if needed


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Industrial Advisory Committee

• Meetings were held in Oct 2002 and Feb 2004• Overall assessment was full speed ahead with

central focus of program • Largest concern was lack of a “core curriculum”

that defines microEP (Oct 2002) and changing nature of technical communication (Feb 2004)

Rick Wise Texas Instruments Bob Friedman UArkansasDick Slusher Bell Labs Bob Frye Agere SystemsJorge Vega* Motorola Don Hayes Microfab Tech, Inc. Brian Hart* Corning Bill Hinshaw** Texas InstrumentsCleo Cabuz Honeywell John Randall Zyvex CorpChuck Chalfant Space Photonics Larry Rehn HoneywellDoug Craig AFRL Fred Strieter Texas A&M


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microEP Workgroup Creation: Summer Camp – Pre Fall Semester

Camp concepts by Dr. Ed Sobey (www.invention-center.com)


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microEP Workgroup Creation: Arkansas – The Natural State

Fun in the Ozarks

Buffalo River

Hawks Bill Crag

Lost Valley

Eden Falls


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microEP NSF REU Site: Students

Fourteen students attended 2002 REU

Four African-American

One Hispanic Five Women


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K-12 Outreach: BEST Robotics Inc (www.bestinc.org)Boosting Engineering, Science, and

Technology• A sports-like contest between remote

controlled robots• Emulates product “design to market”

life cycle• Resources are limited to those

components issued at kickoff• Teachers serve as coaches• Members of the technical community

serve as mentors• Community provides financial and

administrative support • Students do all the work with adult

mentoring


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Microelectronics-Photonics Graduate Program: Funding History Winner of nationally competitive grants

– 1999: NSF IGERT ($2.5 M Total – Aug 99/July 04)

– 2000: NSF MRSEC ($3.4 M Total)

– 2000: NSF Partnership for Innovation ($850 K Total)

– 2000: Dept of Education FIPSE ($500 K Total)

– 2001: NSF RET Supplements (3 teachers)

– 2001: NSF REU Site ($385 K Total for 2001-2003)

– 2002: NSF GK-12 ($2.7 M Total)

– 2002: NSF RET Supplements (4 teachers)

– 2003: NSF REU (with 1 RET teacher – Funding 2004 through 2008 - $625k)


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microEP Student Prior Degree vs microEP Faculty’s Department Faculty

StudentPhysics ME ChE EE

Chem

BioAgOpen

Physics/

Applied Physics16 1 6 1

Mechanical Eng 5 1 3 1

Chemical Eng 1 2 1 4

Electrical Eng 4 1 1 8 1 2

Material Science

2 1 2 1

Optical Eng 3

Math 1 2

As of Nov 17, 2003 30 Matching

36 Non-Matching

2 have not picked major professor


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Key Attributes of microEP

• MS in place fall 1999; PhD in place fall 2000• Seventy-five current students and alumni (twenty

percent minority and nineteen percent female)• Twenty-seven conferred MS degrees• Four conferred PhD degrees (thirty-eight students

currently on PhD path)• Grads at Northwestern U, RF Microdevices, Texas

Instruments, Intel, AMI, Motorola, Entergy, and

self-owned SBIR fueled start-up companies


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Questions?

ken vickers – director research professor, physics (1998 – present)

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