The conference opened yesterday, and I had the privilege of delivering the keynote speech, following Babu dasGupta, program director from NSF's Cooperative Research Center. 150+ stalwart folk filled the Beckman Institute auditorium, hours before the huge Beckman Auditorium (the building next door) hosted Stephen Hawking, arguably one of the most insightful scientists of this (or the last) century. This all coincided with NASA's discovery of the collapsing super-star some seven billion light years away, accounting for untold amounts and length of detection of gamma ray bombardment.
There is also a Beckman Center on campus, the 'old' eight-story library smack-dab in the center. Beckman, who lived to 104 years old, was a "big deal" on this campus. More re him is a future blog.
It is easy to feel small when you come to Caltech, whether measured by the quality and demonstrable "smarts" of the surrounding people, or the stupendous things they do, or in this case, the magnitude of any of our individual or even collective human accomplishments alongside the eons of cosmic history that they routinely study and discover.
UIDP is an initiative of the National Academy, aimed at helping industry researchers to collaborate with faculty at research universities on important quests. Babu, for example, outlined eight Centers, including Biophotonics Sensor work, Intelligent Maintenance concept, and Manufacturing Processes research -- work that is led by a university and several spnsoring companies, all done in pre-competitive "shared IP" mode. Lots of questions about 'how to do it' emerged from his talk.
Jack Wenstrand of Agilent, Deborah Radasch of Boeing, Melissa Fitzgerald of Pfizer, and Hwasu Lee of Samsung each shared information about how their company participates with universities. Daunting, much like the story I got to know so well about IBM through Jim Spohrer. Boeing for example supports 147 universities through Deborah's office as director of strategic universities for Boeing research and development.
Agilent, once again a pure play in instrumentation (like HP for three decades), was well outlined by Wenstrand. I hadn't realized that they just added Health Diagnostics to their panoply of Life Sciences instrumentation. This is a solid company, one that I have known well, but as Greg Peters of Agilent Santa Rosa says, needs to tell its story better. Wenstrand and I talked later about some of these issues. Wenstrand started at HP in 1991, just as I was leaving, and went to Agilent in the '99 divestiture.
Karina Edmonds is just rejoining Caltech, to work with Wayne Johnson in Corporate Univeristy Affairs after a three year stint in Washington DC working for Steven Chu who was head of Energy for Obama's administration. What a powerhouse lady! She is one of Arati Prabhaker's friends, a PhD from Caltech ('97) in Aeronautical Engineering. Asked about how many women were at Caltech at the time (while a hapless colleague said proudly "we're now up to 37% of the student body"), she turned a baleful eye on him and said, "well, I was the only person of color, but also the only woman, in my department (Aero) at the time. Two other women started, but dropped out." So there!
A noshing reception in the evening featured Mory Gharib, Caltech's Vice Provost, wandering by to ask about a slide I used which depicts his research. We preened for a picture; I hope they send me one. He shared the news that Caltech's president, Jean Luc Chameau is leaving to head up the new King Abdullah Saudi university at Chameau's wife's insistence. Big news to me -- Chameau has been a breath of fresh air at Caltech. Mory said that the task of raising funds depressed him, since CIT has such a small alumni group. He did it well, leaving the school with $1.1b in endowment, but he also was approachable, something that had eluded the past several presidents. DuBridge, harking back to "my day" was also approachable, well-liked as is Chameau. They'll be tough shoes to fill.
As for my talk, it seemed to be well received. It wasn't taped or filmed, which might be just as well since it was a bit of a rollicking romp across the landscape. Someone said I must be a standup comedian in another life -- I hope that some of the 'tough message' came through, though. I might post the slides on the InnovaScapes website. Wayne Johnson, my host, said he might do it on the UIDP site
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