Category Archives: Career

Information on jobs and careers in science and engineering.

Science, Engineering and the Future of the American Economy

9 leaders (Craig Barrett, Charles Vest, Scott McNealy, Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, Judith Rodin, Rick Rashid, Nick Donofrio, Dr. Ralph Wyndrum Jr. and Lou Dobbs) share their thoughts in Keeping Research and Leadership at Home by Vivek Wadhwa:

[several] stress the need to improve K-12 education, encourage students to study more math and engineering, bring in the best and brightest talent from around the world, and up the ante in basic research.

Craig Barrett, Intel chairman – Currently we have lost the race in K-12 education, we are losing our position as a top educator of science, technology, engineering and mathematics students, we are losing our lead in university research, and we have our head in the sand on government policy.

Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, Sycamore Networks co-founder and chairman – We believe that all of this greatly increases the chances of a particular innovation having impact. Such sophisticated systems can only be developed in the U.S. because it is the only country with both flexible thinking and free markets.

Charles Vest, former president of MIT, president-elect of the National Academy of Engineering – We’re on top, but our share of the world’s R&D spending, new patents, scientific publications, researchers, and BA and PhD. degrees in science and engineering are all dropping. We need to start right now to strengthen investment in basic research, get serious about K-12 education, especially in math and science, and attract more of our best and brightest young men and women into what will be crucial and exciting careers in engineering and science.

In previous posts I discuss my thoughts on the important topics of science, engineering and the economy: The Future is EngineeringScience and Engineering in Global EconomicsEngineering the Future EconomyDiplomacy and Science ResearchEconomics and Science and EngineeringU.S. Slipping on Science
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Edinburgh University $115 Million Stem Cell Center

Stem cell centre plan confirmed

Additional Scottish Executive funding of £24m will allow Edinburgh University to develop the £59m centre in collaboration with Scottish Enterprise. The Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine (SCRM) is thought to be equalled only one in Kobe, Japan. Prof Ian Wilmut, formerly of the Roslin Institute, will be the director.

The state-of -the-art facilities are expected to house 220 academic researchers and will include a centre for “scale-up” development and manufacture of cells. Space will also be made available for commercial regenerative medicine. It is hoped that the SCRM, which will be part of the new Centre for Biomedical Research at Edinburgh’s Little France, will create about 560 jobs and generate £18.2m per year for the Scottish economy.

Related: Harvard Plans Life Sciences CampusChina’s Gene Therapy Investment

via: Univ. of Edinburgh Launches $115 Million Dollar Stem Cell Research Center

Harvard Plans Life Sciences Campus

Harvard Unveils Plans for 250 Acre Stem Cell and Life Sciences Campus:

During the first 20 years of the expansion, Harvard would build 4 million to 5 million square feet of buildings and create at least 5,000 jobs, university officials said. Construction in Allston could begin this summer when Harvard hopes to break ground on a 500,000-square-foot (46,450-square-metre) science complex that will house the school’s stem-cell researchers and other institutes. The science complex, university officials said, would be the nucleus for new interdisciplinary research and is expected to go a long way toward boosting Boston’s economy by encouraging partnerships with biotechnology firms that may displace the region’s long-fading manufacturing base.

5,000 jobs is a huge number (even looking out 20 years). Manufacturing is still a huge economic factor (for the USA and the world) but investing in creating science and engineering centers of excellence is critical in determining where strong economies and good jobs will be 30+ years from now. They don’t explain what those 5,000 jobs are, but it seems that thousands could be for science and engineering graduates. The value of that to Boston’s economy is huge.

Related: Engineering the Future EconomyDiplomacy and Science ResearchIncreasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and EngineersThe Future is EngineeringChina’s Economic Science ExperimentChina’s Gene Therapy InvestmentSingapore Supporting Science Researchers

Attracting Women to Engineering

Colleges focusing on attracting women to engineering

Mahera Philobos, director of Georgia Tech’s Women in Engineering program and a civil and environmental engineering professor, said she’s had success getting women to enroll in some areas of engineering, like biomedical and industrial. Both are perceived by women as fields that make contributions to the world, she said.

While frustrated by the stagnant enrollment, Philobos knows change happens slowly. She said the key is reaching the girls when they’re in middle and high school to encourage them to take rigorous math and science courses.

That does not translate into a national trend. Women received 18 percent of the 78,200 engineering degrees given out in 2003-04, the latest data available from the U.S. Department of Education. That’s the same percentage as in 1998 and only slightly more than the 16 percent in 1996.

Related: A Decade of Progress for Women in ScienceIndian Institute of Technology – Female StudentsWomen for ScienceDiversity Focus

Applied Engineering Education

Classroom projects translate into immediate workplace gains for working professionals in engineering

In the final semester of his UW–Madison master’s degree, Bob Aloisi didn’t just earn a letter grade in his quality engineering class: He saved his company $50,000. It wasn’t the typical classroom outcome — but it wasn’t a typical classroom. As a student in “Quality Engineering and Quality Management,” Aloisi accomplished a major class project in quality improvement at his own workplace.

The project is the capstone experience in the College of Engineering’s award-winning distance-education program, the Master of Engineering in Professional Practice (MEPP). Designed for mid-career engineers who live and work all over the country, MEPP’s Internet-based curriculum strives to provide knowledge students can apply immediately at their companies.

“Our project was a very good example of the Kaizen approach,” says Aloisi. “It wasn’t one specific thing, a home run type of thing, that we changed to make our improvements.” Instead, his team met its targets through many small steps, including adjustments to equipment settings and better training for machine operators.

Related: Improving Engineering EducationEducating Scientists and EngineersTeaching Quality Improvement by Quality Improvement in Teachingfind an internship

Want to be a Computer Game Programmer?

You need to understand math, physics and more to become a computer game programmer. Things You Need to Know before Interviewing for a Game Programming Position:

You do need to have very good linear algebra skills. If you don’t know what the formula for a dot product is (a dot b = a.x * b.x + a.y * b.y + a.z * b.z ) and what it means geometrically (|a| * |b| * cosine of the angle between a and b), then there’s no chance you can get a job. You need to know how to project a vector onto another vector (a projected onto b = ( a dot b ) / |b|^2 * b) and onto a plane. You need to know what the cross product is (a x b = [a.y * b.z – a.z * b.y, a.z * b.x – a.x * b.z, a.x * b.y – a.y * b.x]) and what it means geometrically (a vector perpendicular to the vectors with a length equal to the sine of the angle between them).

You should be very familiar with all the projectile equations. If you can’t either derive or remember d = v0 * t + 0.5 * a * t^2, you’ll be in trouble when you interview or take a programming test. Any problem that involves a projectile with gravity should be easy for you to solve. Whether the unknown is gravity, launch angle, y velocity, xz velocity, time, distance or any combinations that are solvable, you should have no problems determining the solution. You should also be familiar with momentum and kinetic energy for elastic and inelastic collisions. Drag and friction should be concepts you understand also.

If that all looks like great fun to you, perhaps game programming is the career for you.

Green Cards for Engineering Faculty

With growing foreign faculty, Tech clarifies ‘green card’ policy at Virginia Tech:

There are another 259 Tech employees on H1-B visas. About half of them will be applying for green cards. Berkley-Coats said costs for obtaining a green card usually run between $3,000 and $5,000. The wait usually ranges from two to three years, though it can extend up to five years because of backlogs of immigrants from countries such as China and India.

Under Tech’s new policy, only employees applying for full-time, salaried positions with the potential to keep them at Tech for several years qualify. The position must be considered “significant” by the department and requires approval of the department head, dean or other senior managers, depending on the position. Postdoctoral employees–scholars or researchers paid to do academic study at the university, usually by grants that fund their work for a limited time–are not part of the policy.

Related: Global Engineering Education StudyWorldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree DataWorld’s Best Research Universities

Engineers Week Ideas

Ideas for engineers to use during engineering week, from the Engineering Education Service Center (on the USA engineering week):

Engineers week is a unique time that takes place every February during Presidents week. 40,000 engineers go into classrooms to promote the profession and give students a better understanding of engineering. This is our chance to show the world that engineering is an exciting career and that engineers really can do anything!

Related: USA Engineering WeekAustralia Engineering WeekCanadian Engineering WeekUK Science and Engineering WeekSingapore Engineering Week

If you know of other similar activities in other countries please add a comment.

So, You Want to be an Astrophysicist?

Dynamics of Cats (good name don’t you think) has an interesting series of posts: So, you want to be an astrophysicist? The latest is: Part 2.5 – grad school by Steinn Sigurðsson:

Think very seriously about whether you want to do theory, observation, data analysis or instrumentation.
You may end up doing things you never imagined out of necessity (like theorists go take observations, cause if they don’t no one else will; or observers running simulations, or building the instrument they need to do the observations etc etc).

Finally: READ!!! Pro-actively.
Check arXiv regularly and thoroughly. Read the papers relevant to you and anything else that looks interesting.
Read the references! They are there for a reason. Read the citations – if a paper is interesting, papers which cite it are also likely to be interesting. Use the ADS “C” option liberally and look through it quickly. If in doubt ask you advisor, or just read it anyway.

Next, the slightly tricky issue of what we actually “do”, research wise type of thingy. Might take a while…

arXiv.org is a (even the) great open access article resource. “Open access to 400,419 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Quantitative Biology.”

State Foster Science for Future Jobs

State eager to foster young scientists for future jobs

The challenge for Massachusetts is to figure out how to inspire more youths to take the same steps. Across the region, observers from chief executives to policymakers are fretting that Massachusetts is not grooming a work force for the future. Part of that includes funneling enough young people into math, science, engineering and related professions to sustain the state’s companies and economy.

“I think as citizens we need to have a basic literacy of principles of science and technology, and that the level of literacy needed to sift through decisions and certain public policy debates has become greater,” Mr. Schneider said. “As science is more in the public policy arena, having fundamental knowledge of basic scientific principles is key.”

I agree. Education in science and engineering is needed both to provide skilled workers for a strong economy and to provide a level of understanding for people to participate in the modern world.