Category Archives: Education

Self Aware Robot

Self aware robot

Robot Demonstrates Self Awareness by Tracy Staedter, Discovery News (they broke the the link so I removed it):

Some interesting news from Junichi Takeno and a team of researchers at Meiji University in Japan as the year nears completion:

A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it.

This so-called mirror image cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot’s computer brain that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge others.

SMART Fellowships/Scholarships

The Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship application opened yesterday (the application closes February 17, 2006.

More details available online

Financial Assistance
Subject to the availability of funds, scholarships awarded will pay: salary or stipend, full tuition, required fees, up to $1000 book allowance per year, room and board and other normal educational expenses for the institution involved. The annual salary will be in the range of $20,000 to $40,000 depending upon student’s academic status. Students are required to spend their summer as an intern with a Department of Defense (DoD) Agency.

Employment Obligation
Upon selection, students must sign a DoD civilian service agreement. The employment obligation to the DoD civilian workforce upon completion of the scholarship/fellowship will be a one-for-one commitment. Failure to complete the required period of service will require the reimbursement of funds expended by the Government for the individual’s education under this program.

SMART scholarships and fellowships are awarded to applicants who are pursuing a degree in, or closely related to, one of the following SME disciplines:

* Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering
* Biosciences
* Chemical Engineering
* Chemistry
* Civil Engineering
* Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology
* Computer and Computational Sciences
* Electrical Engineering
* Geosciences
* Materials Science and Engineering
* Mathematics, Operations Research
* Mechanical Engineering
* Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
* Oceanography
* Physics, Physical Sciences

Science Researchers: Need for Future Employees

Scientists and engineers: Crisis, what crisis? by Mario Cervantes. More data on the question of a shortage of skilled workers, this time, researchers from January 2004:

The number of researchers in OECD countries rose from 2.4 million in 1990 to 3.4 million in 2000, a 42% increase, and demand is still expanding – the EU estimates it will need 700,000 new researchers to meet its commitment to increase investment in R&D to 3% of GDP by 2010. The US National Science Foundation projects that some 2.2 million new jobs in science and engineering will be created over 2000-2010, especially in computer-related occupations. In Japan the University Council predicted in 1998 that demand for masters students would exceed supply by 2010.
In other words, while few scientists are out of work, a significant proportion of them are not finding jobs in occupations that are closely related to their studies. This would weaken the claim of a widespread shortage of science and engineering graduates, but may signal another problem: “mismatches” between what the market (industry or academia) needs and is willing to pay in terms of research, and the skill sets, interests and salary aspirations that graduates have.

Well, if they are employed then there is a match between workers and jobs. The whole idea of the market working to match up the workers to jobs is based on the idea that workers and employers will react to shortages and surpluses by paying more and offering inducements to change career paths (employers facing a shortage) and some workers will decide to take them up on these offers.

I don’t doubt the market has and will continue to be dynamic. Knowledge workers should expect continuing education and learning throughout their careers. And I think most do expect that.

The strong case that the system was failing to match workers to jobs would be high unemployment rates and open jobs that employers couldn’t fill because people did not have the right skills. Taking actions to align higher education with the needs of the economy for science and engineering knowledge is wise. However, I think there will always be slight adjustments needed once students graduate. The key is that they are prepared to quickly learn the specific needs of the current marketplace. That I think is achievable and should be one of the goals of institutions of higher education.

Our Single-Celled Ancestors

choanoflagellates in water (photo by Melissa Mott)

Our Single-Celled Ancestors by David Pescovitz, ScienceMatters@Berkeley. Photo: propelled by their flagella, choanoflagellates move through water collecting bacteria on a collar of tentacles at the base of the cell body. (photo by Melissa Mott)

Six-hundred million years ago, a pivotal turning point in the history of life occurred. In the ancient sea, multicellular organisms evolved that are now recognized as the world’s first animals. But what was the biology of the single-celled organism that made the transition? And how did it become the common progenitor of all animals?

As always this issue of ScienceMatters@Berkeley includes excellent articles. Other articles from this issue: Extreme Biomaterials and Machines That Learn.

Science and Engineering Innovation Legislation

Ensign, Lieberman Introduce Major Bipartisan Innovation Legislation – the press release from Senator Lieberman’s office indicates Science and Engineering Fellowships Legislation we mentioned previously, has been introduced:

Our legislation will significantly increase federal support for graduate fellowship and traineeship programs in science, math, and engineering fields in order to attract more students to these fields and to create a more competitive and innovative American workforce.
…
China and India alone graduate 6.4 million from college each year and over 950,000 engineers. The United States turns out 1.3 million college graduates and 70,000 engineers.
…
Expands existing educational programs in the physical sciences and engineering by increasing funding for NSF graduate research fellowship programs as well as Department of Defense science and engineering scholarship programs.

The recent report from Duke, explains that the figures on science and engineering graduates used are not accurate (see below). Still, this seems like a good idea. The press release also includes a list of organizations supporting the legislation including: Athena Alliance, Business Roundtable, Council on Competitiveness, Council of Scientific Society Presidents. From the section by section details included on the web site:

The Director of NSF will expand the agency’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program by 250 fellowships per year and extend the length of each fellowship to five years. Program by 250 fellowships per year and extend the length of each fellowship to five years. The bill authorizes $34 million/year for FY 2007- FY 2011 to support these additional fellowships. In addition, funding in the amount of $57 million/year is authorized for a similar expansion of the Integrated Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program by 250 new traineeships per year over five years.
The Tech Talent expansion program encourages American universities to increase the number of graduates with degrees in mathematics and science. The bill authorizes $335 million from Fiscal Year 2007 to Fiscal Year 2010 for continued support of this program.
This section extends the Department of Defense’s Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarships program through September 30, 2011, and authorizes $41.3 million/year over 5 years for the SMART program to support additional participants pursuing doctoral degrees and master’s degrees in relevant fields. This section also authorizes $45 million/year over 5 years to be appropriated to the Department of Defense through 2011 to support the expansion of the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship program to additional participants.

Related posts:

$71 Million for Texas STEM Initiative

$71 Million Committed to Launch the Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (TSTEM) Initiative:

The $71 million public-private partnership, a new effort of the THSP, will establish 35 small schools that offer focused teaching and learning opportunities in STEM subject areas and five to six STEM Centers to develop high-quality teachers and schools. The highest-quality education in these subjects is critical to workforce development in Texas and to ensuring that the United States keeps its competitive edge as a world leader in scientific and technological innovation.

Google opens research office near CMU

Google to open new research facility in Pittsburgh:

Google Inc., the leading online search engine company, will open a new engineering and research office in Pittsburgh next year to be headed by a Carnegie Mellon University professor, the company announced Thursday.

The facility will be charged with creating software search tools for Google. It is expected to create as many as 100 new high-tech jobs in the Pittsburgh area over the next few years, said Craig Nevill-Manning, director of Google’s New York engineering office.

This is another specific example how higher education in engineering and science can create jobs. Obviously, there are many cheaper places for Google to start new offices.

Related posts:

USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates

How accurately the data reflects the situation is something that must always be considered: data is a proxy for something. All models are wrong, some are useful – George Box.

A very interesting report has been published by Duke’s Pratt Engineering School: Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate by: Dr. Gary Gereffi and Vivek Wadhwa – Primary Student Researchers: Ben Rissing, Kiran Kalakuntla, Soomi Cheong, Qi Weng, Nishanth Lingamneni. I strongly recommend reading this report. Report Appendix with data:

Typical articles have stated that in 2004 the United States graduated roughly 70,000 undergraduate engineers, while China graduated 600,000 and India 350,000.

The report puts the 2004 figures, based on their operational definition of a engineering degree at:

USA: 222,335
India: 215,000
China: 644,106

The fact that there are fewer equivalent degrees in India and China doesn’t amaze me. Tripling the degrees in America does surprise me. If I understand the report this is due to including IT and computer science degrees (that are included in China and India counts) and including subbaccalaureate degrees (also included by China and India). In practice, US data includes some IT and CS degrees as engineering and some not (depending on how the school classifies them I believe).

These massive numbers of Indian and Chinese engineering graduates include not only four-year degrees, but also three-year training programs and diploma holders. These numbers have been compared against the annual production of accredited four-year engineering degrees in the United States. In addition to the lack of nuanced analysis around the type of graduates (transactional or dynamic) and quality of degrees being awarded, these articles also tend not to ground the numbers in the larger demographics of each country.

These types of distinctions are exactly the type of additional information that can be very important to consider when drawing conclusions based on data. While agree that looking at the percentage of the population is worthwhile, I think the report may over emphasis this measure. If looking at how much engineering ability China and India are bringing online what is most interesting is the absolute measure of that capability. Continue reading →

Joint Singapore MIT Degree Programs

The Singapore–MIT Alliance offers joint degrees from Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS) (where my father taught for a year and a half when I was a kid) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Programs are offered in:

  • Advanced Materials for Micro- and Nano-Systems (AMM&NS)
  • Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering (CPE)
  • Computational Engineering (CE)
  • Manufacturing Systems and Technology (MST)

Students study in Singapore and while in residence at MIT and distance coursework from MIT while in Singapore. The students earn masters degrees from MIT and a masters from NUS/NTU and possibly a doctorate from NUS/NTU. As an example, An MIT Masters and an NTU Masters details:

The Dual Masters will comprise a Master of Engineering Degree in Manufacturing from MIT and a Master of Science Degree from NTU. This programme combines a broad based approach with independent research and concentrate on problems of emerging industries. Students will combine industry-based project experience with a university-based research derived from that experience. Depending upon the student’s progress the programme may be completed in 1.5 years, but no more than 2.0 years. The MIT degree will be taken partly in residence at MIT and by distance at NTU, and will be primarily coursework-based with a group project in industry supervised by MIT. The NTU degree will include coursework and independent research with NTU faculty supervision.