Northwestern University

Northwestern University

University and Department Summary

The department is notable for having a strong interdisciplinary culture. Many staff have formal joint appointments. These are formally 50/50, but with a courtesy appointment from the joint Department so that each person has a single ‘master’ for personnel management issues (e.g. tenure only required in one Department). Joint supervision of research students is also common. It houses 2 major NSF interdisciplinary centres:

Catalysis (Institute for Environmental Catalysis)

Materials research centre

Faculty

Post-doctorates are now becoming the norm for faculty posts. A typical start-up package is 2 students for two years, $150k for equipment. Loads are normally uniform with staff required to teach 1 course per quarter. New hires are allowed 4 quarters off in the first five years. The tenure track is 6 years and they believe that they need 10-15 publications after arrival, a review article and enough funding to support research activities. Typically someone seeking tenure might spend around $6k per annum on travel, mostly within the USA.

Research

Fields

Polymers (fluids, physics and processing)

Catalysis

Biochemical / Biomedical engineering

[Statistics and Dynamical systems – 1 faculty; systems engineering - 1 faculty]

Funding

It is possible to get funding through NWU’s catalysis centre (the Institute for Applied Catalysis) which has $10M from NSF, and possibly the materials research centre.

"Less industrial funding is now available for finding matching funds. Encourage companies to build a special relationship through contributions "

"Research directions tend to be driven by funding which is often political (e.g. oil crisis). "

"NSF is more politicised than it used to be. There is considerable political lobbying over research centres (e.g. arguments over their geographical and demographic distribution).Collaboration and interdisciplinary activity"

"Collaboration less with colleagues than he would like. Has collaborated more outside the University than inside"

"In the US catalysis research is about equally split between chemistry and chemical engineering groups."

"Collaborations are personally driven."

"Interested in applying chemical engineering to molecular biology."

‘Engineers are focused on solving problems but are also often interested in the underlying effects.’
Entrepreneurial activity

Some students are very entrepreneurial and interested in starting companies. Usually after a postdoc. Aim to take technology as far as possible before seeking capital One felt that entrepreneurship was more prevalent in Mechanical Engineering than Chem. Eng. (easier to start up small companies from Mech. Eng.). Some exceptions notably in biotech and biomedical engineering.

UK perceptions

Doesn’t know any active UK chem. Eng. groups.

Knows some UK Chem Eng groups notably Nigel Seaton and Lynn Gladden

Interviewees Included

Kimberley Hill, Bill Cohen, Bill Miller, Randy Snurr, Harold Kung, John Torkelson, Wes Burghardt, Terry Papoutsakis.