University and Department Summary
Situated in Madison on the borders of a lake, Wisconsin has one of the more attractive campus locations. Wisconsin is a State university and land grant college, and has some 40,000 students.
Chemical engineering has a legendary reputation, and is perhaps most famous as the home of Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot, although they had illustrious predecessors. Now perhaps out of the top five US departments, it is still a very popular place for chemical engineering graduate students. The GPA average for the incoming class is now over 3.9/4.0 and faculty are attracted here from positions elsewhere because of this quality.
The current US situation was explained as follows:
"Chemical engineering is ‘whatever you decide you want to do’. The field is analogous to the fairy-ring phenomenon: as mushrooms grow, they spread out in a circle. So it is with chemical engineering with everyone at the outer edge (and advancing into new areas and leaving the core area behind). This has led to an awkward situation now that many of the defenders of traditional chemical engineering have retired. It is still considered necessary for undergraduates to have the background knowledge before they can appreciate the new exciting stuff. Wisconsin now has some trouble getting people to teach some of the core (because it is not so interesting because there is very little research in those areas) and the new younger people are happy out at the ring edge (fringe)."
In the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s there was much greater emphasis of learning of facts, now they teach the basics, so that the graduate can then figure it out on the job. This leads to a battle between the university and corporate interviewers. Wisconsin wants to train people who can "solve something which hasn’t quite been solved before".
All faculty seem to teach 1 course per semester aided by teaching assistants, who are used for grading, and are paid an additional 10-20% stipend over research assistants. A work load of 55 hours per week was thought more realistic than the 80 hours per week that some people say. Faculty would have 8-10 graduate students each.
Some p.g. students felt that the PhD is about learning ‘scientific method’," the problem that you are working on for your PhD is irrelevant." They felt that their PhD has done this for them. According to Manuel "the role of the PhD is to enable you to generate ideas, and to understand how research evolves".
Wisconsin actively looks for good people, invites them to give a seminar, and may then make an offer. The department policy for recruitment can change from year to year with regards to the specialisation of the candidates. The search committee has to take care that they don’t hire in a wide number of different areas which do not make strategic sense. The search committee has to be chosen from amongst the best staff in the department.
"In the US, the status of engineering in general is high. In Australia, as it is the UK, the status is low. My personal feeling is that in the US education is valued and rewarded financially. The US has incentives and no social stigmas. Whilst the general population in the US may understand very little science, they appreciate the products of science and engineering (and realise that it is science and engineering that brings these benefits)."
Postdoctoral experience is changing; in 1985 it was rare, now it is quite common especially to have taken the position in a different department. It is interesting that virtually all the staff interviewed had either done a postdoc or had industrial experience. They hire carefully and 95% or so go on to a tenured position.
Starter packages are about standard going up to about $250k with the ‘standard’ two years summer salary and two graduate students. One exceptional start-up was reported:
Research Fields
Chemical engineering has fundamentally been the transport, kinetics, thermodynamics, and putting these fundamentals in context of the process. These tools are still useful but must expand into a science-based. This approach offers wide application.
Areas of interest in the department include: X-ray and extreme UV lithography for nano-technology; catalysis; polymer kinetics and reaction engineering; polymer physics; colloid science; applied mathematics; biomaterials; and metabolic pathway engineering (moving more toward the molecular biology side, applied immunology).
Chemical engineering was earlier based more on curiosity, and the funding also allowed such curiosity driven research. Now research has become more mission-targeted. It is now more important to have a view on the application.
There is an Increasing trend for multi-disciplinary work. In one area, the DoD required multi-university, multidisciplinary research before funding could be given.
Some considered collaborations whilst an Assistant Professor not to be helpful for tenure, as the credit goes to the principal investigator.
One member remarked that more than half the research support in his area (systems) comes from industry, in general. Industrial funding in the department is usually organised through a consortium. The Technical Wisconsin Modelling and Control Consortium comprise of 20 member companies of which five fund his work directly. The companies do not particularly care for novel ideas in a proposal. They are looking more for students and looking to support work which they think is relevant. The industrial funding is based on unrestricted gifts i.e. the companies cannot demand product deliverables. The consortium is not necessarily made up of international companies. Another member of staff said that more than 2/3rd of his research was funded by industry, through the consortium. The consortium members pay £30k per year over a guaranteed three years.
"The human cost of writing proposasl, reviewing proposals and raising money is enormous and more than the money given."
"Industry want conference presentations more whilst the department likes publications in important journals."
"Old timers have to compete as much as new comers, and it is impossible to relax."
NSF is peer reviewed, where the proposal novelty is quite important, continued funding not easy. It is not common to get more than one grant at a time although one researcher currently has three NSF grants as sole PI, and 4 as co-PI.
It is much more difficult for a young person to convince the programme manager. A programme manager likes to brag on his "stable of horses" i.e. successful applicants, and so when a new person comes along, it is more difficult to break through. This is certainly true within the DoE, perhaps less so with the NSF. Visits to the NSF can be important:
"this was instrumental in getting the SGER" [Small Grants for Exploratory Research].
Several interviewees reported that NSF success is low on standard grant proposals until a track record has been established. Success rates can go from near zero to almost 100%. University overheads at Wisconsin are approximately 1/3rd of the total grant. About 75% of the department’s funds come from government sources - NSF, DoE, NIH, EPA.
Some elements of NSF operation which were commented on are important:
"Rotation of the NSF programme managers keeps funding mechanism in check and breaks the old boy network."
"For federal funding, it is OK to move project in different area from that originally proposed during a grant period."
A number of staff commented that the NSF PYI awards lead to an element of complacency when the end of the award is reached.
Networking and Travel
As elsewhere, the key to success is generally considered to be the attainment of visibility. Typically staff travel approximately 5-10 times per year on conferences and seminars. These are usually a mix of conferences, giving lectures at other universities, trips to the NSF (often review panel meetings). Some are conscious that by not travelling they may compromise on networking with colleagues.
The AIChE fall meeting is one where everyone goes to. Partly social and partly for networking. The meeting is considered essential if one wants to be updated in what is happening
"…probably the single most important mechanism for information exchange that we have in the US".
Travel is very important for tenure – the need to make people aware of what you are doing is very important. There are too many journals, and too many papers in each journal; and all with far too long publication times. It is important to keep people up-to-date on your recent progress, so going to conferences is essential. Some also commented on the need to know that you are "doing something different" to that which everyone else is doing.
Nick Abbott, James Dumesic, Regina Murphy, Paul Nealy, James Rawlings, W. Harmon Ray, Thatcher Root, and John Yin.