Ken Vickers – Director Research Professor, Physics (1998 – present)

1. Microelectronics-Photonics (microEP) Graduate Program: Lessons Learned at the Five-Year PointUniversity of Arkansas Ken Vickers – Director Research Professor, Physics (1998 – present) Eng Management, Texas Instruments (1980 – 1998) 479 575-2875 vickers@uark.edu http://microEP.uark.edu ASEE Annual Conference Session 1432 – New Trends in ECE Education June 21, 2004 Salt Lake City, Utah

2. Acknowledgements • Dr. Len Schaper PI IGERT • UA Professor, Electrical Engineering • Dr. Greg Salamo Co-PI IGERT • UA University Professor, Physics • National Science Foundation IGERT (DGE-9972820) • Department of Education FIPSE (P116B000981A) • National Science Foundation REU Site (EEC-0097714) • Other NSF programs Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

3. Interdisciplinary Case for Action • Issues • Required knowledge content in degree always increasing • State-of-the-art advances often appear at degree boundary layers • Academic training emphasizes individual achievement • Business aspects of technology minimized in technical degrees • Industrial success requires individual and team excellence • Responses • Define flexible interdisciplinary degree for the boundary layer • Maintain vigorous technical content of curriculum • Add extra course for entrepreneurship of high tech research • Hire experienced industrial technical manager • Organize graduate program as industrial technical group • Hold each student accountable for all students’ academic success microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

4. Comparison of Academic and Industrial Professional Environments microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

5. microEP Enhancements of Traditional Departmental Degree Elements Traditional Departmental Education Supplemental microEP Elements • Technical Knowledge • Core classes in undergrad dept • Most electives in department • Few other technical electives • Technical Knowledge • Core of interdisciplinary classes • Applied technical electives • Business classes • Research Methods • Slow student initiated linkage to research prof • Professor’s group meetings • Research Methods • Design of Experiments class during summer • Quick assignment to research prof • Formal research project plan • Team Skills • Project teams in classes • Team Skills • Pseudo-industry engineering group • Weekly operations management seminars • Intro summer camp for all microEP students • Invention and innovation • Individual mentoring within research group • Invention and Innovation • Summer inventiveness workshops • Personality and learning methods mapping Results in • Broadened technical knowledge • Rapid acclimation to first job • Early leadership roles • Earlier significant personal success Sound technical graduate degree microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

6. microEP Mission • The educational objective of the microEP program is to produce graduates that create and commercialize electronic and photonic materials, devices, and systems. • This will be accomplished through rigorous interdisciplinary science/engineering graduate education; supplemented with soft skills, management, and entrepreneurial training. microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

7. Historical Departmental Approach Student Centered Approach Department or Program Career Degrees Courses Courses Degrees Career Department or Program Student Recruitment Method microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

8. Pre October 2002 Operations Seminar (4) Ethics One course from each of four core areas: photonics, microelectronics, materials & processing, commercialization Current Operations Seminar (4) Ethics Proposal Management PHYS 5774 Intro to Optical Properties of Matter ELEG 4203 Semiconductor Devices ELEG 5213 IC Fab Technology MGMT 5383 Intra and Entrepreneurship of Technology Core Curriculum microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

9. Courses Developed under microEP Influence • Commercialization of Research • MGMT Intra/Entrepreneurship of Technology (Mgmt/Physics) • Interpersonal and Management Skills • MEPH Organizational Management (Physics - 1 hour) • PHYS Research Management (Physics - 1 hour) • MEPH Proposal Writing and Management (Physics/ME - 1 hour) • MEPH Ethics for Scientists and Engineers (Physics - 1 hour – NSF REU financial) microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

10. Courses Developed under microEP Influence • Interdisciplinary Academic Subjects • MEPH Nanotech I (materials – Chemistry, Peng) • MEPH Nanotech II (devices – Physics, Salamo – FIPSE financial support) • ELEG Quantum Structures and Devices (EE, Manasreh – replaces MEPH Nanotech II) • MEEG Nanotech III (manufacturing – ME, Malshe) • MEEG Introduction to MEMS (ME, Tung/Malsh) • MEEG Advanced MEMS (ME, Tung/Malshe) • MEPH Integrated Passives (ChE, Ulrich) • MEPH Numerical Modeling for Scientists and Engineers (Civil Engineering, Selvam) microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

11. International/Industrial Co-op • Most valued by non-US students as entry way into permanent job. • Currently lower than 5% participation. • International internships financially sponsored for IGERT Fellows. • IGERT Fellow participation is less than 30%. microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

12. Student Practice in Management • Object is to give real responsibility for microEP operational aspects to students • Computer network responsibility • Listserv maintenance • Annual undergrad research conference • etc • In general, this has not worked in any iteration microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

13. Student Research Seminars • Objectives • To give cross-cohort research exposure for resource awareness • To give practice in public presentations • To use most senior microEP students to inspire performance in less senior students • Results are good. • First Monday of every month, two students • Other Mondays are used for operations seminars • Presenters receive formal feedback forms from all students viewing the presentation • Changing to industrial 10 minute format in 04/05 microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

14. microEP PhD Candidacy Exam • Traditional University of Arkansas Science/Engineering Process • Research proposal presented to committee for review. • Written exam based on content of specific undergraduate and graduate course knowledge content. • Oral examination by faculty of all subject matter. • Experimental microEP approach • To provide guidance to student and faculty on likelihood of student’s success in PhD studies. • Research proposal in NSF format submitted to committee, and presented in open forum for comments and approval. • Written exam is a scenario based complex technology problem • One week duration (spring break), answer limited to 15 pages • Open written resource, no discussion allowed • Includes technical solution, implementation method, etc. • Oral presentation may be required by committee if needed microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

15. Rick Wise Texas Instruments Bob Friedman UArkansas Dick Slusher Bell Labs Bob Frye Agere Systems Jorge Vega* Motorola Don Hayes Microfab Tech, Inc. Brian Hart* Corning Bill Hinshaw** Texas Instruments Cleo Cabuz Honeywell John Randall Zyvex Corp Chuck Chalfant Space Photonics Larry Rehn Honeywell Doug Craig AFRL Fred Strieter Texas A&M Industrial Advisory Committee • Meetings were held in Oct 2002 and Feb 2004 • Overall assessment was full speed ahead with central focus of program • Largest concern was lack of a “core curriculum” that defines microEP (Oct 2002) and changing nature of technical communication (Feb 2004) microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

16. microEP Workgroup Creation: Summer Camp – Pre Fall Semester Camp concepts by Dr. Ed Sobey (www.invention-center.com) microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

17. microEP Workgroup Creation: Arkansas – The Natural State Fun in the Ozarks Lost Valley Eden Falls Hawks Bill Crag Buffalo River microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

18. microEP NSF REU Site: Students Fourteen students attended 2002 REU • Four African-American • One Hispanic • Five Women microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

19. K-12 Outreach: BEST Robotics Inc (www.bestinc.org) • Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology • A sports-like contest between remote controlled robots • Emulates product “design to market” life cycle • Resources are limited to those components issued at kickoff • Teachers serve as coaches • Members of the technical community serve as mentors • Community provides financial and administrative support • Students do all the work with adult mentoring microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

20. Microelectronics-Photonics Graduate Program: Funding History • Winner of nationally competitive grants • 1999: NSF IGERT ($2.5 M Total – Aug 99/July 04) • 2000: NSF MRSEC ($3.4 M Total) • 2000: NSF Partnership for Innovation ($850 K Total) • 2000: Dept of Education FIPSE ($500 K Total) • 2001: NSF RET Supplements (3 teachers) • 2001: NSF REU Site ($385 K Total for 2001-2003) • 2002: NSF GK-12 ($2.7 M Total) • 2002: NSF RET Supplements (4 teachers) • 2003: NSF REU (with 1 RET teacher – Funding 2004 through 2008 - $625k) microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

21. microEP Student Prior Degree vs microEP Faculty’s Department As of Nov 17, 2003 30 Matching 36 Non-Matching 2 have not picked major professor microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

22. Key Attributes of microEP • MS in place fall 1999; PhD in place fall 2000 • Seventy-five current students and alumni (twenty percent minority and nineteen percent female) • Twenty-seven conferred MS degrees • Four conferred PhD degrees (thirty-eight students currently on PhD path) • Grads at Northwestern U, RF Microdevices, Texas Instruments, Intel, AMI, Motorola, Entergy, and self-owned SBIR fueled start-up companies microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting

23. Questions? microEP Industrial Advisory Committee Meeting