Overview

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Academic Life Beyond the Career Award Pedro
J.J. Alvarez AEESP, 8/1/07
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Traditionalist, Boomers, and Gen X
Source Cathy A. Trower, Harvard School of
Education
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Characteristics of Successful Faculty

• Read widely (out of your area), voraciously,
  critically
• In the field of observation, chance favors only
  the prepared mind - Louis Pasteur
• Exercise independent thinking, mainly
  problem-defining and problem-solving skills
• Imagination is more important than knowledge
• - Albert Einstein

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Successful Faculty (contd)

• Frequently present your work in written and oral
  form
• Be your toughest critic, demanding deeper
  understanding and communication and more accuracy
• Finish what you begin
• Time management

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Successful Faculty (contd)

• Observe successful people and take on their best
  qualities that fit your personality
• Share your thoughts and knowledge this may get
  you feedback, support and encouragement
• Enjoy the relative freedom of academia
  - have also intellectual and philosophical fun.
• Dreaming should be a part of your job
• - Mario Molina, 1995 Nobel Price

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• St. Agustin
• Courage to change the things that you can
• Patience to accept those that you cant change
• Wisdom to know the difference

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Tips to Succeed in Academia

• Do not always interpolate extrapolate some
  (think outside of the box)
• Be holistic. Think in systems while you act in
  your disciplines
• Target important problems (join multidisciplinary
  teams)
• Aurea mediocridad (San Ignacio de Loyola)

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• The Jimmy Hendrix Strategy
• Only a few knew who Jimmy Hendrix was in the U.S.
  before he became famous in London

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Being a Mentor

• Thesaurus - Mentor
• Adviser
• Counselor
• Guide
• Tutor
• Teacher
• Guru
• Origin
• King of Ithaca asked his friend Mentor to look
  after his son Telemachus while he fought to win
  the Trojan war

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Checklist for Good Mentors

• Listen patiently
• Build a relationship (mutual trust)
• Dont abuse your authority
• Nurture self-sufficiency
• Share yourself
• People dont really care about what you know,
  until they know that you care
• Provide introductions (socialization into
  disciplinary culture)
• Be constructive
• Find your own mentors (diverse talents, ages,
  personalities)
• Mammalian versus reptilian culture

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• Dont be overbearing (be sensitive to
  cultural-diversity issues)

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Things to Keep in Mind

• A career is seldom a straight line to an imagined
  goal (many branching decision points
  requiring flexibility versatility)
• Selling what we know best does not provide us
  with a long-term competitive advantage. While it
  is prudent to initially build on your training,
  be aware of other opportunities and dont be
  afraid to try new things.

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Things to Keep in Mind

• Balance breadth and specialization (too much
  breadth might not provide the needed expertise,
  overspecialization can be perilous if a hot
  field cools off)
• A human being should be able to change a diaper,
  plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship,
  design a building, write a sonnet, build a wall,
  set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give
  orders, cooperate, act alone, pitch manure, solve
  equations, analyze a new problem, program a
  computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,
  and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
• - Robert A. Heinlein

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Historical highlights in CEE Research
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We should continue to address grand challenges
that are

• Compelling for both intellectual practical
  reasons
• Offering potential major breakthroughs and
  payoffs
• Broad enough with societal impacts on our
  supporting communities (e.g., Federal, State, The
  City of Houston?, Industry) and specific enough
  to act upon and achieve results.

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Smalleys top 10 challenges

• Energy
• Water
• Food
• Environment
• Poverty
• Terrorism and war
• Disease
• Education
• Democracy
• Population

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Vision for CEE

• CEE will be increasingly entrusted by society to
  create a sustainable world and improve global
  quality of life. We will serve as master
  builders, environmental stewards, innovators and
  integrators, managers of risk and uncertainty,
  and leaders in public policy. Our challenges
  have never been clearer or more urgent, and the
  time to invest in CEE has never been more
  opportune.
• Unless we hasten, we shall be left behind.
• Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman philosopher

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NSF Workshop (CEE Chairs)

• CEE are challenged with a new array of societal
  needs, including
• the renewal of an aging infrastructure
• meeting infrastructure needs of rapidly
  developing countries
• satisfying societal demands for security and
  safety
• large-scale environmental concerns and
  sustainability for an estimated world population
  of 10 billion by 2050

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CEE Chairs Workshop (cont.)

• All these challenges are complex and in need of
  innovation to
• master energy resources
• address global climate change
• manage increasingly complex infrastructure
  systems
• protect communities from natural and human threats

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Renewal, Management and Protection of Complex
Systems

• The built and natural environments form a complex
  web of interconnected systems encompassing dense
  urban regions to fragile natural ecological
  areas. As many of these systems are aging,
  poorly understood, or under threat of natural and
  man-made influences, there are many important
  research areas needed to address the renewal,
  management, and protection of these complex
  systems.

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Sustainability

• Major engineering planning, decisions, and
  implementation in the future will need to address
  sustainability. Engineering approaches that
  integrate sustainability are urgently needed
  broadly and for many specific areas, such as
  water use and re-use, sustainable chemical and
  biological product design, new construction
  materials and methods, and underground processes.

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Global Impacts

• Local engineering decisions within the built and
  natural environment have, in the aggregate,
  global impacts on human health, climate change,
  and economics. These global effects intersect
  technology and engineering decisions with
  geopolitics and social impacts.

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Energy

• Major changes in worldwide energy extraction,
  conversion, and usage are necessary. CEE need to
  define a leadership role in the energy area
  because most energy consumption worldwide is
  associated with buildings and transportation, two
  areas where CEE are responsible, and because of
  the close relationship between energy and
  environmental impacts where environmental
  engineers have professional responsibility.

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Central Questions

• Within these broad, interdisciplinary, areas,
  where should your contribute and lead?
• What disciplines should you reach out to partner
  with, whether leading or supporting?
• What might products of research be and how will
  you measure impacts?

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Beware of Technology Hypes
Do not join in just because it is "in"
Positive Hype
Negative Hype
Visibility
Peak of Inflated Expectations
Do not miss out just because it is "out"
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of Productivity
Technology Trigger
Maturity
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Pay attention to details

• You never know who is watching your work

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world
indeed, it is the only thing that ever
has. Margaret Mead
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Many Emerging Challenges Concern CEE
Global urbanization trend (megalopolis)
Aging critical infrastructure
Climate change and extreme events
Energy and water security
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Problem Opportunity

• Urban systems provide the greatest opportunity to
  improve the quality of life of more people,
  achieve the best value for investment in civil
  infrastructure, and to produce the most efficient
  and sustainable transportation and energy service
  systems.

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Already have disciplinary research in 4 important
areas to meet such challenges

UIM
HWR
SME
ENV
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Vision

• Build recognized leadership in addressing
  critical and emerging challenges of urban
  systems, including the sustainability security
  of infrastructure that is challenged by rapid
  change and/or extreme events.
• Fill the role of integrators of solutions to
  urban problems and lead educational efforts that
  promote eco-responsible design and urban
  sustainability.

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Perrys Scale of Intellectual Growth Ethics in
Relation to Problem Solving
W. G. Perry, Jr. 1970. Forms of Intellectual and
Ethical Development in the College Years A
scheme. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College
Publishers.
1. Simple dualism (knowledge is absolute, black
white) 2-4. Multiplicity (complexity,
uncertainty, multiple solutions can exist for one
problem) 5-6. Relativism (metacognition knowing
what you know, knowledge, truth, and values are
contextual accept responsibility for beliefs and
actions) 7-9. Commitment (life is a symphony of
complexities, make conscious commitments about
choices as affirmation of ones own identity)
What should be the score of the students you
graduate?
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Philosophical Dilemma

• Most engineering students graduate at 3-4
  (engineering depends on absolutist disciplines),
  but many become technical functionaries unable to
  offer meaningful independent contributions to the
  solution of complex, global-scale problems.
• Some companies are happy with 2s (soldiers). To
  take them beyond 4, students may need to take too
  many soft courses (sacrificing technical rigor),
  and relativism could erode absolutist ethics.
• How to enhance breadth without sacrificing depth?

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Yo soy toro en mi rodeo, y torazo en rodeo ajeno
Martin Fierro
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• Quitters never win,
• and winners never quit,
• but those who never win and never quit
• are idiots