The Barefoot Bioengineer | Guruprasad Madhavan

Killing with Kindness

2012-01-29T18:25:00.003-05:00

An extract from the article published in the February 2012 issue of The Scientist that I coauthored with Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, and David Sloan Wilson.

Studying the evolution of altruistic behaviors reveals how knee-jerk good intentions can backfire.

“Pathological altruism.” The term seems a contradiction—how could a desire to help others be harmful?

All too easily, unfortunately. We’ve all heard of gullible cult followers who force their own children to “drink the Kool-Aid”—literally or figuratively—in their sincere belief that they are saving their offspring's souls. Or genocidal murderers convinced they are protecting those they love by exterminating the “human cockroaches” they’ve been taught to hate.

Pathological Altruism, our recent edited book, explores the historical and contemporary impacts of these maladaptive behaviors and introduces a whole new discipline that knits together evolutionary biology, social psychology, neuroscience, public health, and economics.

As Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman notes in his recently published book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, our empathetic feeling for others—or at least for family members, friends, peers, or those we perceive to be victims—is a fast, involuntary response, much like envy or laughter. But empathy can sometimes lead to cognitive illusions: the patient who elicits sympathy by claiming you are the only therapist who truly understands him may well be a psychopath; your sobbing daughter may have found crying to be a useful ploy for getting a cookie; the political leader who claims to be protecting the poor may simply be buying votes with public money.

***

Even behavior that has evolved for genuinely beneficial purposes—such as our ability to empathize and care for others—can be turned on its head and lead to deleterious outcomes. Caring feelings can be manipulated and exploited by emotional bullies to more easily harm their victims. Misplaced empathy and compulsive feelings of altruism may also fuel guilt, depression, and burnout. Unfortunately, it is our very zeal to help others—our idealization of empathy and altruism—that blinds us to the harms these emotions and actions can create. Realizing that to truly help others we often need to act rationally—using “slow” thinking that departs from knee-jerk reactions—won’t reduce our desire to help. Instead, it will allow us to systematically predict and prevent pathologies of altruism, and to channel our natural tendencies for empathy and altruism towards truly good causes.

My Antithesis

2011-12-10T15:15:00.011-05:00

The fresh mid-November Pocohontan morning breeze ceaselessly kissed me in the denser elevations during a hike. A beaten, dark brown plaque providing directions to the botanical treasures of Monongahela said: "Beware! You are surrounded by meat eating plants."

My curiosity blossomed near the acidic wetlands of the national forest. The reference was to the carnivorous pitcher plant clusters. Looking at those purple descendants from the post-glacial Holocene era, I couldn’t help but face the fact that pitcher plants are plants that eat animals. Contrast: I am an animal that eats plants—a vegetarian since birth. So, wouldn’t that make pitcher plants my antithesis? If an imaginary battle were to ever occur between the pitcher plants and me, we may end up eating one other! That’d not be such a happy ending.

It’s extraordinary, to say the least, how chemistry and evolution have situated pitcher plants to adapt to their environment. They capture preys—ants, mosquitoes, flies, spiders, moths and other bugs—for nutrients, digest them with the help of specialized enzymes and bacteria, and help establish an inquiline food network. Talk about carving a superb niche in a complex ecosystem.

My antithesis turned out to be a great mentor. From that seemingly mild encounter, I learned from the pitcher plants that it’s important to: situate oneself in a position—and environment—to attract great ideas and inspiration (prey); to exercise the right intellectual digestive enzymes to help with nourishment and growth; foster good cognitive bacteria to process what’s being learned, and capitalize on a network to carve a niche in a complex world.

As I continued to absorb the tranquil energy of the wilderness, the effervescent question in my mind was: what is my niche and what am I adapting to?

"Pathological Altruism" released on World Kindness Day

2011-11-12T19:43:00.009-05:00

Call it a contrapuntal coincidence. Pathological Altruism is being released by Oxford University Press on November 13th—World Kindness Day.

The book's cover was designed by Jeff Miller. According to our editor: "With the onion, we wanted to convey how something rooted in what we think of as purity (the white, clearish center) could reverberate out or develop into something ugly (the brown, crinkly outer layers). Circles within circles are also, as you know, symbolic of human nature, from emotions to motives to behaviors and beyond that, the impact of behaviors outside of the self."

Advance praise for the book:

"A scholarly yet surprisingly sprightly volume...The book is the first comprehensive treatment of the idea that when ostensibly generous 'how can I help you?' behavior is taken to extremes, misapplied or stridently rhapsodized, it can become unhelpful, unproductive and even destructive."—Natalie Angier in The New York Times

"What a wonderful book! This is one of the few books in evolutionary biology I've read in the past ten years that taught me something completely new."—Edward Wilson, Two Times Pulitzer Prize Winner and Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

"Read this book. You will learn much that would be new to you, whatever your expertise or interest. And I would be surprised if you don't enjoy this voyage of discovery."—Francisco Ayala, Templeton Prize Laureate and University Professor, University of California, Irvine

"The coverage of topics is breathtaking...The reader will emerge with a much deeper and nuanced understanding of altruism in reading this book, the best on altruism in the last 15 years."—Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley; author of Born To Be Good: The Science of A Meaningful Life

"It is rare-actually, probably unprecedented-to find in a single volume discussions of the moral right to sell one's kidney, of friends who enable an alcoholic's benders out of a misplaced sense of empathy, of people who hoard animals (the not-at-all apocryphal crazy neighbor who lives with 87 cats), of the psychological motivations of suicide bombers, of the genetics of individualism and collectivism, and of the frequent failings of well-intentioned foreign aid programs. This is that rare, if not unique, volume. It manages the impressive feat of pulling together the best research from psychology, genetics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and law on well-meaning but ultimately harmful forms of self-sacrifice. It will forever change the way you look at altruism."—Sharon Begley, Science Editor, Newsweek, and author of Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain

"What is grand about the collection is that light pours in through every contribution, and even the glare of competing views can reveal dark assumptions."—Robert Richards, Morris Fishbein Professor of Science and Medicine, The University of Chicago, and author of Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior

''Be careful what you wish for' might be one way of summing up the take-home message of this strikingly original book, highlighting the fact that 'more is not always better' when it comes to either being the altruist or the recipient of altruism."—Jay Belsky, Professor of Pyschology, Birkbeck University of London

"Can there be too much of a good thing? Surely, eating too many chocolate chip cookies will lead to a sore stomach, but too much altruism bringing about harm?! In Pathological Altruism, experts in diverse fields consider the phenomenon of radical altruism, from battered women to suicide martyrs, and from autistic people to foreign aid givers, and all the way to Mahatma Gandhi. Is pathological altruism a disease, an addiction, an evolutionary relic, or perhaps a mirage? This is a wonderfully engaging and thought provoking book: you may not agree with all of its arguments, but you'll never look at kindness quite the same way again."—Oren Harman, Chair of the Graduate Program in Science, Technology and Society at Bar Ilan University, Israel, and author of The Price of Altruism

"WOW-what a book! Can one be too nice? In this fascinating volume Barbara Oakley and her collaborators show how altruism can bleed into misplaced, excessive, self-righteous, or self-serving pathologies. Why this occurs and its societal implications make this book essential reading for anyone who truly cares about helping others."—Paul Zak, Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, Claremont Graduate University, co-editor of Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy

"Pathological altruism? Sounds like an oxymoron, but this fascinating book quickly convinces you that altruism can go seriously mad and bad. The great breadth and quality of contributors to this book from psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy - and that's just the 'P's' - shed light on the dark side of our evolutionary propensity towards altruism, which can be subverted to a wide range of pathologies such as survivor guilt, drug co-dependency, personality disorders, and eating disorders. When within-group altruism is exploited to between-group hostility, it can lead to suicide martyrdom and genocide."—Robert Plomin, MRC Research Professor and Deputy Director, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London; author of Behavioral Genetics (now in its 5th edition), and past-president of the Behavior Genetics Association

"What most of us perceive as unmitigated evil, its perpetrators sometimes regard as self-sacrifice in the name of some delusional cause. Suicide bombers, terrorists, messianic cult leaders guiding their following to self-destruction usually think of their heinous acts as benefiting humanity at the cost of self-deprecation. So did Adolf Hitler. To understand such behaviors, it is necessary to understand 'pathological altruism' in its many manifestations. This volume is unique in examining 'pathological altruism' from various angles with unfailing insight and depth. The book will be an invaluable source for psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, historians, criminologists, as well as fascinating reading for the general educated public."—Elkhonon Goldberg, Clinical Professor of Neurology, New York University School of Medicine and author of New Executive Brain, Wisdom Paradox, and The Executive Brain

"The Pathological Altruist Gives Till Someone Hurts"

2011-10-04T16:35:00.005-04:00

In a front page article for the New York Times' Science Times (October 4, 2011) entitled “The Pathological Altruist Gives Till Someone Hurts” science columnist Natalie Angier covers Pathological Altruism, a forthcoming book from Oxford University Press that I co-edited with Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, and David Sloan Wilson.

She generously notes: "a scholarly yet surprisingly sprightly volume...the book is the first comprehensive treatment of the idea that when ostensibly generous “how can I help you?” behavior is taken to extremes, misapplied or stridently rhapsodized, it can become unhelpful, unproductive and even destructive."

A Revelation (or Revolution?) in the Restroom

2011-09-21T19:17:00.009-04:00

During a recent return trip from New York to Washington, DC, the “eco-friendly,” dark silver-blue Greyhound bus I was in made a rest stop near Newark, Delaware. While in the men’s room of the travel plaza, I noticed a message posted above each brushed, stainless-steel Xlerator high-speed (read: high-noise), industrial strength air dryer—there were five of them.

The last line of the message grabbed my attention (see picture): “Thank you for your participation in sustainability.”

As I walked back to the bus with a treat in hand—a warm, ooey Caramel Pecanbon—my mind was still hooked to the message (talk about misplaced priorities).

Thank you for your participation in sustainability.

***

Air dryers are being widely installed and I can understand why. The popular yet incomplete argument (sales pitch?) of cost savings. The case for waste reduction. The rationale for good hygiene. And a bonus? Alleviation of vandalism in public restrooms—I guess, to some extent.

The U.S. still remains the largest consumer of tissue paper products. Hands down, I do believe that cutting down on our paper usage in any form is going to be helpful for our environment. But what I don’t understand is how pursuing air dryers—that are likely powered by energy generated from fossil fuels—as a widespread replacement to tissue paper is ultimately helpful toward sustainability.

Unless, we come up with dramatically novel engineering approaches to power our technologies—and politics—beyond the present day options and commonly touted-possibilities, I think we will be crawling, slowly, inch by inch—hopefully in the right direction—instead of making bold, influential leaps required to tackle our misunderstood, misinterpreted, and sometimes contradicting goals of sustainability.

***

While the bus driver turned on the ignition, picked up the microphone, and gently reminded us in his deep, gravelly voice “please silence your cell phones,” I was trying to silence my mind that was eager for an answer: (how) did I participate in sustainability?

It was not that easy.

Adaptive Choices and Neo-Evolutionary Technologies

2011-09-17T16:41:00.002-04:00

In his riveting, philosophical TED talk, health policy expert Harvey Fineberg explores our readiness for “neo-evolution”—an intriguing possibility that’ll be propelled primarily by human choices. Capitalizing on his experiences as a physician and a bioethicist, he illustrates how different—and sometimes even how contradicting— the goals of “medicine” and “evolution” are, and how new choices are fueling possibilities for humans to pursue “self-directed evolution” from choosing the sex of one’s child to potential genetic alterations that might prevent or cure illnesses.

My take: The concept of “neo-evolution” has good potential to be powered—and scaled—not just through biology, environment, and our own planned choices, but also in some major way, via engineering and technology.

Something to think about: Along the lines of Fineberg’s example of humans providing a hospitable environment for gut bacteria, how can we create a more hospitable environment for choice-driven, neo-evolutionary technology development that tackles the present mega-challenges of debt reduction, new job creation, and economic growth? Correspondingly, what technological “super-attributes” or “hyper-capacity” would be needed to improve governance and policy-making?

Reposted from Evolution: This View of Life

The Dark Side of Altruism

2011-09-10T23:29:00.008-04:00

Blindly trying to help others can have disastrous consequences.

by Barbara Oakley and Guruprasad Madhavan

Extracted from New Scientist magazine, 9 September 2011

“Well-intentioned activities that lead to negative outcomes are all around us. Our comprehensive review of this field - published in the book Pathological Altruism - shows that many of society's most pernicious troubles arise under the guise of, or as a consequence of, attempts to help others. Pathologies of altruism can result in all kinds of abuses, such as the neglect of children, and can lead to misinformed legislation and the misapplication of science. If we really want to help others, we should recognise that altruism can be dangerous.

Over the past decade, there has been an explosion in research and interest in the positive aspects of altruism. Several disciplines, in particular neuroscience and genetics, are providing useful new insights. Against this background, even to hint that altruism could have a dark shadow seems sacrilegious to many. What if it causes people to stop trying to help others?

This should not deter us from exploring the issue, given the harm it can cause if left unchallenged."

***

“How can we guard against the dark side of altruism? In any situation where we feel impelled to help others, it is crucial to step out of our comfort zone and examine the arguments from the other side. We must be willing to learn, in as open-minded a fashion as possible, from those with whom we disagree. In some sense, this means applying the scientific method to our lives. Like scientists, we need to play devil's advocate and actively seek ways of disproving a hypothesis, asking ourselves if an act that seems unquestionably altruistic can have broader negative consequences.

Our better nature can lead us to do things that end up harming the very people we are trying to help, or a larger group of people we have not considered. If we are to do good in the world, it is as vital to understand the pathologies of altruism as it is to understand altruism itself. It is time to bring science to bear on the ancient wisdom that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

A Social Detergent

2010-12-30T21:46:00.008-05:00

“What’s the point of a sponge?” I asked my friend Doo on our road trip to Alamo Lake in a rugged, dirty white Cadillac Escalade a few days ago.

Doo went easy on the RPM as we approached a honeydew melon and cantaloupe plantation near Wenden, a desert town in western Arizona that was washed by a raging Centennial flood in January 2010. She glanced at me sideways, suspicious.

“To clean up dirty dishes?”

As Lady Gaga and Beyoncé began harmonizing for Telephone on Doo’s Android—she reached for the volume as I interrupted.

“Wonder what the social equivalent of dirty dishes is?”

“Ignorance.” Doo firmly adjusted her beaten dark blue Arizona USA hat.

I asked Doo, “do you think there’s a magic ingredient of sort—a soap or surfactant that would help people to learn and unlearn information? An agent that would free society from the ignorance caused by excess information?”

“If you figure that out you'll have nailed it.” Pause. “You'll then have a long way to go toward figuring out essence of the trichotomy: People who don't give a crap about anything. People who give a crap and don’t do anything about it. And those who give a crap and do something about it.”

She then whipped the Cadillac to 70 miles in all excitement to reach the Lake.

***

Our brains are like sponges. They are very adaptive and capable of absorbing boat loads of information—significant and trivial, challenging and nonsensical, symmetric and asymmetric, concrete and abstract, valuable and garbage. Just how sometimes one may find it helpful to squeeze the dirty fluids out of a sponge to clean the dirt off of something, I suspect, our nerve cells would also find it helpful if we squeeze out wasteful information our brains have acquired. (Since I donated my TV six months ago, I have adapted to absorb information from new and different sources).

A week later, on a bone-chilling Christmas Eve, I was strolling past the scene-stealing tree and noisy tourists at the Rockefeller Center in New York City. A few yards away, close to a busy Halal cart and a vendor selling ten dollar Pradas, I saw someone distinct—someone who at once reminded me of my conversation with Doo. SpongeBob.

A SpongeBob on Christmas Eve 2010, 6^th Ave and 49^th St, New York.

Doo’s wisdom and SpongeBob’s appearance have haunted me since then. How will I go about finding a detergent to help clean up the ignorance in society?

All Arrows Pointing Outwards

2010-06-20T11:08:00.012-04:00

Yards away from the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC, as I stepped on the brake of my car in front of the traffic light that had just turned red, I saw a weak homeless man looking steadily toward me. His eyes and my eyes stilled in synchrony for a second. I could sense his hunger and helplessness. I diverted my attention quickly away from him to continue listening to my friend Mary—my dinner guest that evening—on our way to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. As I skillfully navigated the Friday evening traffic in the impatient Northeast part of the District, I asked Mary: “How come this city has so much power yet a constant dose of helplessness; so much wealth yet homelessness and hunger; so much security yet so much crime? You can affect almost any part of the world from here and still not its own poor?” She calmly responded: “That’s because all the arrows are pointing outwards,” and started tuning my car radio for 94.7 FM as I cautiously tried to escape a large pothole.

A few minutes later, after we arrived at the FDR Memorial (for my inaugural visit), I was so captivated by George Segal’s sorrowful “Breadline” of the Great Depression that one of the five life-size bronze statues instantly reminded me of the homeless man I had seen just minutes ago. (Image Source: http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa061401c.htm)

Adjacently, the stone carved words of Franklin Roosevelt from his Second Inaugural Address in 1937 roared: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

My question: what should be the optimal direction and velocity of our arrows to achieve the progress as Franklin Roosevelt envisioned?

Homework and a Nation's Competitiveness

2010-03-01T19:00:00.003-05:00

OpEd: Why Homework is Still Necessary?

by Guruprasad Madhavan
March 1, 2010 | The Washington Examiner

At a recent dinner, my boss asked me how I was able to routinely wake up before dawn. As I quickly thought through, I realized that I had developed this habit since I was in middle-school back in India.

Why? Homework.

Click Here to Read More at the Washington Examiner

2010 National Engineers Week Honor

2010-02-28T08:08:00.005-05:00

With Charles M. Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering and President-Emeritus of MIT and the District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies' "Young Engineer of the Year Award" in recognition of accomplishments in bioengineering, public outreach, and professional service to IEEE among other organizations. (Photo Courtesy: R. Burka/The National Academies)

An Economist and an Engineer go to Times Square

2010-01-05T16:00:00.003-05:00

The idea of going to Times Square on New Year's Eve sounded completely irrational, yet my Bosnian friend Milutin—who is a knowledgeable economist—was successful in convincing me to go with him. The glitter, the glamor, the celebration, the energy--and the unruly crowd--were a treat to observe; however, Milutin and I welcomed the New Year with an unusual conversation as we stood outside a souvenir shop near the Times Square Plaza that frigid, drizzly night. The topic? Nature and capacity of financial markets.

A couple minutes before midnight, as I wondered if markets were indeed moral, Milutin fired back quickly, with utter conviction: “Markets create life, destroy life, and reproduce life.” That sounded dramatic and powerful. "But wait," I paused. "Let's take a pedestrian view: Markets also create debt. What are we going to do about that?"

A sudden uproar in noise and energy distracted us. Times Square got all charged up with the countdown to the ball drop.

...10...9...8...people screamed louder

...6...5...the crowd was uncontrollably ecstatic

...3...2...and here it came...

The year 2010. The year of progress. The year of economic prosperity. (At least, that's the hope.)

Milutin couldn't wait a second. He picked up where I left: "You know how we can solve that problem [of debt]?"

"How?"

"By creating a bigger problem," Milutin joked in his dense accent. "That way you can make the original problem look smaller."

Milutin had a good point. Unfortunately, many rich countries have become good at solving problems by creating a bigger problem. This approach, as an economic strategy, is discouragingly unsustainable.

An article in the Economist (January 2, 2010) analyzes how developing economies have become different from rich countries: "Previous recessions have left most developing countries with their reputations for economic management in tatters, and with credibility to regain in capital markets. This time, it is the rich whose reputations have been damaged. The fiscal response of many emerging markets has enhanced their credibility, and they find themselves with an unexpected reputation for fiscal prudence. The debt-to-GDP ratio of the 20 largest emerging markets is only half that of the top 20 rich nations. Over the next few years rich countries’ debt will rise further, so emerging markets’ indebtedness will be only one-third of theirs by 2014."

Rich countries--the U.S. in particular--ran into a mess without a good vision and management. Many believe only systematic planning can get us out of this mess. Some are even hoping for a divine intervention. Interestingly, the Economist article also added: "[A] feature of the crisis has been that, with one or two exceptions, it seems not to have caused any fundamental shift of popular opinion. There has been no upsurge of angry pessimism, nor any significant backlash against capitalism or free markets. That doubtless explains much of the political composure. Compared with people in the West, those in big emerging markets seem in almost sunny mood. In China, India and Indonesia, according to the Pew Global Attitudes Project in Washington, DC, more than 40% of respondents say they are satisfied with their lives (in China the figure is 87%). In France, Japan and Britain, the share is below 30%. This is unusual: measures of 'life satisfaction' tend to rise with income, so you would expect levels to be lower in emerging markets, as they were in 2002-03. The reversal of that pattern may reflect a sense in those countries of their quick recovery."

After having borrowed so heavily from the future and having created the largest public debt in the history of mankind--I won’t be surprised if the Federal Reserve did more printing (of dollars) than all the U.S. newspapers last year--it'd be interesting to see how our 'political composure,' 'popular opinion,' and 'life satisfaction' changes over time.

As an E Train approached the jam-packed Port Authority station, while Milutin worried about whether we’d be able to board, the question that lingered for me was: Would we have to work like 23 hours every day over the next several decades to pay off our debts? Perhaps instead we just need more engineers to produce smarter and more creative technologies to do our work for us.

Let Top Students Go Forth and Prosper

2009-12-31T19:53:00.006-05:00

In a letter published in the Science magazine, Barbara Oakley—a co-editor of Career Development in Bioengineering and Biotechnology—and I argue against the protectionist attitude that expects the best students in science and engineering to stay within their formative disciplines. Top science and engineering students can actually be ambassadors of our professions by exploring and adopting varied career pathways.

---

Let Top Students Go Forth and Prosper
Guruprasad Madhavan and Barbara Oakley
Science 1 January 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5961, p. 32

The News of the Week story "Study finds science pipeline strong, but losing top students" (30 October 2009) decried the "steep drop in the percentage of the highest performing students taking science and engineering jobs." But why not let these talented, scientifically trained human catalysts shift gears and move into areas such as public policy, legislation, law, finance, economics, public relations, and yes, even entertainment—that seemingly silly place where ideas and visions are formed?

It would help to have scientifically trained policy makers and legislators who truly understand the scientific and technologic issues they are voting on, with enough clout to get others on board. It would also help to have management consultants and financial analysts who avoid entrenched mindsets and realize that some "visionary" business approaches are de facto Ponzi schemes.

A protectionist attitude that expects the best students to stay within their formative disciplines has pernicious consequences. Top students in science and engineering form a gift to society—and to the scientific enterprise—when they fly forth to pollinate areas of vital importance to the public discourse. Cross-disciplinary ambassadors should be encouraged, not discouraged, if we are to build a bright new, sustainable future.

What is Equilibrium Anyways?

2009-12-29T07:57:00.008-05:00

I had a memorable experience this past Christmas. I was giving a ride to two volunteers who I had met recently to a center for developmentally challenged. One of them was an economist; let’s call him ECON. The other one was in the real estate business; let’s call her REAL. Once our conversation took off, REAL asked ECON about the type of work he was involved in. ECON patiently and clearly explained his work on general equilibrium models and how they helped him study economic behaviors of different countries with changing variables. REAL was intrigued and kept asking more questions. One of them concerned the applications of equilibrium models. Describing them ECON thoughtfully included: policy analysis, food supply, labor projection, climate change, public finance, and foreign assistance.

My thought was far more basic, which I shied away from expressing: What is equilibrium anyways?

Later, a simple Google search confirmed it thus: “a stable situation in which forces cancel one another”; “balance: equality of distribution”; “The condition of a system in which competing influences are balanced, resulting in no net change.”

The words that stuck in my mind were: “no net change.”

As Washington—and the rest of the world—continues to make meaning out of the financial crisis, I cannot help but be concerned about the many linear, closed-loop, predictable feedback assumptions in the general equilibrium models—and the related efficient market hypothesis.

In a recent FT column, George Soros, the chairman of Soros Funds and author of ‘The Crash of 2008’ shares: “The philosophy that has helped me both in making money as a hedge fund manager and in spending it as a policy oriented philanthropist is not about money but about the complicated relationship between thinking and reality (emphasis added).” He adds: “the efficient market hypothesis holds that financial markets tend towards equilibrium and accurately reflect all available information about the future. Deviations from equilibrium are caused by exogenous shocks and occur in a random manner. The crash of 2008 falsified this hypothesis.” (I wish I had posted an amplified thought on August 23, 2009). Soros continues: “Instead of a tendency towards equilibrium, financial markets have a tendency to develop bubbles…the crash of 2008 was caused by the collapse of a super-bubble that has been growing since 1980. This was composed of smaller bubbles. Each time a financial crisis occurred the authorities intervened, took care of the failing institutions, and applied monetary and fiscal stimulus, inflating the super-bubble even further.”

The assumptions may be many, diverse, and quantitatively justified: economic forces—meaningfully or irrationally—may cancel off one other, explode in the form of bubbles one after another, or just cause an utterly undecipherable mess. But until we match our thinking to understand the robustly coupled, deeply networked, non-linear economic reality loaded with positive feedbacks, I’m worried that we’ll be left with a financial system with—guess what—“no net change.” This might not only cause incredibly bright and talented economists to change professions out of frustration--ECON actually does plan on leaving economics out of disappointment--but also leave many of us still wondering: what is equilibrium anyways?

Choosing Values over GDP

2009-12-23T15:52:00.008-05:00

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his recent spectacular state visit to Washington, thoughtfully remarked comparing China and India's competitive growth in GDP: "I've always believed that there are other values which are important than the growth of the gross domestic product. I think the respect for fundamental human rights, the respect for the rule of law, the respect for multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious rights, I think those have values also." Listening to an economist valuing human rights over GDP was unusually refreshing and heartwarming. If Dr. Singh is perhaps that interested in a non-quantitative standard of measurement, he may want to look toward Bhutan--situated right next door to India--that employs Gross National Happiness (GNH) as a performance metric. It'd be an interesting academic exercise to consider the application--or adaptation--of GNH in light of India's mass, scale, diversity, and ferocious growth. I bet that'll be a Nobel achievement.

A Pill to Cure the "Disease of my Generation"

2009-12-08T07:03:00.009-05:00

Dr. T. Ramasami, India's secretary of science and technology, is a man with two boons: vision and vigor. He tops them with another valuable attribute: candor. At the recent India-U.S. Science and Technology Forum meeting held at the National Institutes of Health, he roared how a lack of an innovation culture was a "disease of his generation." My only hope is that disease is not infectious. And worse, if it spreads across generations.

A recent BusinessWeek piece titled India's Next Global Export: Innovation describes the state of affairs in corporate India. I believe the jugaad--"somehow get it done," quick or dirty--culture may be a necessary (and perhaps, lucrative) condition but not sufficient to achieve Dr. Ramasami's vision: "Focus on the purpose of the innovation than the process of innovation." It remains to be seen if Indian companies and entrepreneurs absorb this point. While a galactic amount of thoughts have been recorded about innovation, FT columnist John Kay neatly captures the essence: "Important contributions to commercial innovation come from new businesses...which see opportunities that others have missed. Most of these opportunities do not actually exist and the innovations fail. But only a few such entrepreneurs have to be right to change the face of business. Other innovations come from successful companies...which may not be at the frontiers of science but are in close touch with consumers. Like all business success, innovative success is based on matching capabilities to market."

"Matching capabilities to market": therein lies the formula of Apple, Google, Grameen, and Facebook. That's the "purpose of innovation." That's also the secret to developing the pill that'll cure the "disease" that Dr. Ramasami is worried about.

The Hidden Costs of Waiting

2009-11-09T11:10:00.017-05:00

The wait seemed to be longer than 15 minutes. That’s how long we were originally told our wait would be before my friend Kate and I could tour Thomas Jefferson’s gorgeous mountaintop home in Monticello.

The idea of waiting for something intrigued us. It was kind of unusual.

We pursued a simple mathematical enquiry: how much time do we lose in our lives just waiting for something?

Let’s see, usually: Waiting for the computer to boot up One minute? Waiting in a drive-thru line for coffee. Two minutes? Waiting for a bus or train. Five minutes? Waiting for a movie ticket. Five to ten minutes? Waiting for airport security clearance. Ten to fifteen minutes? Waiting for the traffic to clear during the rush hour? Well, it depends. Waiting for a ride in the Disneyland during summer vacation? Let’s not even think about it.

With that said—ignoring all other time losses—we conservatively estimated losing an average of ten minutes every day. This would mean a loss of about one hour a week. That’s fifty two hours per year. And over a seventy year lifetime, that’s almost half a year!

A year in our lives might vanish just because of waiting.

We were trying hard to digest this number. Our exuberant tour guide relieved us by breaking the wait and showing the way toward the mansion's main entrance.

We couldn’t help but continue to wonder: what are the externalities—indirect economic impact—of waiting? Coffee may help wake us up, but could waiting for it everyday technically shorten our lifespan? Is texting during waiting considered productive?

Thankfully, something else distracted us: the Great Clock at the entrance of Jefferson’s reception room. The clock was indeed ticking away…

Are you listening to me?

2009-11-05T13:51:00.013-05:00

While my colleagues in Washington are panicking about the federal deficit, I am more worried about our attention-deficit. I was recently listening to a wonkish talk at a conference. The red light on my Blackberry was relentlessly blinking for my attention. I didn't want to appear rude and so walked toward the exit of the auditorium to take a break and quickly scan my messages. Quickly turning back for a second, I was surprised to find that a majority of the conference attendees were robustly fixated on their phones or laptops. It made me wonder on my Metro ride back home: has technology (addiction) transformed us into multi-taskers but with compromised listening--and therefore, communication--skills? Bronwyn Fryer of the Harvard Business Review believes we are "locked into a mode of continuous partial attention." She crisply summarizes a 1957 article that lays forth four essential processes that would constitute effective listening:

"(1) The listener thinks ahead of the talker, trying to anticipate what the oral discourse is leading to and what conclusions will be drawn from the words spoken at the moment.

(2) The listener weighs the evidence used by the talker to support the points that he makes. "Is this evidence valid?" the listener asks himself. "Is it the complete evidence?"

(3) Periodically the listener reviews and mentally summarizes the points of the talk completed thus far.

(4) Throughout the talk, the listener 'listens between the lines' in search of meaning that is not necessarily put into spoken words. He pays attention to nonverbal communication (facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice) to see if it adds meaning to the spoken words. He asks himself, 'Is the talker purposely skirting some area of the subject? Why is he doing so?'"

This is a useful refresher. But as we know, times, technology, and listening skills have changed since 1957. And as Fryer rightly asks, "is listening an endangered skill?" Moreover, what can we do to resurrect and nourish our listening skills in an attention-deficit economy?

Just Ignoring Barriers

2009-10-30T06:40:00.007-04:00

While growing up, the exceptionally talented Carol Greider, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak, suffered from dyslexia—a developmental learning disability. Because of this condition, Greider bombed her GRE’s and was rejected by many graduate schools. Elizabeth Blackburn, then at UC Berkeley, fortunately spotted Greider's talent, and hired her as a graduate student. “Dyslexia,” observes Liza Mundy while recently profiling Greider in the Washington Post, “arguably was responsible for the prize itself—or at least, for the series of decisions that put Greider on the path to winning.”

At a time when we are facing challenges with the recruitment and retention of more women in science and engineering, Greider’s story is a refreshing bolus of inspiration. “I didn’t ever feel like I had been blocked by anything,” says Greider. “I was pre-selected by being somebody that just ignored barriers.”

Can you Love a Book, Yet Revile its Author?

2009-10-27T09:28:00.008-04:00

Marjorie Kehe believes the "answer must be yes." A book editor for the Christian Science Monitor, Kehe raises thoughtful questions in her editorial: "When we read and feel we connect deeply with an author, who or what is it that has actually spoken to us? And why is it that learning something about that author’s life can sometimes provoke deep disappointment? Does the confusion that may result come from knowing the author too little – or is it that, when we read him, we simply know him differently?"

My general reaction: these questions not just apply to books and authors; they could be easily extended to music and composers, art and architects, movies and directors, sports and coaches, corporations and CEOs, inventions and inventors, legislations and politicians, and surely, college lectures and professors. It's uniquely--and scientifically--intriguing how we sometimes tend to love a creation, or its impact, even when we don't favorably regard the creator.

Titanic or Canoes?

2009-10-23T18:34:00.008-04:00

Mark Muro and Sarah Rahman's start off their article "Nobels, Labs, Hubs, and Breakthroughs" in the New Republic with a valid observation:

"…the three scientists who shared the [2009 Nobel Prize in Physics] won for work that helped harness light in ways that hastened the development of, yes, the Internet but also the entire digital camera revolution. That’s a pretty big pay-off. But there’s another more specific and timely takeaway: All three of the laureates this year carried out their groundbreaking work while working at corporate research labs. And that’s actually a problem, because labs like the ones this year’s laureates worked in don’t really exist now.”

I cannot agree more with Muro and Rahman. Even though organizations such as the Bell labs have been crucial over the last 60 years in giving birth to many inventions—like the transistor, photovoltaics, laser and telecommunication technology—such Titanic models have become antiquated. I think many high impact products of the 21^st century will continue to emerge from garages around the country. When it comes to supporting garage entrepreneurs, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman puts it best in an interview with Foreign Policy: “I want so many people throwing crazy dollars at every idea, in every garage, that we have 100,000 people trying 100,000 things, five of which might work, and two might be the next green Google.”

So to get to our destination, would it be useful to build a Titanic or float thousands of canoes?

An Inconvenient Indian Truth

2009-10-21T05:33:00.007-04:00

My friend Subbiah Arunachalam, an energetic scholar and activist based in South India, forwarded me the link to a recent UNICEF report "Diarrhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done." The report cites that "an estimated 2.5 billion people were lacking improved sanitation facilities." Nearly one in four people practice "indiscriminate or open defecation"; 83% of those are in 13 developing countries and India tops the list with 665 million people--that's more than the population of two U.S.A's. Furthermore, the report notes: "children’s feces are often unsafely disposed of in many developing countries. Children’s stools tend to carry a higher pathogen load than adults’, and many children play in areas in which stools are found. Safely disposing of them is therefore critical for reducing the number of diarrhoea cases."

As Mr. Arunachalam writes in his email, "Apart from building schools and providing mid-day meals to children, we need to improve sanitation facilities all over India, especially in rural areas. Providing clean water and good toilets can prevent diarrhoea and reduce needless deaths. Non governmental organizations may get involved in promoting the construction of low-cost latrines all over rural India."

Is Crowdsourcing Risky?

2009-10-06T03:31:00.005-04:00

In an intriguing FT column (October 5, 2009) Michael Skapinker questions the wisdom of crowds and how they are not always reliable. Skapinker cites David Hirshleifer's research paper The Blind Leading the Blind (1993) and notes how "far easier and less time-consuming [it is] to rely on what other people decided."

Here's an extract that stood out: "Even well-informed professionals, such as doctors, follow the crowd. 'Most doctors are not at the cutting edge of research; their inevitable reliance upon what colleagues have done or are doing leads to numerous surgical fads,' Prof Hirshleifer wrote. Examples were elective hysterectomies on women past childbearing age or the routine removal of children’s tonsils.These now discredited procedures illustrate an important point about crowds. It has become fashionable to extol their wisdom. But crowds can be wrong. That empty restaurant could, for all the diners know, be better. The first few diners in the crowded restaurant might have been acting on a whim."

I agree. But choosing to go to an "expert" or failing alone is not always a sensible approach either--so where does this leave most of us?

Economics, Economists, and Economic Crisis

2009-09-29T03:20:00.005-04:00

"We are told that the worst is over. We will all be flush with cash again soon. But in the meantime, do not worry about employment statistics – they are bound to take a beating for a while yet. " In an aptly titled Financial Times article "What did we really learn from the economic crisis?" Emma Bonino, vice-president of Italy’s senate and a council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations continues, "As for international security and our defence commitments, our boys in Afghanistan will do well on a reduced budget. Forget about climate change. We cannot afford green economies at the moment; the health of the planet needs to wait."

The economic crisis can be equated to multiple organ failure. Tempting it may sound, but we cannot get away looking organs one at a time--for instance, the collapse of the banking industry, followed by the automobile kingdom. What we do need to do, however, is to explore the interstices and coupling--or decoupling--of these issues instead of treating them as separate entities. Economics and economists have been blind to this notion--read for example, 2008 Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman's New York Times article on this: "Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field’s problems. More important was the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy." This is where economics got into trouble-- "the economists were seduced by the vision of a perfect frictionless market system." Krugman recalling the words of H. L. Mencken--“There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong”--nails it: "When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right." Not with Keynes, but Darwin, are directions toward this vision.

The Curse of Kelvin

2009-09-23T05:22:00.005-04:00

In Do not Discount What You Cannot Measure, John Kay, a columnist for the Financial Times, effectively notes that bogus quantifications really add to nothing. It'll be interesting to see how we end up quantifying the economic performance of President Obama's 2009 R&D stimulus package...

Great people don't always get recognition they deserve -- Barry Fagin, Colarado Springs Gazette

2009-09-17T05:39:00.003-04:00

An extract from a terrific op-ed on Norman Borlaug, one of my greatest heros and a contributor to Career Development in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. Barry Fagin--author of this piece published in the Colorado Springs Gazette (Sep 16, 2009)--is a research associate at the Independence Institute.

-----------------------------------------

GUEST COLUMNIST: Great people don't always get recognition they deserve

Barry Fagin, 2009-09-16

“Woe unto my soul! A great man has died. Would that my eyes were a pool of tears that I could weep for him.”

I hadn’t thought about the rabbi’s words at my grandfather’s funeral for 25 years. Then I picked up Monday’s paper. Norman Borlaug’s death at the age of 95 brought them back with crystalline clarity.

Most of you haven’t heard of Norm, as he insisted everyone call him. That’s because he doesn’t fit our preconceived ideas of greatness. A great man must be famous, powerful, wealthy, and otherworldly, or at least some combination thereof. Norm was none of these. He did manage to save the lives of a billion people, give or take a million. So that ought to count for something.

Borlaug was a scientist, not the first profession that comes to mind when you think of a “great man.” Sure, Einstein was a great scientist, but would he make your Top 10 list of great men?

Trying to understand how the world works is among the noblest and most inspiring tasks humanity can undertake. Unfortunately, it just isn’t part of how our culture defines greatness.

Unlike Einstein, Borlaug was not a physicist. He was an agricultural scientist, which means he learned about the plants people ate so he could figure out how to improve them. In other words, he tampered with nature. Big time.

Borlaug’s “shuttle breeding” enabled him to genetically improve wheat twice as fast as conventional techniques. Thanks to him, Mexico changed from a massive wheat importer to complete self-sufficiency. He later brought similar successes to India, Pakistan, China and the Philippines. How many of us can say we enabled an entire country to feed its people?

So why isn’t Borlaug’s name a household word? Why will you never see a poster of him on a classroom wall? Because he doesn’t fit the agenda of those who define greatness by the amount of power they have, their sanctimonious pronouncements on the rest of humanity, and how desperately they want to save the planet. You know the type. They’ve all got appointments in the present administration.

Interesting article: How toxic finance created an unstable world

2009-08-27T09:46:00.003-04:00

This article is almost at the verge of acknowledging the coupling between economic and financial behaviors. Written by Wolfgang Münchau; Source: Financial Times, August 23, 2009.

Recognition for Bridging Engineering and Humanities

2009-07-31T07:52:00.005-04:00

Abridged from ASABE News Release, July 8, 2009

ST JOSEPH, MICHIGAN—The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers has named Guruprasad Madhavan winner of the 2009 Robert E. Stewart Engineering–Humanities Award. Currently a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering at the State University of New York at Binghamton, Madhavan was honored for his dedication and outstanding contributions toward bridging the worlds of bioengineering and social humanitarianism.

Madhavan says, "Engineering is poorly communicated, even though it is fundamentally coupled to all aspects of society and culture. I am fortunate to have gained crosscutting experiences in product development and public outreach. This in turn has taught me that engineers have a basic responsibility: to be communicators and far-reaching ambassadors of our profession. Only by reaching across disciplines can we create unforeseen coalitions for improving health, food security, and environment."

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers is an international educational and scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to biological, agricultural, and food systems. Founded in 1907 and headquartered in St Joseph, Michigan, ASABE comprises 9,000 members representing more than 100 countries.

Profile in the IEEE Institute

2009-07-14T07:08:00.002-04:00

Pump Up The Volume: Guruprasad Madhavan
BY SUSAN KARLIN
Imagine if some of humanity’s most common ailments could be managed by improving blood circulation. That’s the hope of Guruprasad Madhavan, a biomedical engineer nominated by IEEE/IEEE-USA and selected as one of the New Faces of Engineering for 2009.

Click here for the full article

Famous Failures

2009-06-19T07:01:00.001-04:00

AAMI Honors Six Medical Leaders

2009-06-05T16:13:00.003-04:00

From AAMI News: Six Leaders Honored for Contributions to Medical Technology

Guruprasad Madhavan: Future Innovator

Guruprasad Madhavan is laying the groundwork for noninvasive therapy to solve chronic health problems. In recognition of his efforts, he is the recipient of the 2009 AAMI/ BD Professional Achievement Award.

Madhavan is currently pursuing an innovative medical device concept that could result in a non-invasive, portable, neuromuscular stimulation therapy to enhance lower limb circulation. The effort could help with circulation-related ailments such as heart failure and osteoporosis.

"This recognition has utterly boosted my enthusiasm to better communicate — and represent — biomedical engineering to the general public and political community," Madhavan says. "Their engagement is crucial if we are serious about influencing public policy, improving technology access, fueling career development, and spreading the many social innovations related to biomedical engineering."

Think Different

2009-05-28T22:37:00.001-04:00

New Faces of Engineering 2009

2009-02-18T15:37:00.009-05:00

"Each year the National Engineers Week Foundation asks its members to nominate colleagues 30 years old and younger for consideration as one of the New Faces of Engineering. This year's class of 14 honoreesreflects many of the most pressing issues that engineers are working to solve on a global scale, including energy resource conservation, global climate change, infrastructure renewal, disease prevention, and national security."

Related Press Release| Related Article in BU PipeDream

A New Role for Graduate Students: Scientific Advisors for Local Governments

2009-01-30T07:43:00.005-05:00

Published in the American Physiological Society's Physiologist, June 2009

Leaning against one of the fluted Doric columns of the Lincoln Memorial one recent evening, I wondered how many visitors around me—avidly photographing the inspirational Georgian marble statue of the 16^th President—would know of his pivotal contribution to science and technology. My guess: Not many.

Even as the Civil War raged about him, Lincoln recognized the importance of scientific advice in nation building. Thus, he signed off on the formation of the National Academy of Sciences with Alexander Bache—the great grandson of Benjamin Franklin—as the Academy’s first president in 1863. Since then, the organization—now called the National Academies, along with the National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council—has come a long way to become one of the most powerful repositories of authoritative advice on domestic and global policy issues involving science, engineering, and medicine. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the Academy relies on volunteerism. Some of the nation’s brightest minds voluntarily provide vital scientific input to dispense legislative policy prescriptions.

A similar voluntary advisory model could be beneficial for every county or region in the United States. After all, we have the regional intellectual resources in the form of universities—thousands of them across the country. Tapping these regional resources could be as useful for leaders in the local government as the National Academies is for the federal government. Think of it: right now most state senators, assemblymembers, county executives, city mayors, legislature, commissioners and directors of the numerous county departments, boards, agencies, or initiatives do not have ready access to—or input from—the scientific information relevant to their region. The local universities could provide vital advice to governing officials on a plethora of challenges including bootstrapping career development and entrepreneurship, improving standards of school education, increasing the public visibility of their community, multiplying the competitiveness of the workforce, mitigating diseases, preserving the region’s natural resources, adding new energy and transportation technologies, and reducing violence.

This is where graduate students could spawn a new movement by serving as advisors to their local governments. The basic objective would be to provide government officials a new—scientific—framework on issues. Perhaps, as importantly, the students could help communicate the scientific vernacular to the political audience with a fresh voice and renewed zeitgeist.

From a moral standpoint, “every citizen has a civic duty to participate in community affairs” says Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine and former provost of Harvard University. “Scientists and engineers have special [responsibility and] expertise to contribute.”

My friend, Sarah Carter relates to these sentiments. Carter, a neuroscientist by training, was thrown into the deep end of the policy world a few years ago when her father decided to run for the U.S. Senate. Carter was still a graduate student at the University of California, San Francisco, but she knew she had to contribute what she could to her father’s campaign. “In addition to working on the official campaign website and online outreach, I began to dig into the policy questions that would come up during the campaign,” says Carter. “As the scientist in the family,” she notes, “my dad would look to me for help in explaining the background and options on a wide range of issues―stem cell research, cloning, climate change and nuclear waste. I found that as a scientist, I was able to quickly ramp up to speed on a surprising variety of public policy issues [that I would have otherwise not been exposed to].”

When I asked if she would have done anything differently while in graduate school, Carter—who now advises the officials of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on policies related to climatic disruption—added: “I would have looked for more opportunities to get involved not only in policy positions, but also in political issues and campaigns. Policy and politics have a very close relationship and being involved in either can help one understand how ideas evolve and how change is created. Also, I would have looked for more chances to explain science to non-scientific audiences. Developing that skill is critical for scientists and engineers.”

This brings me to an important point: why we should mobilize graduate students for advising our local government? Simple: The graduate students and their respective university organization are a powerhouse of talent, motivation, scholarship, and diversity. They are the backbone of research, development, and advancement at universities and arguably the least explored resource for improving governance. They are a resource you can drill continuously and still never drain dry!

David Goldston, former chief of staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, and a columnist for the journal Nature, offers a practical view on how to galvanize graduate students to be more active in policy and politics. “In general, graduate students in science, engineering, and management should be encouraged to read and study more about politics, policy and related subjects than they do. Too bad, they are often actively dissuaded from doing this.”

Goldston’s words emphasize the crucial role of educators in the advising model. Without their encouragement and motivation, it is difficult for students to emerge from their academic cocoons. One useful strategy, therefore, would be to have the university president, provost, vice-presidents, deans, department chairs, graduate program directors, research advisors, and the government relations officers join forces to help connect graduate students to local officials.

I am confident that many graduate students would be eager to go beyond nitty-gritty technical discourses to help our community officials gain an understanding of the implications of extant or emerging research and technologies. That is why “it’s important,” as Goldston notes, that “graduate students or anyone else not just think that they are ‘smart’ people walking in to tell official the ‘facts’ so that they’ll know what to do. Most policy questions involve—and should involve—matters beyond science and engineering. Lack of information is not usually the only or primary cause of delayed action or of action a particular individual may disagree with.”

So, here’s a focal question: would the government officials actually listen to graduate students? “Absolutely!” says Rochester area Assemblyman David Koon, formerly an engineer at Bausch & Lomb. “We need to show everyone how easy it is to influence their government officials. The one reason elected officials would—and should—listen to students is because, ultimately, they need their VOTE. I know that all of us are very busy; most of us spend so much time online, text-messaging, or making phone calls each day yet—the sad part is—most students or constituents don’t even know who actually represents them at any level.”

Assemblyman Koon’s point calls for a fundamental rekindling of our spirit of volunteerism, one that is underpinned, not by convenience, but commitment. If graduate students and the broader scientific community continue to remain as casual observers of the political process, we can only curb—not accelerate—our economic development. The same will still be true if the political community continues lobbying for more financial capital without paying attention to the local intellectual capital.

A moral commitment is essential, argues Harvey Fineberg’s colleague William Wulf, who was president of the National Academy of Engineering from 1997 to 2006. In an editorial in November 14, 2008 issue of the Science magazine, Wulf, and past vice-chair of the National Science Board Anita Jones, note: “Too often we have heard ‘I am too busy,’ or ‘my research is my service to the country,’ or various disparaging remarks about government bureaucrats and not wanting to be associated with them. There are several reasons why technically literate people should serve. First, they are needed. The world is more technologically sophisticated than it has ever been, and today most public policy issues have technical dimensions. Without sound technical input, some bad public policy will result. Without unrelenting oversight by individuals with technical expertise to ensure sound implementation, foolish actions will be taken.” Wulf and Jones bluntly conclude: “Every one has a contribution to make. Shouting from the sidelines does not work. And if the technical community does not engage, we will get what we deserve.”

Every year, our universities train tens of thousands of highly qualified graduate students. This coming semester, if one—just one—graduate student from each university is given the opportunity to ascend to a new public responsibility that would be a perfect tribute to Lincoln’s vision on the 200^th anniversary of his birth.

Creating Scientific Ambassadors: Raising the public's perception of engineering

2008-12-24T17:13:00.006-05:00

Office of Science and Technology of the Embassy of Austria, Washington, DC
bridges vol. 20, December 2008 / OpEds & Commentaries

"We have not been very impressive at communicating the broad impact of our profession to other disciplines - and to society as a whole. Therefore, we believe that one of the most important, but overlooked, grand challenges is to recognize the importance of continually creating ambassadors to represent science and engineering to a broader audience.In other words, it is incumbent upon us, as a technology-based civilization, to help train individuals who can serve as envoys who can apply, translate, and communicate science and engineering to society as a whole."

Full Article: http://www.ostina.org/content/view/3749/1114
Audio: http://www.ostina.org/images/stories/mp3/Vol20_ScientificAmbassadors.mp3
Article Reprinted with Permission from the American Society of Mechanical Engineering

Engineering New Careers: Improving and promoting technical education

2008-12-03T07:47:00.009-05:00

(c) Press & Sun Bulletin, New York
December 3, 2008

Wen Jiabao gets it. As premier of China, he understands how important career development is for competitiveness. And as a geologist, he had the challenge of his career to get his nation quickly back on track when one of the most deadly earthquakes ripped through China and swallowed more than 65,000 lives barely three months before the Olympics.

A man of strong character, Mr. Jiabao believes in the potential of China’s scientists and engineers, and wants to develop their careers and competitiveness to the best of his government’s capacity.

Currently, when most of the world is traumatized by the juggernaut of a financial meltdown, premier Wen is keeping his eye on the horizon. He wants to catapult his country ahead of others in the race of competitiveness. Two months ago, I had the pleasure of listening to Mr. Jiabao share this comprehensive vision, while I was at a World Economic Forum gathering of preeminent government and business leaders at Tianjin, China. (Coincidentally, the premier was also dealing with tainted milk crisis in his country at that time.) Wen Jiabao has seen his native Tianjin—a port city situated 100 miles east of Beijing—spring from poverty and depression to become a skyscraping hub for hundreds of nano-, info-, and bio-tech companies. With about 15,000 students, Tianjin has a modern university close to the size of Binghamton University. While at the conference, I had the opportunity to meet with many engineering students. Over a dinner, I was fortunate to get a glimpse of their ideas and deeper vision for their home country. More interestingly, many of them were keen to know how engineering was taught in the United States.

I shared an observation that my mentor, a former vice chancellor of the University of Madras in India made in response to my similar question a few years ago. Slowly sipping his coffee, and recollecting his considerable teaching experiences in the United States, Canada, and of course, India, he opined: the educators in India typically lay out the nuts and bolts for the students to construct an object that they are conceptually unaware of. Within the constraints of the resources, the students then work toward constructing the object only to find out—in the end—that what they have built is actually an elephant. The final product usually gives the students and educators a feeling of accomplishment. However, in the United States, he added, "many educators tend to show the elephant right up front. Not every one is attracted to an elephant at the first sight and alas, many run far—really far—away from it."

Although, one may not fully agree with my mentor’s view, let’s face it, one of the serious challenges United States is currently facing is to make technical education a top choice for students. Many high school students who I have talked to around the country, are just not attracted to engineering. Undergraduate students frequently find themselves disconnected from engineering. And worse, graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and young faculty members are increasingly facing career fatigue in "hard sciences."

One way to begin thinking about this serious issue would be to come up with a better marketing strategy for engineering. In his invigorating book The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki, former Apple Evangelist with Steve Jobs, shares this story: "I recently met an entrepreneur who wanted to start an online service to enable people create trusts for their pets. She was concerned that sometimes people died before their animals. Her pitch hinged on the fact that nine million pets are euthanized every year in the United States. My first reaction, as a venture capitalist, was that nine million pets may get euthanized, but not all of them because their owners died. Few are probably euthanized for this reason, so the market isn’t as big as she thinks. My second reaction, as a dog owner (Rocky Kawasaki, boxer) was that she was right: what will happen to Rocky? He wasn’t included in any of my family’s wills and trusts." "The lesson is," Guy underscores, "position your product or service in the most personal way you can. ‘What happens to Rocky?’ is much more powerful than ‘What happens to the nine million pets?’"

The message here is simple: we need to position engineering in the most personal way we can. By that I mean, we should be marketing engineering as a truly rewarding vehicle for career development, and not as an insurmountable elephant that scares people away. One strategy at a local level could include creating a coalition for career development among the regional high schools, Broome Community College, Binghamton University, the Education Outreach Program of the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, and the Binghamton Section of the IEEE, world’s largest engineering and professional society. Such a coalition should include active participation ranging from the students through educators; parents through the press; and administrators through the City Mayor. A principal goal of the coalition should be to propel students and young professionals to move into a multitude of non-traditional career pathways. To that end, the coalition should engage practitioners from academia, industry, legislative lawmaking, business management, nursing, medicine, public health, law, food sciences, agriculture, environmental sciences, technology transfer, commercial and social start-up ventures, finance, consulting, forensics, energy, public policy, sports, creative writing, media, journalism, public relations, economics, entertainment, animation, and fashion design—all representing pathways for career development in engineering. The coalition should ultimately conduct heavily interactive, practice-based career development courses at all the local educational institutions.

Coalitions such as this will be invaluable for at least two reasons: First, to break the rigid pattern of teaching and marketing of technical sciences. Second, to help students and professionals capitalize on unforeseen opportunities and creative partnerships residing beyond engineering. The alternative—risky—option for our community and profession would be to continue sleep walking into the era of cut-throat competitiveness when such cities as Tianjin are setting the standards for real prosperity.

"Career Development in Bioengineering and Biotechnology"

2008-11-28T20:09:00.018-05:00

Guruprasad Madhavan, Barbara Oakley, Luis Kun (Editors); Springer, New York, 536 pp; Listed Price: US $39.95; Endorsed by the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering;
Testimonials and Table of Contents

--------------
Institute Professor Dr. Robert Langer, the Millennium Technology Prize and the U.S. National Medal of Science Laureate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes in his foreword: "This book provides a wealth of information and should serve as an excellent resource. The editors have gone to great effort to discuss a variety of critical topics in the burgeoning areas of bioengineering and biotechnology."

In his introduction to the book, Dr. Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of Science and the President-Emeritus of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the co-chair of the InterAcademy Council shares that: "I am very impressed with the enormous dedication and skill that created this major, highly-original contribution – I know of nothing like it."

Dr. Joachim Nagel, the President of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine, and the past president of IFMBE, writes in his editorial: "This book provides all the answers and can be highly recommended as the ultimate guide to anyone interested in bioengineering and biotechnology. The book arrives at a crucial time, and catapults bioengineering and biotechnology to the forefront of disciplines and to a rightly held pinnacle of inspiration for engineers, scientists, and technologists."

In the afterword for the volume, University Professor Dr. Shu Chien of University of California San Diego, and the President of the Biomedical Engineering Society and the past president of the American Physiological Society and of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, notes that "This is truly an outstanding book that is the first of its kind...certainly a pioneering contribution."

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