SoCal Minds

Where are all the engineers? Tackling 'grand challenges'

From USC

Look around the halls, classrooms and labs across the Southland that normally will be filled with engineers and their aspiring students and hold that mental picture, because all those spaces soon may be deserted and those folks gone. No, it won't be permanent. But for at least a few days this week, downtown and Exposition Park will be packed with a ginormous conclave of some of the top engineers, educators, corporate execs, policy-makers and others who hope to determine, lead, deepen and expand their field. It's part of the national 'grand challenge,' a gauntlet thrown down last year by the engineering national academy and answered, initially, by deans of the Trojan and Blue Devil schools who spearheaded the first summit on the Duke campus. This week a second such event will be here, with a student program already sold out, the added endorsement of the wizards in Pasadena, an address on educators' roles in the field by the top Mudder and RSVPs from a who's who of corporate and academic engineering. Skip the cliches about the slide rule crowd. But those in the field face some formidable labors as they respond to challenges they've been issued in four key categories: health, sustainability, vulnerability (security) and the 'joy of living.' What's all that means? Read deeper into the planned program ...

A who's who in the field gathers in L.A. to answer professional 'grand challenges'

Click here to learn more about the national academy's 'grand challenges'

Fun and games take on a global, serious spin for these 2

From Harvey Mudd & LA Trade Tech

Sudoku's a relatively simpler part of it; they take on knottier intellectual pastimes. And now, in a reflection of the robust kinds of activities that kids undertake on campuses across the area, a national team of competitors that includes a Mudder will travel to Warsaw next month to try to bring home the big prize at the World Puzzle Championship. Go figure. Palmer Mebane, a junior math major out in Claremont (shown at right), concedes in his online bio that he studies a lot, socializes little and may be about as introverted as he can be. But he's a puzzle-meister who placed third in the country in solving complex logic games that include but far exceed the ordinary, newspaper published Sudokus, putting him on the Poland-bound team.

A puzzle-meister from Claremont heads to Poland for world competition 

Click here for Mebane's personal puzzle site

And speaking of making the team, there's good news and a positive message from a downtown Los Angeles student who has been picked for the 2012 U.S. Paralympics team. David Rios, the youngest member of an L.A. Clippers-sponsored wheel chair basketball squad, now will travel to London to compete in the international games. He says the athletics have been great for him, but equally or more so, has been his academic experiences, which he notes, started with a despairing online search several years ago after he was disabled in an accident. He talks frankly about growing up in a tough neighborhood, taking up with gangs, doing prison time -- and why no one should ever give up on himself. He hopes to get a four-year degree, works now in the school's writing center helping others and urges people to reach high and dream big.

From Trade Tech to 2012 London games, life looks up for an L.A. scholar-athlete

2 big breakthroughs for women in science, engineering

From Caltech & Harvey Mudd

Have ya come a long way, baby? Well, to reposition that catch phrase of a cigarette-maker targeting women, there are glimmers of female advancement in one of the bruising mostly male, professional bastions -- the areas of science and engineering. Take, for example, the presentation by the fellas in Pasadena of the prestigious International von Karman Wings Award, one of the institution's highest to, gasp, a woman for the first time. Yes, Joanne Maguire, of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., is the first female in the prize's quarter-century history to be honored for her 'sustained and visionary accomplishments in aerospace,' and her 'leadership in advanced-technology systems for national security, civil, and commercial markets, including projects on human space flight systems, communication satellites, strategic and missile defense systems, and interplanetary spacecraft.' The Bruin alum already had been won numerous industry accolades in her path-breaking career at Lockheed and TRW. One does not, by the way, say 'atta girl,' or 'you go, girl,' for her considerable accomplishment, though surely she would merit and appreciate the gauchely framed praise.

It's a first for a woman: Lockheed exec wins top international aerospace award

Click here for more info on the International von Karman Wings Award

And, will women like Maguire find worth successors soon in another recently noted harbinger out of Claremont? One of the nation's top-ranked but small colleges that churns out elite scientists and engineers has reported a milestone of its own in its 55-year history with its incoming class of 2014: For the first time, women Mudders will outnumber men, 102 on the distaff side (such as the coeds shown in photo at right, participating in fall orientation activities) to 95 lucky lads. A decade's push for diversity gets the credit for slowly bending the gender curve, not just in the school's student population but potentially in the employers and research institutions where the school's graduates typically and successfully land. And, while there's reason to revel in the most recent admission stats, which come atop some 1990s era recruiting in which classes had as few as 20% women in them, well, the reality still is that the overall population among the Mudders is 58% male and 42% female. With a 15% increase in applications this year and the opportunity to pick and choose a gifted bunch of students, the female head of the school promises that affirmative change will remain a priority.

It's a first in 55 years for those Mudders: women outnumber men in class of 2014

Why, look: Who isn't rating or ranking schools just now?

From UCLA, UCR, Claremont McKenna & Harvey Mudd

Well, alrighty, then. Be careful. An innocent's eye could be lost to a stray brass button flying off the praise-swollen bosoms of the administrators and alums of various area schools as the (silly) season of published ratings drags on. We pledged at this site to ignore these rankings, even when Trojans inched ahead of Bruins in a certain newsweekly's tally. Is there any point, besides arguments in a bar, about these scorings, which, in their usual more sensible moments, those in the Ivy Towers work so hard to bad mouth and downgrade. So we're not going to reach and report how the folks in Riverside have gotten a Top 20 ranking from the Goldwater Institute for their administrative-financial rectitude. And when cats in Claremont cite their standing in surveys on workplace pay or in grad school placement, we're just going to turn away. Or when the kind folks in Westwood compile a whole lot of their bragging rights, not the least of which is a rating of institutions around the globe by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, we'll zip past it, too? Lastly, when some other folks on the eastern edge of the metropolis tout their focus on community service and the role it plays to win their school national attention, well, we'll just skip over a certain iconoclastic DC outfit's views on how schools stack up for their contribution to the public good. How 'bout it?

How secure, cool can high-tech communications be?

From UCLA, Harvey Mudd & USC

Hey, put down that smart phone and put those smarts to use in thinking about the ubiquity and perils of communication in the age of technology. In Westwood, computer scientists say they have turned, whew, to quantam mechanics to boost location-based, cryptographic security systems, allowing, researchers say, for those in need to be able to send messages safely to other parties by knowing they actually are at a presumed, precise geographic location. The details are more than a bit beyond James Bond-ish but they include potentially protecting messages sent to military bases, averting attempts to 'spoof' the system by applying a quantum 'no cloning' principle, and, well, read the info and see ... Meantime, in Claremont, see that for those not Luddites like us older folks, this secure communications stuff is known enough that cutting-edge undergrads are splitting off protons and figuring how to employ them in spy-proof transmissions. The kids even take to video to explain it all (see below). And if all this tech talk may seem a little high blown for swift consumption, well, it eventually translates into wider application and a Trojan communications and technology expert talks through what some of it means in a nifty briefing on the latest and greatest, from voting for favorites on American Idol to why it's worth paying attention to the growing use of smart phones by African Americans and Latinos to access the net. 

For SoCal engineers, reports of salary bounty ahead

From Harvey Mudd

With an undergraduate education costing as much as a cool quarter million bucks or so these days, guess it makes a lot of sense for parents and students to pay hefty attention to what all this schooling eventually results in, in terms of pay. So, it's been said before, but a web site focused on some aspects of collegiate economics has underscored it again: If midcareer salary surveys and their results matter, it pays to be an engineer who was educated in California, where the Mudders and the guys and gals in Pasadena score in the No. 1 and No. 4 slots, respectively, with places like Dartmouth, Princeton and Harvard in between em. There also are online rankings for liberal arts schools and their students' later-life pay. Guess studies like these, as well as the annual 'best' ratings by magazines and others, need to be taken with due skepticism, particularly since only those who are faring particulary well with their paychecks are inclined to answer salary surveys and there are other caveats galore about data and rankings. But, go figure, none of that's going to stop the water cooler chatter, is it?

When it comes to midcareer pay, here's Mudd in your eye

Here's the financial low-down on collegiate salary survey from CNN Money

Click here for PayScale's 2010-11 annual college salary report

2 different ways to answer, sort of, 'Quien es mas macho?'

From LACMA & Harvey Mudd

With the weather promising to be as fine as it can be, it should be the perfect time to man up, so to speak, in a smart Southern California fashion by taking in some oorah activities in the next few days. On Sunday, for example, jog don't stroll over to Wilshire Boulevard to catch the opening of the 'Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins.' The iconic American artist, back in the day, got himself in unending hot water for his sexy paintings, his bracing realism and his then outre teaching methods, including, gasp, nude models -- naked men posing for classes with women in them and naked women in classes with men in 'em. His life and works, including the recently Los Angeles acquired 'Wrestlers,' (shown at right) have prompted lots of speculation about his sexuality but there's little doubt about his mastery and place in U.S. artistic accomplishment.

If on-screen manliness calls more, though, better hurry to sign up for the Monday bash in Claremont for the release of the Starcraft II. The top-selling, much praised video game -- which has proved to be a huge-grossing global seller -- has beaucoups ties to Southern California, especially to Westwood, Irvine and Claremont. It's not exactly on every adult's screen. But the scheduled debut, which will include top competitors, food, beverages, T-shirts and prospects for scoring early-bird copies of Starcraft, is touted as one of the gaming events of the year. There's a fee to attend but the event will be streamed online; all the necessary links at the Mudders' page.

In Claremont, Pasadena possible pride on a fiscal note

From Harvey Mudd

It was a buzzword of the MBA crowd, a term of pride for the Wall Streeters in their go-go heyday. So here it is popping back up in a different setting and potentially exciting some schools, parents and alums, perhaps. ROI. There we said it. 'Return on investment.' If that fiscal measurement rings the chimes as an academic achievement, well, then, the folks in Pasadena and Claremont have an accolade to wear proudly. The whole concept turns on schools' costs, what grads will disclose as to what they really make and whether long projections of earnings accurately reflect reality. But based on data that an outfit called PayScale crunched, MIT grads get the best ROI, a calculated 12.6% return that could total a cool $1.9 million over 30 years; Caltech comes in close behind at 12.6%, too, but $1.64 million. The Mudders followed after Harvard, with the West Coasters racking up a 12.5% ROI and a $1.62 million return. As befitting an economic analysis of scholarly ROI, the Wall Street Journal succinctly says that if the measure matters most, be an in-state student attending a public school (9.8% average annualized ROI) or go to a private school (9.1%) but think hard about being an out-of-state student at a public school (8.4%). Data was amassed from 1.4 million graduates of 852 public and private institutions.

Caltech, Harvey Mudd score high on ranking by return on investment

How the WSJ breaks down the ROI info

Click here for the fuller PayScale ROI list

A global outlook, with powerful possibilities, video, water

From Harvey Mudd, USC & LMU

Besides exposing them to big-time academics, serious scholarship and abundant sunshine, schools across the region have gone deep on steeping their students in global ideas, issues and concerns. And what results for young folks and their profs can be nothing less than nifty as separate, recent instances show:

• In Claremont, sophomore Alice Conant has synthesized a whole lot of different ideas and practices and hit on what many say is a potentially electrifying idea: She and her mentor, Harvey Rubin, a professor of medicine and computer science at Penn, have taken note of the ubiquity of cell phones globally, but especially in the Third World and even in some desperately backwards parts of the planet. Well, for the cells to work, they need antennas scattered across the landscape, each such tower connected, of course, to modern, dependable power supplies. So why not, the student has asked with a chorus of scholarly 'hallelujahs' behind, tap some of that cell tower electrical power for other life-saving uses. Like? Powering a few refrigerators that then could store vaccines against deadly diseases that otherwise would ravage undeveloped areas. Or maybe a little shared wattage could drive pumps and wells so potable water supplies would be available. Proponents say this plan, which is undergoing some testing this summer in Philadelphia, could prove to be a huge boon to the 3 million people who die annually around the world after drinking bad water or the 2 million who succumb to vaccine-preventable diseases.

Could cell phone juice zap disease, provide fresh water to world's needy?

Click here for blog post on how tapping cell tower power could provide vaccines, water

• In Exposition Park, some media savvy alums hope to make 10-10-10 not just a mantra but a globally memorable moment. They have built up connections and a campaign across the planet to get volunteers to work together to shoot videos that capture human lives as they exist this fall, and, by sharing them online, to contribute to greater global understanding and cooperation. The one day on earth project, its Trojan film-making proponents say, recognizes that video has become a universal means of communication and a kind of literacy that can build communities.

Get ready to record videos to make 10-10-10 a memorable date

• In Westchester, a grateful mechanical engineering prof from a small village in Bangladesh learned about a problem in his homeland that shocked him into action. Seems thousands in his native country suddenly were seeing drastic changes in the pigmentation of their skin. And they were dying. In fact, he found out, tens of millions of poor, thirsty folks imperiled their health and lives with a simple act that he had come to take for granted after he moved to this country, earned his advanced degrees and joined the faculty: drinking water. Officials in Bangladesh in the 1970s, it turns out, had sought to get people to stop consuming surface supplies, sipping from disease-ridden sources such as ponds. So they dug wells in tubes, tapping underground aquifers, which, for a time, provided sanitary, seemingly safe water. Only problem was that the tube wells were contaminated with poisonous arsenic. And now the wells provide the chief supply to tens of millions. The prof has won grants, set up a pilot program to purify supplies, helped spread the word and he has helped directly those poisoned and needing medical aid.

Prof seeks to aid homeland with dire drinking supplies laced with arsenic

Generous donors shower millions on area institutions

From the Huntington, Harvey Mudd & Cal Poly Pomona

The lights don't go on for free at the intellectual institutions across the region, so students, researchers and members of the general public have cause to celebrate that donors have shown such generosity in recent days with the folks in San Marino, of course, capturing the big headline of the moment.

 That's because they have reported that their six-year fund-raising campaign, which had a goal of $175 million, has all but ended and brought in an unexpected $240 million  with gifts still getting tallied and the official close of the books on Wednesday. Outreach to new, varied and different donors -- the Chinese American community, for example -- boosted giving, as did the receipt not just of cash, pledges and an increase in the institutional endowment but also significant, sizable collections and valuable displayable items.

Besides reeling in major donors, the institution also recently received a smaller, fishy present from Disneyland in Anaheim: 250 koi, valuable creatures that needed to be relocated and saved from a hotel pond.

In Claremont, meantime, the Mudders are saying many thanks for a $1 million donation to their Global Clinic program from some grateful, late parents who appreciated how their son put in practice all he learned while helping and working with others from spots in Central and South America, Asia and Europe.

And lastly, in Pomona, the business administration and hospitality management folks are appreciating the $2 million pledged by a prominent alum , who said he felt the need to give back to his onetime school not only for the education he received but also because it was the place where he met his wife.