University of Illinois

Rising to the Future: Leadership in Engineering
Keynote speech at the National Association of Engineering Student Councils' national conference at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.
April 8, 2008

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Good evening. I trust you've had an enlightening conference.

I'd like to extend greetings to University of Illinois College of Engineering Associate Dean Umberto Ravaioli who is representing the college this evening.

At the University of Illinois, we are very proud of our College of Engineering in Urbana-Champaign.

For those of you who follow such things, it may be useful to mention that U.S. News and World Report in 2008 ranks both our undergraduate and graduate engineering programs in the top five nationally.

Undergraduate agricultural engineering and civil engineering are ranked No. 1.

Environmental engineering and engineering physics rank No. 3.

Electrical engineering ranks No. 4.

Computer engineering, materials engineering and mechanical engineering rank No. 5.

The College of Engineering is also big: 5,034 students (fall 2007).

Among our current distinguished faculty are two Nobel laureates; a winner of both the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology; members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and National Academy of Sciences; and alumni who are global leaders in many traditional and emerging engineering fields.

We also have an excellent College of Engineering here in Chicago at our University of Illinois at Chicago campus.

I know those of you who are present this evening represent many distinguished engineering colleges and universities. May I add my welcome on behalf of the University of Illinois.

This evening I'd like to tell you about engineering at the University of Illinois. I've expropriated your conference title, "Rising to the Future" as the theme of my talk.

I'll tell you the stories of three U of I engineers and their careers that extend back to the middle of the last century through this year. I think you'll see the some trends and challenges that will mark the careers of your generation of engineers.

The three engineers are John Bardeen, a U of I faculty member, and winner of two Nobel Prizes; Nick Holonyak, who invented the LED and this year was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame; and Patrick Walsh, a December graduate who took his awards and business-plan winnings of more than $100,000, started a company and is currently in Hong Kong arranging for manufacturing his product.

John Bardeen was born in Madison, Wis., in 1908. His father was a professor of anatomy and first dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School.

John graduated from high school at age 15. In truth, he was often bored and was not a particularly dedicated student. He took up electrical engineering because "he heard that it used a lot of mathematics."

He found a few mentors at the University of Wisconsin and applied himself in advanced mathematics and physics. He took one of earliest quantum mechanics classes taught in the U.S. in 1928-29 (a graduate school class although Bardeen declared having an academic career "was the last thing in the world" he wanted to do).

Nevertheless, he completed his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1928 and his master's degree in 1929.

After working for a few years, he went back to school and in 1936 received his Ph.D. in mathematics. He took on a problem in solid-state physics for his dissertation at Princeton. He also was introduced to interdisciplinary collaboration at Princeton and its Institute for Advanced Study. (Einstein and other Jewish physicists had at this point come to the U.S. from Europe fleeing the Nazis. Einstein came to Princeton.)

Then, in 1936-38 as a junior fellow of Harvard's Society of Fellows Bardeen's interdisciplinary tendencies developed further. While he was there, he also visited scientists at MIT and Cornell.

He called his time at Harvard "the most influential years of my life." "In struggling with problems too difficult to solve, he was honing his skills as a theoretical physicist." One of those too-difficult problems was superconductivity ("at very low temperatures, certain metals and alloys lose all their electrical resistance"). [Source: Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch, True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen]

John Bardeen was part of the Bell Labs team that invented the transistor in 1947.

Bardeen came to the U of I in 1951.

To put the period into technological context, in 1952, the digital computer laboratory of the University of Illinois developed Illiac (Illinois Automatic Computer) I. It was the first digital computer built and owned entirely by an educational institution. It weighed five tons and contained 2,800 vacuum tubes.

By the way, the vacuum tubes kept a number of student-workers carrying around bushel baskets, busily changing the hot, balky, burned-out tubes.

In 1954, the transistor was generally viewed as a novelty device with limited, small-scale specialty applications such as hearing aids. Then, a small, little-known Japanese company, called Sony, started selling transistor radios and televisions.

In 1956, Bardeen and the other two members of the Bell Labs team that developed the transistor received the Nobel Prize.

Bardeen's reaction when he got the early-morning Nobel call? He dropped a pan of scrambled eggs.

Lillian Hoddeson, U of I physicist and Bardeen's biographer, says the rest of the Bardeen story is the history of the personal computer and the information age. "The crystal fire" Bardeen and his research partners "ignited radically reshaped the world and the way its inhabitants go about their daily lives."

Hoddeson relates that Bardeen only took one of his children with him to Stockholm to see him receive the Nobel Prize. His two sons were studying at Harvard, and he didn't wish to interrupt their educations.

Swedish King Gustav IV admonished Bardeen for this because one of the purposes of the Swedes' Nobel Prize celebrations is to inspire young students.

Bardeen facetiously assured the King that the next time he won a Nobel Prize, he would bring all his children. He did not know how prophetically he spoke.

In 1972, when Bardeen accepted his second Nobel Prize in physics. Bardeen led the team of U of I post-doctoral student Leon Cooper and graduate student Robert Schrieffer that solved the mystery of superconductivity. Their solution is known the BCS Theory, after the first letters of the three researchers' last names.

This time, all of Bardeen's children went to Stockholm.

Hoddeson also reports that Bardeen, a golf enthusiast and a modest regular fellow, was asked whether he considered his hole-in-one a greater accomplishment than a Nobel. He deadpanned: "Well, perhaps two Nobels are worth more than one hole-in-one."

His eyesight failing, Bardeen spent the year before he died preparing to turn over his papers to the U of I archives. Hoddeson says he wanted his life and work remembered "in a way that would inspire the young."

John Bardeen died in 1991.

U of I Chancellor Morton Weir said, "It is a rare person whose work changes the life of every American; John's did."

The University named its north engineering campus Bardeen Quad.

Last month, Bardeen was honored at a campus unveiling of a new U.S. postage stamp honoring American scientists.

Next I want to tell you about Nick Holonyak Jr., the son of Slavic immigrants. His father was a coal miner in Southern Illinois.

Nick decided to go to the U of I after working a 30-hour shift on the Illinois Central Railroad.

He earned his bachelor's degree from Illinois in 1950, his master's in 1951and his doctorate in 1954, all in electrical engineering.

He was John Bardeen's first graduate student at the U of I. Nick, like John Bardeen, worked for Bell Labs. Then, while at GE, he invented the first practical light-emitting diode (LED) in 1962. He came home to the U of I in 1963.

The low-heat LED is called "the ultimate lamp." You no doubt know that LEDs produce more light than incandescent or halogen. They are environmentally friendly and used in everything from alarm clocks to automobile headlights to Times Square's NASDAQ stock-exchange billboard.

As the cost comes down, LEDs are beginning to be cost-effective for what Nick originally intended to do: Nothing less than invent a better light bulb at Thomas Edison's company.

In 1977, Nick and his U of I students invented the first quantum-well laser, which made possible fiberoptic communications, CD players and many other applications we now take for granted.

Nick has more than 30 patents and 500 published academic papers. He's famous around campus for involving students in his work. Eight of his 60 doctoral students are members of the National Academy of Engineering.

Ten more of the 60 doctoral students Holonyak has supervised over his career are leaders in LED development at Philips Limileds Lighting, a San Jose, Calif., joint venture that makes high-powered LEDs for automotive lighting, computer displays, LCD TVs, signage, signaling and general lighting. Many of his other students are also in related businesses and research.

This year, his 55th at the U of I, Holonyak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The spry 79-year-old is still working at his lab every day.

Among his many awards are the Lemelson-MIT Prize ($500,000) in 2004, the U.S. Medal of Technology in 2002, the Japan Prize ($500,000) in 1995 and the U.S. Medal of Science (1990).

Holonyak is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, the IEEE and the Optical Society of America.

Holonyak revered John Bardeen as one of the great scientists of the 20th century and historically the second most-important Illinoisan. Do you know who is first? Abraham Lincoln. Maybe the third most-important Illinoisan will be Barack Obama.

Third, I want to tell you about one of your contemporaries, Patrick Walsh. He graduated from the University of Illinois in engineering physics in December. He won the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize for his invention of a solar-powered LED lamp.

Dubbed SolarFlare, the lamp fills a need Patrick learned about when he visited India as part of a delegation of Engineers Without Borders. Patrick's goal is to change the way 1.6 billion people light their homes. Currently, rural Indian families lacking electricity light their homes with "hurricane" kerosene lamps.

Walsh's LED lights are not only more than twice as bright, safer and healthier but also, say Walsh, "they will reduce the burden of $38 billion in fuel costs every year … and also eliminate the health risks both in terms of indoor air quality and the potential for fires the kerosene lamps create."

Widespread adoption of the SolarFlare in India would significantly cut carbon emissions. Walsh said completely replacing the kerosene lamps would eliminate the equivalent of one-third of England's carbon emissions.

Here's SolarFlare's value proposition: The reason the LED lamps work is that the Indian villagers' kerosene lamps replace only put out a paltry amount of light. The solar LED lamps put out two or three times the kerosene models, but nothing like the way Americans light their homes. So the villagers aren't used to much light. This makes the LED lamps a cost-effective product (about $20) that the Indian villagers want to buy. By the way, Patrick and his partners have handled marketing question by making prototypes and asking Indian villagers if they wanted to buy them. They did.

Patrick took his Lemelson Prize money and added the other $70,000 he has won in entrepreneurship competitions and started a company called Greenlight Planet Inc. He is now in China arranging for manufacturing. His first SolarFlares will roll off the assembly line in two-three months.

From the careers of these three engineers, we can see trends that will be significant in the engineering careers of those of you here tonight:

John Bardeen's team's invention of the transistor led, of course, to the integrated circuit. For all of your lives Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit doubles every year, has been reliably true.

The Law of Accelerating Returns states that after Year One, technology expands exponentially. Bardeen, a quiet and modest physicist, didn't see the tremendous explosion of technology and whole new industries that would come from the transistor. He was much more interested in solving the mystery of superconductivity that had bedeviled the world's best physicists for more than 50 years.

From John Bardeen, who came to the University of Illinois with a dual appointment, in physics and electrical engineering, we know that some of the best engineering has always been interdisciplinary. Hoddeson writes that Bardeen famously broke down complex problems into simpler, easier to solve forms and distributed them according to the strengths of his team members.

Many of the challenging problems you will grapple with in your engineering careers will demand an interdisciplinary approach. Interdisciplinary work puts greater demands because you must work at the height of disciplinary excellence. The reason is because often you are the sole representative of your discipline on a team with people from other disciplines.

U of I faculty and students, including many from engineering, profit by having access to two major interdisciplinary research centers.

Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology celebrates its 20th birthday next year. It is named after the alumnus (B.S., chemical engineering, M.S. physical chemistry) donor, inventor and entrepreneur, the late Arnold Beckman.

Urbana researchers learned early the value of interdisciplinary research efforts and they became part of the campus culture.

Today, more than 600 researchers from nearly 30 University of Illinois departments as far-ranging as psychology, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, physics, chemistry, physiology, bioengineering and biochemistry make up 15 Beckman Institute research groups in the magnificent research facility.

Last year we dedicated our Institute for Genomic Biology, a $75 million, 186,000 square foot dedicated interdisciplinary research facility financed by an investment by the State of Illinois. The IGB includes a cluster of core facilities — including a microscopy suite, plant-growth facility, a bioanalytical facility, and microfabrication laboratory.

The Institute for Genomic Biology's ambitious charge is to explore and find answers to the pressing biotech and societal issues in human health, agriculture, the environment and energy use and production. U of I engineers are deeply involved in these interdisciplinary efforts.

IGB researchers are expected to find external funding for their projects, so there's a premium on innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. The total population of the IGB is 350, including 130 faculty members from 30 disciplines, as well as pre- and post-doctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate researchers and staff.

One of the big projects at the IGB is the Energy Biosciences Institute, a $500 million collaboration among energy giant BP, University of California Berkeley and the U of I. The goal is to produce the abundant, inexpensive and environmentally friendly energy of the future.

From Patrick Walsh, we understand the engineering is entrepreneurial. Engineering and engineers, by the nature of what they do, have a rich entrepreneurial history. Patrick views himself as a social entrepreneur, using business principles to solve social problems. If an Indian villager buys a SolarFlare and his children learn to read in the evenings, this is a chance to break the poverty cycle. But Patrick says it can't be imposed. The villager has to make the decision that he needs a lamp so his children can get an education more than he or she needs, for example, a new hoe or vaccination.

Many of your universities have entrepreneurship programs today. It is worth your while to include entrepreneurship activities in your undergraduate years. Some universities offer classes in entrepreneurship. Others sponsor business plan competitions that offer big prizes.

Patrick Walsh says what you do in the entrepreneurship area as an undergraduate will be considered "above and beyond" by employers and grad school.

Patrick also reminds us that engineering is increasingly international. His Engineers Without Borders trip to India was the genesis of his LED SolarFlare. Patrick, by the way, is currently in Hong Kong arranging for manufacturing his product.

Unless anyone in the audience corrects me, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Engineering is the only U.S. institution to offer an international minor in engineering as part of the regular degree program.

As engineering students with leadership skills, you are on a great path headed into a world with more opportunities than Bardeen and Holonyak encountered. I wish brilliant futures for each and every one of you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.