Research Training Group in Optical Biomolecular Devices

光学生物分子器件研究训练组

• 批准号: 9602258
• 负责人: Neal Woodbury
• 金额: $ 141.1万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-09-15 至 2003-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9602258&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Training; Group; Optical; Biomolecular

The program of training envisioned by the ASU group involves a comprehensive set of activities including formal coursework, laboratory introductions, a seminar series with strongly participatory elements, and an evaluation structure for monitoring the progress of each individual student at regular intervals. Overall this portion of the team's presentation was a strength of the program. It is clear that the group took the training function seriously and spent considerably energy developing a highly ambitious program of training with many innovative features. Obviously they have collectively evaluated those factors in the training of advanced students in interdisciplinary areas which are likely to be most valuable and have attempted to include those in the proposed program.. Comments below on the individual elements of the training program are meant to help the team fine-tune the approach, rather than to detract from the overall enthusiasm with which this portion of the presentation was received. The program of formal coureswork, consisting of a laboratory and lecture course along with a seminar series with serious participation by the students is very ambitious and highly original. The lecture course seeks to provide an overview to all of the students entering the program in a given year of the broad issues in biophotonic devices from a top-down reverse engineering perspective. The strength of this course is that it has the potential to provide a very broad perspective to students at an early stage in their graduate careers, before they have had time to develop disciplinary prejudices, which limit vision in more traditionally trained students. The danger, and one which is explicitly recognized by the team, is that any particular topic will be very deep for most of the class and relatively shallow for a small segment. The inclusion of a section on intellectual property issues from a legal perspective introduces an element of "real world" consideratio ns which is responsive to currently popular concerns about the relevance of traditional academic training. The laboratory course, designed to expose students to a broad survey of issues important to biophotonic device manipulation, is very challenging, perhaps too much so for a group of students with the diverse backgrounds expected of students entering the program. If carefully designed this highly ambitious experiment in graduate laboratory work could be a cornerstone of a new way of thinking about interdisciplinary training, which could be extended to other universities and other programs. However, it is clear that there are practical issues, e.g., length of time of produce workable mutants, familiarity with simple chemical synthetic manipulations, etc., which need to be more carefully thought out. In both of these formal course experiences it is important that the ASU administration has agreed to add the proposed activities to the portfolio of courses currently offered so that the assignment to either of these courses does not come as an overload, which would detract from the overall effectiveness of the faculty member involved. The seminar program aims to place students in real contact with a variety of external experts and should prove to be a valuable addition to the formal training program. Students, under direction of the course director, are to carefully read and discuss the work of a selected set of speakers prior to their talks and should be well-poised to benefit from the on-campus presence of the speaker. In addition the multidisciplinary project meetings should be extremely positive experiences for the students in the program. These meetings which will have the character of an extended group meeting promise to allow students from diverse backgrounds to delve into details of a research problem on a common footing but from their own different perspectives. In short they are, just the kind of experience many of them are likely to have as parts of research teams in the industrial environment upon graduation. Recruitment/Woodbury This is an ambitious program that will need a very high quality of students that have a broad background and much curiosity, ambition, and drive. Recruitment into the program will occur at two levels. In one, students will be attracted to come to A.S.U. because they want to come into this program. However, students will also be recruited out of the current pool of general applicants to science and engineering. The goal is to attract 6 students per year from 5 departments (3 in arts and sciences and 2 in the school of engineering). There is no provision for students to transfer into the program after their first year in graduate school. Standard recruitment strategies are largely in place. There are good, innovative programs for attracting minority students. The current enrollment has a high proportion of students that are eligible for support by N.S.F. There is good faculty commitment to recruiting visits. The college makes an investment in bringing students in to visit the college. They have mechanisms to contact applicant that they hope to attract by email during the time the students are making their decision. Current students talk of being attracted to the university by coming on visits and meeting interested faculty. This program, by the excitement of the intellectual offerings it provides should prove help them ensure that the best students accept offers at A.S.U. The difficulty is to find entry level students that are interested in this particular program. The average A.S.U. graduate student might not be interested in this ambitious program. However, the faculty quality is more than sufficient and there is a number of students in the existing program who would meet the ambitious needs of the program. They will need to get a few of the most ambitious students from each of the 5 departments to join the program. One challenge may be to make sure that the allocation of training positions is spread out equitably among the departments. Thus, recruitment will require students to be directed to this unusual and exciting program. Recruitment of students of students may be best achieved by word of mouth within the scientific community. The visiting scientist component of the grant can also serve as a recruitment mechanism, since when colleagues return to their home institutions they will send their best students. However, in order to maintain the right students it will be important to maintain program's focus so that this remains a high visibility offering at A.S.U.

亚利桑那州立大学集团设想的培训计划涉及一套全面的活动，包括正式课程、实验室介绍、具有强烈参与性元素的研讨会系列，以及定期监控每个学生进步的评估结构。 总体而言，团队演示的这一部分是该计划的优势。 显然，该集团认真对待培训职能，并投入大量精力制定了一项雄心勃勃、具有许多创新特点的培训计划。 显然，他们已经集体评估了跨学科领域高级学生培训中可能最有价值的因素，并试图将这些因素纳入拟议的计划中。下面对培训计划各个要素的评论旨在帮助团队微调方法，而不是降低这部分演示的总体热情。 正式课程计划包括实验室和讲座课程以及学生认真参与的研讨会系列，雄心勃勃且极具原创性。 该讲座课程旨在从自上而下的逆向工程角度向所有在特定年份进入该项目的学生提供生物光子器件广泛问题的概述。 这门课程的优势在于，它有可能在学生研究生职业生涯的早期阶段为他们提供非常广阔的视角，在他们有时间形成学科偏见之前，这些偏见限制了更多接受传统训练的学生的视野。 团队明确认识到的危险是，任何特定主题对于班级的大多数人来说都非常深入，而对于一小部分人来说则相对较浅。 纳入从法律角度讨论知识产权问题的部分引入了“现实世界”考虑因素，该因素回应了当前普遍关注的传统学术培训相关性的担忧。 实验室课程旨在让学生对生物光子器件操作的重要问题进行广泛的调查，这门课程非常具有挑战性，对于一群具有不同背景的学生来说可能太有挑战性了。 如果精心设计，研究生实验室工作中的这项雄心勃勃的实验可能会成为跨学科培训新思维方式的基石，并可以扩展到其他大学和其他项目。 然而，显然存在一些实际问题，例如产生可行突变体的时间长度、对简单化学合成操作的熟悉程度等，需要更仔细地考虑。 在这两种正式课程体验中，重要的是亚利桑那州立大学管理部门同意将拟议的活动添加到当前提供的课程组合中，以便这些课程中的任何一个的作业都不会出现负担过重，从而降低相关教师的整体效率。 研讨会计划旨在让学生与各种外部专家进行真正的接触，并且应该被证明是对正式培训计划的有价值的补充。 学生在课程主任的指导下，应在演讲前仔细阅读和讨论选定的演讲者的作品，并应做好准备从演讲者在校园的演讲中受益。 此外，多学科项目会议对于该项目的学生来说应该是非常积极的经历。 这些会议将具有扩展小组会议的特点，有望让来自不同背景的学生在共同的基础上从各自不同的角度深入研究研究问题的细节。 简而言之，他们中的许多人在毕业后作为工业环境中的研究团队的一部分可能会拥有这种经验。 招聘/伍德伯里 这是一个雄心勃勃的项目，需要具有广泛背景、好奇心、雄心和动力的高素质学生。 该计划的招募将分两个级别进行。 其中之一，学生将被吸引来到亚利桑那州立大学。因为他们想加入这个计划。 然而，学生也将从目前科学和工程专业的普通申请者中招募。 目标是每年吸引来自 5 个系的 6 名学生（艺术和科学系 3 名，工程学院 2 名）。 没有规定学生在研究生院一年级后转入该项目。 标准招聘策略已基本到位。 有一些好的、创新的项目可以吸引少数族裔学生。 目前的招生中，有很高比例的学生有资格获得 N.S.F. 的支持。 教师们对招聘访问做出了良好的承诺。 学院投资邀请学生来参观学院。 他们有联系申请人的机制，希望在学生做出决定时通过电子邮件吸引申请人。 在校学生表示，他们通过参观和会见感兴趣的教师而被大学所吸引。 该计划提供的智力课程令人兴奋，应该可以帮助他们确保最优秀的学生接受亚利桑那州立大学的录取通知书。 困难在于找到对这个特定项目感兴趣的入门级学生。 平均 A.S.U. 研究生可能对这个雄心勃勃的项目不感兴趣。 然而，师资力量绰绰有余，现有项目中有许多学生可以满足该项目的雄心勃勃的需求。 他们需要从 5 个系中各选一些最有雄心的学生来加入该计划。 一项挑战可能是确保培训职位的分配在各部门之间公平分配。 因此，招生将要求学生被引导到这个不寻常且令人兴奋的项目。 招募学生的最佳方式可能是通过科学界的口碑来实现。 资助的访问科学家部分也可以作为一种招聘机制，因为当同事返回自己的机构时，他们将派遣最好的学生。 然而，为了留住合适的学生，保持项目的重点非常重要，这样才能保持亚利桑那州立大学的高知名度。