Recgnition for Materials Scientists

....We have revolutionized fields from communications and construction to sports medicine and medical implants with our advances in materials. Even the simple tennis racket is now a lightweight marvel of composites and carbon nanotubes that propels the ball at lightning speed. Of course, it hasn't helped an Englishman to win Wimbledon in living memory, but some things are beyond even our powers!

And yet, does the term ‘materials scientist’ provoke anything other than disinterest from the general public? In my local community, I am often asked if I work at the university and the next question is “what department is that?”. When I tell them, the usual response is the polite “Ohhh” with that tilt of the head that says, “geez, if he worked in the athletic association he might have been able to get me football tickets or at least if he was a real doctor I might have gotten some free medical advice.”

A subjective list of the 25 greatest science books ever written contains not a single volume related to materials science3. Of course, the eighth most popular English language novel in the history of the world is Barbara Taylor Bradford's ‘The Woman of Substance’4. Having never read it, I'm guessing it wasn't about substances in the materials sense.

Most of the great engineering achievements (and failures - the Titantic, Hindenburg, Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster, Space Shuttle Challenger) all have materials science underpinnings. We are among the most consilient of thinkers, a word made popular by the biologist E. O. Wilson that means combining insights from different scientific disciplines and from different scales of investigation. Who else measures properties from the nano- to the macroscopic scale as we materials scientists do and pulls it all together into a coherent picture?

At one point in the early 1990s, there was a debate in the US as to whether materials science is even a discipline (physics without the equations indeed!). Having nosed around in physics labs and noticed the number of samples that had fingerprints or tape on them, I'm convinced that at least half of the phenomena that physicists report are simple manifestations of poor scientific hygiene. And don't get me started on our colleagues in chemistry, whose buildings are generally awash in stray mixtures of varying degrees of odiferousness and lethality. The long-closed lab of a retired professor of chemistry here at Florida revealed a small cache of the rocket propellant, B2H6. Diborane will ignite spontaneously in moist air at room temperature (remember this is Florida with a touch of humidity!).

Underappreciated we may be, but we doggedly trudge on from one conference session to another. At the recent Materials Research Society Fall meeting in Boston, it was easy to spot the materials scientists among the young and hip in the shopping malls connecting the convention center to the hotels. Those sponsored plastic carrybags and absent mindedly tended coiffures were dead giveaways. But while the rest of the world is slave to the latest fashions and celebrity gossip, we rest content that secretly we set the agenda.

We all deserve a raise, J Material Today, vol 10, issue 3, page 6, Mar 2007
www.sciencedirect.com



Implementing Educational Change

Change is the order of the day. However, this state of flux is not confined to materials scientists. Organisations such as the UK Centre for Materials Education (UKCME), charged with a remit to enhance student learning, are also in the business of change. Educational change is not an easy business. There is often abundant goodwill and resources to match. Yet, it remains clear that most investment in educational change fails to deliver the desired outcomes.

The problem stems primarily from a lack of insider knowledge of the context in which change is to happen; a failure to understand the defining features and barriers to change; a lack of appreciation of the restrictions and limitations, and of what is feasible.

Time after time, developers fall back on the same strategies. Conferences and workshops are offered. ‘Change champions’ are appointed. Small grants are made available to lone enthusiasts. While such strategies have merit, they impact only on the few. In isolation, they prove woefully inadequate if real and large-scale change is to be achieved.

UKCME, through experience, has learned that what is needed is a deep understanding of the context in which the change is to take place, and an active and sustained commitment to making change happen. The result is the Supported Change Programme, which has been implemented successfully in five UK HE Departments.

The social world, shaped and inhabited by human beings, is much more complex and unpredictable that that which confronts materials scientists, as they engage in their research. Nevertheless, parallels can be drawn between the way educational developers have chosen to operate and the approaches adopted by those engaged in scientific exploration. Like materials scientists, UKCME begins in each Department with a process of macro-assessment; visits which involve a critical scrutiny to develop an understanding of what is possible, and an appreciation of the capacity of the department to deliver.

Materials scientists carry with them a wealth of knowledge, based on research experience. As a result, they already appreciate the properties and characteristics of materials. This tells experimenters what can and cannot be done. Because of their lack of such a priori knowledge, UKCME developers must spend time in the department undertaking in-depth interviews with colleagues. This ensures that all become involved in the process, and that diverse opinions and views are represented. Crucially, the interviews establish a way forward.


Implementing educational change: heeding the messages from materials science, Materials Today, Volume 11, Issue 12, December 2008, Page 6