By Alan Janesch
Public Information
The importance, range and impact of Penn State research continue to be on the upswing, and Penn State's incoming vice president for research -- Eva J. Pell -- wants to maintain and further the University's pre-eminence in research. She also wants to nurture the already strong relationships among research, education and outreach and foster an environment in which faculty and students doing research can interact without encountering barriers between disciplines.
Pell's appointment as vice president for research and dean of The Graduate School was confirmed Jan. 21 by Penn State's Board of Trustees. Pell, a faculty member and researcher at the University for 26 years, has served as interim vice president for research since July 1999.
"Not very long ago, research was often narrowly defined, with each researcher or scholar working in her or his microcosm, fairly oblivious to the outside world," Pell told the board. "Times have changed. Today the opportunities for physical scientists, engineers, life scientists and social scientists to work together to solve the most pressing problems of human existence are the norm rather than the exception."
Penn State research not only creates "an environment of discovery" that upgrades the University's academic environment, it also boosts economic development in the state and benefits Pennsylvania residents, Pell said.
During her presentation, Pell cited many of Penn State's achievements, research projects and success stories, including:
-- Increasing research expenditures and support. In fiscal year 1999, total research expenditures increased by 5 percent over the previous year, reaching $394 million. The same year, grants and contracts reached an all-time high of $280 million, an increase of 7 percent over the previous year.
-- An advanced research visualization instrument called an Immersive Projection Display, or IPD. A "virtual reality" device, IPD is a projection-based, room-sized display of 3-D video and audio that allows users to immerse themselves in and interact with the virtual reality environment displayed on the screen.
-- Construction of sophisticated sensors for a satellite that will study gamma ray bursts, intensely brilliant flashes of gamma radiation that briefly outshine every other object in the sky.
-- A nanofabrication facility that performs cutting-edge research in the semiconductor area.
-- An interdisciplinary project dealing with ethics and violence. The project combined a scholarly symposium, a new opera, and a teaching initiative based on the life of Dietrich Bohhoeffer, who joined a World War II plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
-- A multidisciplinary study on the long-term effects of poverty on children and families in rural areas.
-- Continued growth in the University's technology transfer operation and a heightened focus on the commercialization of faculty research. To date, seven companies are housed in the Zetachron Center, which was transferred to Penn State ownership last year as an incubator for new Penn State-related start-up companies. The latest is EIEICO, a company that will develop three promising technologies derived from work in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences (see story on page 11).
-- Increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary research, fostered through the creation of four research and education consortia: the Life Sciences Consortium; the children, youth and families consortium; the environmental consortium; and the Materials Research Institute.
"As we look toward the future," Pell said, "we will strive to increase our share of research funding from both public and private sources, increase our success in technology transfer, and increase our interdisciplinary collaborations."
Through Penn State's new consortia, Pell said, the University anticipates major initiatives in support of the life sciences, children and families, expanded efforts to study the environment, and major research advances in materials sciences.