Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2015
Volume 60, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 2–6, 2015; San Antonio, Texas
Session T4: Focus Session: Building New Pathways in Physics Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd FIAP Chair: Bahram Roughani, Loyola University Maryland Room: Mayor Cockrell Room 004 |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 11:15AM - 11:27AM |
T4.00001: Tinker, Thinker, Maker and CEO: Reimagining the Physics Student as Engineer, Inventor, and Entrepreneur Crystal Bailey We live in an era of immense opportunity for physics graduates: their scientific training helps to make them key members of industry teams developing new technologies, or translating cutting-edge research into viable products. Physics as a discipline stands to make tremendous gains by implementing new educational approaches which provide training for success in what is increasingly the largest employment base for physicists: the private sector. In this talk, I will examine the role of physicist as innovator and how this role intersects with other similar STEM disciplines (such as engineering), and provide some insight into how implementing physics innovation and entrepreneurship (PIE) education will benefit both physics departments and the students they serve, regardless of students' eventual career choices. I will also talk about some exciting new PIE related developments in the physics community, and provide information about how educators can get involved in this growing movement. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 11:27AM - 11:39AM |
T4.00002: Practical skills of the future innovator Vitaliy Kaurov Physics graduates face and often are disoriented by the complex and turbulent world of startups, incubators, emergent technologies, big data, social network engineering, and so on. In order to build the curricula that foster the skills necessary to navigate this world, we will look at the experiences at the Wolfram Science Summer School [1] that gathers annually international students for already more than a decade. We will look at the examples of projects and see the development of such skills as innovative thinking, data mining, machine learning, cloud technologies, device connectivity and the Internet of things, network analytics, geo-information systems, formalized computable knowledge, and the adjacent applied research skills from graph theory to image processing and beyond. This should give solid ideas to educators who will build standard curricula adapted for innovation and entrepreneurship education. \\[4pt] [1] http://www.wolframscience.com/summerschool [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 11:39AM - 11:51AM |
T4.00003: Fostering Innovation through Physics, 52 Technologies, and Wide Participation Randall Tagg We have created in a single site a workspace called the Innovation Hyperlab. It organizes 52 technologies into 3-technology work bays and houses appropriate supplies, tools, and instrumentation. Key to the operation is a supporting web site (for open release in summer 2015) with modular instruction in individual technologies. The instruction emphasizes underlying physical principles but provides direct engagement with key devices and methods in a given technology. The aim is to support learning on-demand in the midst of design projects as well as formal courses. The physical and virtual sides of the lab are designed to serve a wide range of participants, from high school students to graduate students. Most experience to date has been through using the space to support undergraduate-mentored high school student research and innovation teams pursuing projects as wide ranging as helicopter rescue and neurological rehabilitation. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 11:51AM - 12:03PM |
T4.00004: Your Higgs number -- how fundamental physics is connected to technology and societal revolutions Suzy Lidstr\"{o}m, Roland E. Allen Fundamental physics, as exemplified by the recently discovered Higgs boson, often appears to be completely disconnected from practical applications and ordinary human life. But this is not really the case, because science, technology, and human affairs are profoundly integrated in ways that are not immediately obvious. We illustrate this by defining a ``Higgs number'' through overlapping activities. Following three different paths, which end respectively in applications of the World Wide Web, digital photography, and modern electronic devices, we find that most people have a Higgs number of no greater than 3. Specific examples chosen for illustration, with their assigned Higgs numbers, are: LHC experimentalists employing the Worldwide Computing Grid (0) - Timothy Berners-Lee (1) - Marissa Mayer, of Google and Yahoo, and Sheryl Sandberg, of Facebook (2) - users of all web-based enterprises (3). CMS and ATLAS experimentalists (0) - particle detector developers (1) - inventors of CCDs and active-pixel sensors (2) - users of digital cameras and camcorders (3). Philip Anderson (0) - John Bardeen (1) - Jack Kilby (2) - users of personal computers, mobile phones, and all other modern electronic devices (3). [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 12:03PM - 12:15PM |
T4.00005: Methods to Implement Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Physics Douglas Arion The physics community is beginning to become aware of the benefits of entrepreneurship and innovation education: greater enrollments, improved students satisfaction, a wider range of interesting research problems, and the potential for greater return from more successful alumni. This talk will suggest a variety of mechanisms by which physics departments can include entrepreneurship and innovation content within their programs -- without necessarily requiring earth-shattering changes to the curriculum. These approaches will thus make it possible for departments to get involved with entrepreneurship and innovation, and grow those components into vibrant activities for students and faculty. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 12:15PM - 12:27PM |
T4.00006: Enlarging the `knowledge toolbox': helping students prepare for an innovation-driven world Elizabeth Nilsen Physics students graduate from their course of studies to enter the ``world of work.'' While for many years that transition meant joining a large corporation for a life-long career, this is no longer the case. Today's graduates will find their career with a series of organizations -- often start-ups and small to mid-sized organizations - whose future depends on the ability to rapidly leverage technical knowledge into useful products and services. This session will discuss the value of preparing physics students to be innovators and entrepreneurs, both as a strategy to prepare them for future careers, as well as an opportunity to fully engage students in seeing the relevance of physics to ``real world'' challenges. The session will feature three case studies: 1) embedding core knowledge and skills within a technical content course; 2) building learning experiences around a team-based start-up exploration; 3) engaging an entire department in considering how to comprehensively include innovation {\&} entrepreneurship themes in the curriculum. The session will conclude with information about how faculty members and institutions can access resources for adopting this approach to their course offerings. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 5, 2015 12:27PM - 2:15PM |
T4.00007: PANEL DISCUSSION |
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