Josephine Yuen

Spectrum

Dr. Josephine Yuen is the Ex Dir of E3S Center a collaboration of UCB, MIT, Stanford and UTEP. She is a Physical Chemist, Ph.D. from Cornell. She explains the e3s Center goals, Community College program, and focus on getting the research right.

Transcript

Speaker 1: Spectrum's next

Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible]. [inaudible].

Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum [00:00:30] the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news.

Speaker 3: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Our guest is Dr Josephine u n. She is the executive director of the [inaudible] center, a collaboration of UC Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, [00:01:00] and the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr [inaudible] is a physical chemist by training with a phd from Cornell University and she was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Argonne National Laboratory. She became a member of technical staff in bell laboratories and eventually held director level positions in product development, product management, manufacturing and supply line management. More recently, she was the CEO of try form x INC which develops and manufactures precision polymer [00:01:30] optics for the communications consumer products and medical industries. After spending 30 years in industry, she was a program director at the National Science Foundation. Today she talks with me about the [inaudible] center here at Berkeley, Josephine Ewen. Welcome to spectrum.

Speaker 1: Thank you.

Speaker 3: What is the origin story of e three s? How did it all get started?

Speaker 1: Well, let's first understand what e three s stands for. It's [00:02:00] an acronym and this acronym for a center does headquarted in UC Berkeley and it's the center for energy efficient electronics science. Our story really began at the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation has several programs that fund centers intended to bring researchers from many institutions together to solve difficult problems [00:02:30] and one of those programs is the science and Technology Center program. Way Back and I believe most probably was 2008 there was a solicitation asking technical community and that is universities. Did you submit proposals for a new science and technology center? This type of solicitation comes out once every three years or so and so in two and nine professor [00:03:00] [inaudible] off the east department submitted a proposal that brings together researchers from various institutions, namely UC Berkeley, MIT, and Stanford to propose a new center, a new center that will do research necessary to come up with an alternative to the current day trend system.

Speaker 1: No, you may want to ask, why do we need that? After all, transistors are everywhere and [00:03:30] it's in every aspects of our life. The reason we need an alternative is that we need an nutrient system or any kind of electronic components that would draw significantly less energy. Pol consumption in electronic devices have been dropping by virtue of the fact that through miniature isolation, the electronic industry has made great gains, not only in power consumption but in the cost of the device, [00:04:00] but unfortunately, miniaturization has hit a brick wall. It no longer is delivering the benefits it has delivered 10 plus years ago and you can see it by the very fact that the operating voltage of those devices in the past 10 plus years ago when the line was shrinks, you can see a big drop in the operating voltage, but in the last 10 years it's more or less flattened out and [00:04:30] even though the line was has shrunk further, we see that the operating voltage is around a vote, maybe slightly less than a vote now in the state of the art devices, but really we want to get to a device that can operate in the millivolt range and that is what the centers set out to do and we're doing the research necessary to get there. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: I wanted to have [00:05:00] you talk about the themes of research at e three s and what made choosing themes and appealing method for your organization?

Speaker 1: The center is researching different scientific concepts to achieve different device approaches. No one knows what is the best approach at this point. The current c Moss transistor is ubiquitous. There's no reason to believe is replacing will be [00:05:30] equally ubiquitous. The replacement may be a different solution for different application. That's why our research portfolio includes four themes. Not all four themes address the transistor. If you think of a integrated circuit, it's really a network of switches and the wires that connect us, which is three of the themes, address a different [00:06:00] type of switch while one theme address, how do you have more efficient wires or lower power consumption wires? Today's wars are copper wires, metal to wires, but we are doing research to have the communication between switches being done optically

Speaker 3: and just for the record, what are the four themes?

Speaker 1: The first theme is Nano Electronics. [00:06:30] The second theme is Nano mechanics. The third theme is nanophotonics and the fourth theme is Nano magnetics and you can see the first, second and fourth addresses. How do you get a different type of switch? While the third theme addresses the interconnection, namely the use of light for the interconnection amongst the switches [00:07:00] that we also call optical interconnect.

Speaker 3: How interdisciplinary is the center? Do you have a sense of that in terms of the investigators and the researchers?

Speaker 1: The center is highly into disciplinary disciplines involved. Our electrical engineering, chemistry material science and Physics

Speaker 4: [inaudible]

Speaker 3: [00:07:30] you are listening to spectrum of public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley public. Our guest is Josephine n. She is the executive director of the three s center. In the next segment she details the e three s community college outreach group. [inaudible]. An [00:08:00] interesting part of the e three s center is the program you've developed with community colleges. Do you want to explain how that program began and what its goals are?

Speaker 1: A science and technology center is expected to educate besides do research and the education is not only have graduate students, so in I'll propose which NSF we decided to focus [00:08:30] on community college students. The reason we decided to do that is because in California we have the largest community college system in the country and many women and underrepresented minority start their post high school education. In community colleges. Our needs to increase its output of workers in this fuse [00:09:00] state utilizes science and technology disciplines and in order to do that we have to be able to encourage and groom participants from populations that are typically underrepresented in the technical world and this really based on that consideration that we say less focus on encouraging students, helping students from community colleges [00:09:30] develop a career in science and engineering.

Speaker 3: What can you tell me about how the program is working and how people participate in it? From the community college side,

Speaker 1: we have a program on campus called the transfer to excellence and this program while started by the East Rehab Center has now expanded to include other centers. This has been made possible because in addition to [00:10:00] the east area centers grind, the National Science Foundation also gave us an additional three years grant to expand the community college program and that has allowed the program to place students not only in the [inaudible] center but also to other centers on campus. Namely coins, the deals with Nana mechanics and also [inaudible] that deals with [00:10:30] synthetic bio fuse. The students from community college come on campus in the summer for nine weeks to do research, the first weakest bootcamp with the learn some of the basics to prepare them to go into the labs and then for the other eight weeks they work in the lab on individual projects and at the end, in the last week of the internship, they have to [00:11:00] present their work both in terms of giving talks and also in the form of posters in a poster session and that typically takes place at the beginning of August. And how large is that program? Last summer we hosted approximately 15 students.

Speaker 3: Does that sort of what your target is for each summer?

Speaker 1: Yes. Between 12 to 15 is off target [inaudible].

Speaker 3: And how do people [00:11:30] in community colleges get involved in it? How do they get selected or how do they apply?

Speaker 1: In the fall we go through what we consider our recruitment face. We Post the information about the program on the website of our center. The staff of the center also goes out on campus to recruit. We host workshops to share information about a program and also to provide pointers to potential [00:12:00] applicants, how best to prepare the application. We also have webinars with, again, the purpose of encouraging and guiding potential applicants and how to apply and we also work with various community college or Nay stations to promote the program. For example, we ran a workshop in a Mesa conference. Is it statewide? [00:12:30] Yes. We're very proud to say that we have brought students from Mount Shasta down to south of San Diego from the bay area to the central valley

Speaker 3: and I suppose the hope is that the students will then go to four year colleges get degrees. Are you tracking at all their progress in that effort?

Speaker 1: Yes. Clearly the number one goal of this program [00:13:00] is to use research to deepen the interests of these students in science and engineering and you can ensure that they will get a good career in science engineering. Minimally a four year degree is necessary, so helping the students to transfer to a four year institution is number one goal. In addition, we want to excite them enough that they would even set this sites to go to graduate [00:13:30] school. The program provides one on one advising on the transfer process, particularly to UC Berkeley but also to four year institution in general and this advising is done by tap advices, which is the transfer alliance projects. There's part of UC Berkeley's campus, 87% of our 2012 class has transferred [00:14:00] to to what you see last fall. Most of them came to UC Berkeley, but others went to other ucs as well and I believe one of them actually transferred to Columbia

Speaker 3: and for students that are in community colleges it might be listening. The best way to find out about it is to go on your website.

Speaker 1: Yes. That's the best way to find out about the program and is also through our website which is www.ethrees-center.org [00:14:30] this website not only provides information but it just through this website you do your online application,

Speaker 3: the community college students that are coming, what are their science requirements?

Speaker 1: The program takes students the summer before they apply to transfer to a four year institution. By then we expect the students [00:15:00] to have completed two calculus courses and three signs or engineering courses including one laboratory course.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 5: From is a science and technology show on KALX Berkeley. We are talking with Josephine. You went [00:15:30] in the next segment she talks about the hope of research migrating from the lab to Congress.

Speaker 2: [inaudible]

Speaker 3: the center's focus now is on research. Is there at some point if you're successful with your research, a capability to implement and build something that would be a prototype of sorts.

Speaker 1: [00:16:00] We are very much in the science face of our center. As a matter of fact, we are very much encouraged by our funder to really focus on understanding the science as opposed to just using empirical methods to achieve device demonstration. Part of the center's strategic plan costs for at the end of our sentence life, which we expect to be 10 years. We will be [00:16:30] able to have one technology, namely our science will be mature enough that we have a technology that can be commercialized. On the other hand, we are expected along the way to be able to really understand how realistic our approaches so we will be expected to have certain types of prototype demonstration in the second five years [00:17:00] of our center. Also each theme we expect that I'll research may have some near term applications and actually as a example in theme three which is the Nanophotonics we expect that I'll work in photo detectors can have near term applications.

Speaker 3: So in a sense kind of spinning off some of the early successes within the center or do you have to move it out of the center to other [00:17:30] players?

Speaker 1: They have different ways of transferring the knowledge that we gained through our research. The center has industry partners. This industry partners are leaders in the electronics industry. They have recognized the neat off the center and we should clearly we see them s one of the avenues to transfer technology that Nia term along the term [00:18:00] technologies that may come after center, but as you know, they also many other venues including potentially some of our students taking technologies and creating companies [inaudible]

Speaker 3: so the industry partners also are able to feed back to you, give you some reflection on your research.

Speaker 1: The feedback will enable the center to conduct this research to be practical and useful

Speaker 3: [00:18:30] with the publications. Are there any restrictions on who you can publish with? Are you seeking out open source journals?

Speaker 1: The Sentis research results are publish through peer review journals. Many of these journals, one could argue is not open source because you need a subscription to get to them. However, the journals allow the authors to post the papers on [00:19:00] their own website. I'll send to identifies on our website, our list of publications and through the authors own website, the public can gain access to those papers.

Speaker 3: Are there other centers or other research groups that are doing very similar work that you pay close attention to?

Speaker 1: Yes, there is a center in Notre Dame that [00:19:30] is partially funded by DARPA and another government agency. That center involves not only Notre Dame, Bifido is headquartered there, but it also has members from many of the academic institutions. The name of the center is leased. The center has similar goals as us. We are not the only people that recognized the problem the semiconductor industry is facing, [00:20:00] so there are many efforts and many researchers around the world working on different approaches to solving the problem. We are one of several centers. We believe we differentiate ourselves in part because we have really put a strong emphasis on establishing the science and understanding what has prevented an easy solution.

Speaker 3: In your personal [00:20:30] story, you've spent some time on both sides of the granting process being with the NSF. What does it like seeing both sides of the process?

Speaker 1: I was the SPI, our program officer at the National Science Foundation before coming to UC Berkeley at the Star Center. A programs officer's job is to figure out what area to fund. And in conjunction with review panels, recommend [00:21:00] which particular proposals you fund. And then after the award, the program office is job is to advise, guide, oversee the delivery of results and ensure that the grantee is in compliance with the program requirements. But when you are grantee, your job is to deliver on what you promise. So a lot of the focus is on results delivery [00:21:30] while a programs office job is to facilitate guide help, but not directly involved with the results delivery [inaudible] which do you prefer? My background prior to going to national science foundation was in private industry. So I have a very strong operating background. So to a certain extent, one can argue that given the number of years I've spent [00:22:00] operating or delivering results, that comes to me more naturally.

Speaker 6: Josephine n, thank you very much for coming on spectrum.

Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: [inaudible]

Speaker 5: for more details [00:22:30] on the [inaudible] center and their educational program, which covers pre college undergraduate, graduate and postdoc opportunities. Go to the e three s website, which is e three s-center.org spectrum shows are archived on iTunes university and we have created a simple link to help you get there. The link is tiny url.com/kalx [00:23:00] spectrum

Speaker 2: [inaudible].

Speaker 5: We hope you can get out to a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two years. Two weeks.

Speaker 6: Renee Rao and chase Jacabowski present the calendar this Monday, February 24th come check out the next edition of nerd night. East Bay featuring lectures such as explosions, [00:23:30] back drafts and sprinklers, how Hollywood gets fire science wrong by Joel Sipe. Then listen to Brian Dote from sweet Mary's coffee and he'll show us how a cherry becomes black gold in his lecture home coffee roasting on the with tools you probably already have and last Vincent tank way will teach us about hyper velocity launchers in his lecture. Hyper velocity launchers, how to launch a projectile at 10 meters per second. That's right. 10 meters per second. Once again, nerd night takes [00:24:00] place. February 24th at the new parkway cinema in Oakland. Doors Open at 7:00 PM on Monday, March 3rd Dr. Edward Stone of Caltech will be giving a talk about the voyager spacecraft missions into interstellar space launched in 1977 to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The two voyager spacecrafts continue their journeys as they search for the Helio pause.

Speaker 6: The heliopause is a boundary between the solar wind and the local interstellar medium. [00:24:30] Recently in August, 2012 voyager one seem to be finally entering into the heliopause. The spacecraft reported finding depleted low energy particles originating from inside the heliosphere as well as low energy cosmic rays from nearby regions of the Milky Way. These in subsequent observations of the heliopause are revealing new aspects of the complex interaction of our son with a local interstellar medium to hear a complete history and learn where the voyager is. Now. Join Dr. Stone on [00:25:00] March 3rd at 4:15 PM in [inaudible] room number one on my name, March 3rd at 7:30 PM hello fellow Dr Jacqueline. Ferritin will speak in the planetarium of the California Academy of Sciences. At the close of 2013 the Italian stars with planets orbiting them toppled more than 1000 the majority of these so-called exoplanets have not actually been seen, but rather inferred from their effect on their host stars through pain seeking technical methods and tremendous telescope [00:25:30] 10 handful of indirectly image and these giant planets have shown fascinating diversity in their sizes, temperatures, weather, and relationships to their parents.

Speaker 6: Sends over the past several years, an entirely new and mysterious breed of planets has emerged. As genres have discovered a collection of orphans. Planets that are moving through the galaxy, seemingly unattached to a star in this talk fairly will highlight how we discovered these seemingly impossible objects and review how these strange, exotic planets may be key [00:26:00] players in our understanding of planet formation and evolution. Her talk will be held seven 30 on Monday night, March 3rd go to cal academy.org to reserve tickets. A feature of spectrum is to present new stories we find interesting. Tracy Jakubowski and Renee Rao present our news, the deal. Cal reports a new project from UC Berkeley. Researchers may soon allow the power of ocean waves to join solar and wind power as a commercialized source of energy. [00:26:30] The project is led by Marcus Lehman, a visiting graduate student in the Mechanical Engineering Department and supervised by razor alum and assistant professor of mechanical engineering and principal investigator of the research.

Speaker 6: The project focuses on building a prototype of a sea floor carpet that can generate electricity by mimicking the properties of the muddy sea floor. Therefore, the group is designing a c floor carpet waive dampening system that will harness the energy of waves passing over it. Theoretically, the [00:27:00] energy generated by 10 meters of sea floor carpet will be roughly equivalent to the energy conducted by a stadium sized soccer field completely covered by solar panels. As more and more people move to live near coastlines, the researchers expect wave power to be a top contender as the next big renewable resource, especially because waves have very high energy density. The cost of building devices to harness wave power is high. LM said, the ocean is a difficult place to work and our devices have to be sturdy enough to combat [00:27:30] the oceans, corrosive and harsh environments, but there's an increasing need for clean and as socially acceptable forms of generating power.

Speaker 6: We're working hard with scientists and engineers to make this happen and it's only a matter of time. A recent study published in the Open Access Journal microbiome examine the GI tract of premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit or NICU. The lead author of the study, Brandon Brooks, a graduate student in the plant and microbial biology department at UC Berkeley, collaborated [00:28:00] with researchers university of Pittsburgh to swab the most touched surfaces at the NICU, as well as collect samples from two premature babies. In a small pilot study, they discovered the microbial environment of the baby's GI tracks was strikingly similar to that of the NICU, which was particularly interesting given that the premature babies were treated with antibiotics and should have had a very limited diversity of micro organisms within their GI tract. Well, most of the micro organisms were opportunistic. A few contain genes that conferred resistance [00:28:30] to antibiotics and disinfectant that was used within the NICU. The study provided an important insight into how the pathogenic, as well as nonpathogenic organisms are able to move from even the most sterile of environments to our bodies.

Speaker 4: [inaudible] [inaudible]

Speaker 7: the music heard during the show was written and produced by [00:29:00] Alex Simon

Speaker 8: [inaudible].

Speaker 7: Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email or email address, spectrum dev, QA, and [e-mail] genus in two weeks time. [inaudible].

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