Message from the Chair

This edition of Watts News focuses on the various facets alumni and industry partnerships with our department. A recurring theme is that industry engagement enriches the undergraduate and graduate experience by creating opportunities for experiential learning and professional development. The article, The Faces of Our Workforce, highlights the exciting, changing dynamic in the number of women, students of color, and first-time generation students who choose to pursue a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering or Welding Engineering. In Natural-born Engineer: Materials Science and Engineering PhD Student Awarded Presidential Fellowship, our programs are viewed through the lens of a stellar international graduate student. Both articles emphasize the opportunities created by our increasingly diverse student, staff, and faculty bodies. I’ve been intrigued by the article, Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups (Science, Vol. 330, 2010), which claims that the ability of a group to perform a wide variety of tasks does not correlate with the highest individual IQ in the group but instead the equality in conversational turn-taking, the ability of group members to visually gauge the reactions of other group members, and the proportion of females in the group.

We can extend that dynamic to consider how involvement by alumni, alumnae, and industry can expand those involved in the educational process, the conversational turn-taking, and student outcomes in our programs. The articles, Lincoln Electric Boot Camp and The Many Forms of Engagement, highlight the benefits of industry-academia collaborations, particularly when the interaction promotes conversational turn-taking between the student, industry member, and faculty advisor.

The article, Women in STEMM Alumni Society Celebrates First Anniversary, points to an increasing number of affinity groups that offer students and alumni opportunities to network and share career-building experiences. The large increases in undergraduate student enrollment and diversity have led to an increase in the number of student-professional groups, including the AWS Chapter, FABTECH Committee, Council of Graduate Students, NACE International Student Section, Materials Advantage Club, Materials Research Society Chapter, Foundry Club, Rover Team, and other college and university-level groups. These structures provide a forum for alumni, alumnae, and industry members to broaden the conversational turn-taking. Faculty excellence plays a component and the article, Wei Zhang Inducted as American Welding Society Fellow, provides one such example; several more will follow in the Autumn 2019 edition of Watts News that focuses on research leadership.

I encourage you to consider the benefits of partnering with the MSE and WE programs. What perspectives might you share with students and faculty to include an industry perspective and therefore broaden the conversation? There are several options to build relationships, including support of capstone projects, internships, guest lectures to a student club or academic class, donations of equipment or materials, support of a MS or PhD level industry-university project, or scholarship support. You can contact Kevin Readey, Associate Director of Development (readey.5@osu.edu) or me (anderson.1@osu.edu).

We have set up a new online form by which you can submit ideas for Senior Design Projects and gain access to talented students, staff, and faculty in DMSE as well as a host of new mechanical testing, thermal analysis, microsopy, and other facilities to support these projects. 

Try it out at: https://go.osu.edu/dmsecapstone

Best wishes,

Pete Anderson