Each year, hundreds of UW-Madison researchers in STEM disciplines are making important discoveries, and they’re anxious and excited to see their work make a tangible impact.
Those scientists now have an additional ally at the federal level to help that happen. On March 23, the College of Letters & Science hosted a fireside chat with Dr. Erwin Gianchandani, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) assistant director of the agency’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate, established in May of last year.
TIP is the eighth directorate to be established by the NSF. It’s the first new directorate in 30 years, and one of only two to be codified into law by Congress. Its charge is to advance emerging technologies and accelerate the translation of research to the marketplace and society. But while the focus has typically been on research discovered on the East and West Coasts, Gianchandani wants TIP’s focus to include and highlight the Midwest, as well.
“There's talent all around this state,” said Gianchandani of Wisconsin. “And it's incumbent upon us to be able to find ways to be able to create opportunity for that talent, create pathways for that talent to become a part of the STEM-driven workforce and the standard and economy of the 21st century.”
Speaking to both an in-person and virtual audience in the Discovery Building’s DeLuca Forum, Gianchandani and Tom Still, the president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, chatted about TIP’s purpose and potential, covering a wide range of topics, including potential obstacles, and creating science-based experiences for younger students to encourage them to pursue a path in scientific research.
“I think that in many ways, in this state and others like Wisconsin, we have the ability to be able to create that cross-sector transdisciplinary type of approach that really gives rise to the next generation of innovations and discoveries that we want to see happening,” said Gianchandani.
Still pointed to the U.S Department of Energy’s recent decision to re-fund the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, located on the UW–Madison campus, as a great example of the kind of support the university’s research could receive from NSF through the TIP Directorate. Earlier in the day, Gianchandani toured lab space in the College of Engineering (CoE) with CoE Dean Ian Robertson, and two plasma physics labs in the Department of Physics with Eric Wilcots, Dean of the College of Letters & Science, and Gloria Mari-Beffa, Associate Dean for Research. Gianchandani finished his visit with a group of community and industry leaders.
“In many ways, this is a generational opportunity,” said Gianchandani about the possibilities offered by TIP. “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. And we're not going to be able to solve it, if it's just a few of us. It has to be all of us working together on the same page to be able to get to where we want to get.”
The full livestream of the talk is available at https://youtu.be/vnjtwcsZz9M