Big-picture 'Discovery Park 2.0' forum planned for Monday
September 9, 2014
Several important figures in Purdue research on Monday (Sept. 15) will lead a forum taking a broad-spectrum view of the future direction of Discovery Park. The forum, open to all, will consider how best to coordinate resources from various sources to create innovative structures that connect disciplines for pursuing grand challenges.
As the title "Convergence: The Next Great Thing for Interdisciplinary Research? Can This Shape Discovery Park 2.0?" indicates, the forum leaders see this time as one to celebrate a decade-plus of Discovery Park -- which passed the $1 billion mark in research expenditures, laboratory and equipment investment, and endowments this spring -- and consider how to retool for the next era.
The forum will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday in the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121. An RSVP is requested on account of room space and plans to provide pizza and drinks. Send RSVPs to Cindy Ream at cream@purdue.edu.
The interactive session will open with remarks on "Context" by Gebisa Ejeta, director of the Center for Global Food Security and Distinguished Professor of Agronomy.
Two other Discovery Park leaders will moderate a panel. They are Elisa Bertino, director of the Cyber Center and professor of computer science, and Ali Shakouri, director of Birck Nanotechnology Center and professor of electrical and computer engineering. The panelists will be:
* Gerhard Klimeck -- director, Center for Predictive Materials and Devices (c-PRIMED); director of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology; and professor of electrical and computer engineering.
* Marietta Harrison -- director, Oncological Sciences Center, and professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology.
* Sorin Matei -- associate professor of communication and a Discovery Park fellow.
* Karen Plaut -- senior associate dean of research and faculty affairs in the College of Agriculture, and professor of animal sciences.
A crucial aspect of the strategy, the leaders say, is that research funding at U.S. public universities has been declining just as the value of interdisciplinary approaches has become especially apparent. Public-private partnerships and new paradigms with institutions offer hope but call for astute steps by research leaders such as Purdue.
