Academia and Industry

Oil and Water or Bread and Cheese?

Michael KirbyDepartment of MathematicsColorado State University

Two Cultures?

• Expand frontiers• Open discussions• Basic research• Run overnight

• Make Money• Mission Statement

• Pillage• Plead 5th• Time to market• Every op counts

• Make Money• Mission Statement

Potential Benefits of Relationship between University and Industry

• Impact on Education

• Impact on Research

• Program Development: CSU niche?

Industry and Education

• Real World Problems

• Very practical definition of an “answer”

• Non-traditional class: industrial seminar

• Introduction to Intellectual Property

• Student Benefit: Get a job.

Program for IndustryApplied and Computational MS

• Computing skills (4 courses)

• Modeling (2 courses)

• Statistical tools (2 courses)

• Project development and communication(1)

• Area of specialization (2 courses)

Industrial Seminar 2003: SRC

• Brain Storming

• Group activities

• Patent Literature

• Software Project

• Mathematical Analysis

• Innovation

The Problem

• When is a sensored system behaving nominally? Failure modes. Time to failure.

• Examples of systems– Nuclear power plants– X-ray tube data– Turbines– Space shuttle

The Solution

• Explore Data Representations (E.g.)– MSET (Patented)– SVD– MNF– CCA– PLS– Wavelets

The Implementation

• Matlab: not ideal but fast implemenation

• Graphical User Interface: Platform for discovery

• Data Structure: function handles

• Distributed code development

• Code development system

Matlab code demo

Code development system

Summary: Course Goals

Simulate industrial work environment– Interacting groups on large project– Exercise ability to contribute in group

brainstorming– Innovation– Interim reporting– Code development and documentation– Frustrations of having an idiot boss

Industry and Research

• Real World Problems

• Student Research Support

• Technology Transition

Research Interests

• Optimal Modeling of Massive Data– Model reduction– Geometric and Nonlinear Signal Processing– Image processing and visualization

Industrial Collaboration

• Honeywell Corporation

• Technical Concepts Management Inc.

• IBM

• Euclid Discoveries, LLC

• Siemens Corporate Research

• US Forest Service

• Raytheon

Oil and Water

• Short term support (no 3 year contracts)

• Problem a good match?

• Academic freedom

• Publishing results, Intellectual property

• Patent ownership

• Basic research versus development

• Can’t talk about results (NDAs)

Bread and Cheese

• Real World Problems– Drives mathematics– Develops problem solving ability

• Support for Research in Mathematics

• Realistic Preparation for Students