So who is she then?

Well, here we are at the end of our promised series of “The Materials Scientist, Who is She?” workshops. Before I give you the answer to our eternal question, first let me tell you what worked well with the logistics: We proposed three different dates and let the colleagues choose which to attend; this was a good plan because there was a natural mix of technical expertise and personalities and it kept the discussion groups to a manageable size. We set a strict time limit (2.5 hours) for each session so that the end was always in sight. And we had a good espresso machine in the discussion room.

Beforehand I attended a “Facilitating meetings and workshops” training course and I practiced some of my new tricks on my colleagues. My favorite turned out to be the “silent sticky note” technique, in which everyone writes down ideas on sticky notes which are then stuck to the wall and rearranged in silence by the team before any discussion is allowed. This approach was absolute torment for some of us who almost exploded with the desire to start arguing immediately, but certainly gave the quieter participants more of a voice than usual. Here’s an example of the ideas that got organized into a “Structure – Properties – Processing” block.

We structured the discussion around “Knowledge” — all the stuff that a materials scientist should know, “Soft skills” — the useful bits needed for survival in a professional environment, and “Practical skils” — labs, equipment and so on, all the while keeping in mind the question “What will we require for admission to our MS program in 2030?” We generated many new ideas (and reinforced many old ones) and even one of my more ornery colleagues declared the process to be not a complete waste of his time. All in all rather positive.

So positive that the piles of cheerfully colored sticky notes crammed full of creative ideas became high. Very high. We decided to make an executive summary which was eleven pages long. In small font. We agreed not to panic. And slowly, over the course of a few meetings of the core project team a structure started to emerge…

Now we find ourselves grouped into three “themes” which we are fleshing out into detailed profiles:

1. Designing of Materials: Given a bunch of atoms, how does their arrangement determine the properties of a material.
2. How do we characterize and model materials?
3. Designing with Materials: Given a particular application, how do we choose or make the appropriate material?

Not rocket science I guess, but someone else gets to design that curriculum…

Were there any surprises? Well, we held a dedicated workshop for our students hoping they would be more innovative without the constraint of us old folks being around, but they were actually the most conservative, with their suggestions largely reflecting our current curriculum. Perhaps we should not be surprised by that though — certainly when I was an undergraduate I thought that our Professors had some kind of profound perspective that was determining what we were learning and why. A big surprise though was the almost complete convergence regarding what the defining aspects of our field are, with all of us basically agreeing with each other on the core aspects. And that, as any veteran of faculty meetings will agree, is a truly remarkable outcome.