FEATURE STORY — September/October 2006

Growing Globaly ...

By Mary Timmins

Ambitious goals propel UI plans far from home

Fusionopolis, whose first phase is to be finished this year, is one of Singapore's planned city-within-a-city research meccas. Image courtesy of Kisho Kurokawa architect and associates.

Frontiers to the East
"Students and faculty need to be aware of Asia," Zukoski continued. "The world economy is going to be driven and changed by what's going on over there."

In Asia, go-for-broke new capitalism is fueled by a massive and motivated work force, strong government controls and a drive to master technology. The future burgeons with demand, both foreign and domestic, for more and more products. Add to this mix the increasing multinational presences of major corporations, and huge new frontiers loom on the far horizon. For the West, rewarding opportunities to share education and research appear endless. According to one university president, China is "the Klondike of higher education at the moment."

Illinois already has ties to Tsinghua University in Beijing, where a study abroad program in engineering, begun in 1990, has expanded to a joint-degree offering. Tsinghua students can earn Illinois master's degrees in agriculture, accounting, engineering and other disciplines of interest to Chinese companies, which will subsidize the students' tuition. Herman said, "It's a way for China to get a work force. And we get placement in China, which pays dividends down the road." Similar joint-degree programs are being negotiated with other top institutions in China.

As for India, Herman plans to embark thence on a fact-finding mission in September at the invitation of Infosys Technologies in Bangalore. He said he'll be "exploring private sector relationships and relationships with universities and government partnerships."

And of Singapore, Herman said: "Things have really accelerated in the past few years."

Bright prospects with A*STAR
Everything is accelerating in Singapore. Endowed with a strong central government, stable social structure and a citizenry that speaks English and thinks Asian, the island city-state has been fueling its tech boom with a locomotive-load of public money. Research addresses concerns both longstanding ‚ such as water resources and petroleum engineering ‚ and cutting edge ‚ as in biotechnology and informatics.

"Singapore is interested in moving to a ëknowledge-based' economy," Zukoski said. "They would like to do research for companies like 3M or Boeing. They need partners who know how to work with these companies."

Important relationships are developing through Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). A government entity comparable to Argonne National Laboratory in the United States, A*STAR has launched a massive campaign to make the island a world center for research. At Illinois, A*STAR sponsors elite doctoral students in biomedical sciences and physical science and engineering.

"While there are a lot of strong undergraduate programs in Singapore, strong research institutions and universities are beginning to emerge," said Zukoski. "They [the Singaporean government] need to establish graduate programs, and they are looking for partnerships." Such partnerships lead to international collaborations and ties to industry, meaning more research opportunities for UI faculty and more job shots for UI grads.

One such partnership is already in place at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Since 1997, the U of I and NUS have offered joint master's degrees in chemical engineering. Students in the 18-month professional program spend half their time in Singapore and half in Illinois, attending classes and interning with such program sponsors as DuPont, Exxon Mobil, Honeywell, Kraft, Pfizer and Shell.

In 2002, the two institutions extended this arrangement into a joint doctoral program. Jeremy Lease '00 ENG, MS '01 ENG, is currently working on his doctorate at NUS, researching ways to grow cells that could one day be used to regenerate or create liver tissue. Ali Ashgar Mirarefi, MS '73 ENG, PHD '76 ENG, the faculty member who directs the program, said that other joint programs are presently under consideration — potentially creating a UI campus branch in Singapore.

For Zukoski, the University's research in digital systems offers great collaborative potential — particularly in fundamental concerns of secure and reliable computer technology. Such security is the raison d'Ítre of the UI Information Trust Institute, which, in concert with the UI Coordinated Science Laboratories, is developing Trusted Illiac. This high-profile prototype is a networked PC supercomputer designed to run

a range of software applications within a middleware shell that is impervious to intrusion. Companies underwriting the Trusted Illiac project include Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, IBM and AT&T, which all have interests deeply vested in secure computing. The four also have presences in Singapore.

"Security of information technology is a worldwide concern," said electrical and computer engineering professor Bill Sanders, who heads ITI. "It's clear that if the U of I is to be a world leader in this area, we need to reach out to industry internationally."

If global outreach goes ahead, will mutual understanding be far behind? Denise Park, a psychology professor and Beckman researcher, collaborates with a neurologist at Singapore General Hospital, using MRI scans to compare patterns of human brain function between ages and between cultures. The project, funded by a $2 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, suggests that Asians and Westerners differ profoundly in how they see the world and approach tasks. "There's some evidence that Westerners are more individualistic, more linear and more hierarchical in their thinking," Park said. "Asians are more holistic and relational." For Park, such insights have implications that range from deepening her own collaboration to helping people get along in this global and global-er world.