College's fast-forward approach to engineering captivates Campbell

By Hope Green

From decoding DNA on high-powered computers to building robots that see and hear, these are exciting times for engineers. As the College of Engineering's next dean, David Campbell is charged with keeping BU at the frontiers of innovation in applied science.

Campbell officially takes the helm at ENG next fall. His appointment follows a period of unprecedented growth for the college under Dean Charles DeLisi, who is stepping down to return to full-time teaching and research.

A physicist known for his pioneering work in the field of nonlinear science, Campbell has directed the physics department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) since 1992. Previously, he was director of the Center for Nonlinear Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics and applied mathematics at Cambridge University, and is founding editor of the scientific journal Chaos.

David Campbell Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

A California native, Campbell also enjoys skiing, fly-fishing, and running, and says he looks forward to boating on the Charles. He is also an amateur tenor. The B.U. Bridge interviewed him during one of his recent visits to campus, where he has been meeting with department chairmen to chart a five-year plan for ENG.

Q: What are some of your major accomplishments as head of physics at UIUC?
In eight years, I was able to hire more than a dozen outstanding new faculty into the department, including four women. I wrote several major grants for graduate fellowships and also was able to get National Science Foundation backing for undergraduate research. I also played a very active role in obtaining recognition for our faculty, by nominating them for prizes and awards. Another important accomplishment was the complete revision -- we actually called it "reengineering" -- of our introductory, calculus-based engineering physics courses, which are taken by 3,500 students per year. The student response has been very positive.

Q: What attracted you to BU?
BU's College of Engineering is fairly small relative to other engineering schools, and I actually consider that an advantage in several respects. ENG is light on its feet and very forward-looking. So leading the college provides a real opportunity to help set the agenda for engineering in the 21st century. For instance, ENG doesn't have a lot of the large, more traditional engineering departments, such as civil and chemical engineering, but it has one of the first and largest biomedical engineering programs. Other schools are just now scrambling to catch up in this area. And BU does groundbreaking research in areas like environmentally friendly manufacturing, and explores novel techniques in quantum electronics that can be applied to high-precision microscopes. I think that at this stage, traditional civil and chemical engineering programs would be ballast for a college like this. BU recognizes that with limited resources, it is better to be excellent in a few frontier areas of engineering research than a jack-of-all-trades.

Q: You mentioned biomedical engineering. What developments would you like to see in that area?
One of the ideas I have discussed with Provost Berkey and President Westling, as well as the faculty, is to create a center that builds bioMEMS, or bio-micro-electromechanical systems. These are tiny devices that interface between biological and electromechanical worlds. One example would be the technique of attaching DNA to a computer chip. The idea is to see which genes express themselves when the chip is exposed to a variety of conditions. This technique is central to efforts like the Human Genome Project. One of the exciting new companies in this area -- Sequenom -- was founded by an ENG faculty member, Professor Charles Cantor.

Importantly, our new bioMEMS center would be an interdisciplinary effort. It would combine computer science, chemistry, biology, the Photonics Center, the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation, various engineering labs, and ENG's growing programs in gene research and bioinformatics.

Q: What are your long-term goals at ENG?
At a general level, my goals are to enhance the excellence of BU's engineering teaching, research, service, and entrepreneurship. To achieve this, we are planning targeted faculty growth in several key areas.

We are also looking to increase fellowship and research opportunities for our graduate students and to keep our undergraduate program vibrant and innovative. The explosive growth of technology, which shows no sign of slowing down, means you have to train engineers who can constantly retrain throughout their career. The best way to prepare students for this is to make sure they have a really solid foundation in the basic sciences.

Q: As a theoretical physicist, how will your skills complement the pragmatic environment of an engineering school?

From an engineering perspective, physicists are generalists. But they do know, for instance, in mechanical engineering, something about the strength of materials. In aerospace engineering, they know a little about fluids, and in electrical engineering they know about solid-state devices. So being a generalist can be a useful thing.

You have to keep in mind that the goal of an engineer is to make things, and to make them work, not just understand how they work. A physicist might be happy just understanding. So the emphasis on making things work is something a physicist coming into this job has to make sure he or she keeps front and center.

Q: When did you first realize you had an affinity for science?
Like a lot of kids, I was interested in the stars and dinosaurs. I was very much into rockets in my early teens. I got my materials from my father, who was a chemical engineer. I would launch multistage rockets in vacant fields until the city put a stop to that and told me to go join a rocket club.

I had a very good education in the California public schools, and my interest in science kept up in high school. But when I was 14, I spent four months in Europe with my aunt and uncle and became fascinated by other cultures and languages. I almost majored in German as an undergraduate at Harvard, but my love of science was still there, so I majored in chemistry and physics.

Q: What is it like to attend engineering school today as compared with, say, 50 years ago?
For one thing, there is an increased emphasis on communications skills. This is where engineering interfaces very strongly with liberal arts education and humanistic values. Engineers need to speak and write well and be sensitive to ethical and philosophical issues. They need to be Renaissance men and women. Technical skills are a must, but the best engineers of the future will be able to communicate their visions. Also, just as in the corporate environment, today's engineering students are taught to work in teams. You need to be a creative individual who is willing to work with others.

Then there is the matter of lifelong learning. Being an engineer today is very exciting, because the technology is changing so rapidly. That means you need to renew your expertise constantly, and it may be that the master's degree will become the necessary union card for engineers who really will contribute in the next century.

Another very important change is the much greater diversity -- in both gender and ethnicity -- among today's engineering students. This is a very positive development that we need to ensure continues.