In a recent interview, Mark Van Dyke, Associate Dean for Research (ADR) at the College of Engineering at the University of Arizona (U of A), discussed key developments and strategic initiatives within the college, emphasizing the goal to double its size and enhance its role in the rapidly growing bioscience sector. Since his arrival four years ago, research output has significantly increased, driven by a collaborative approach among departments and alignment with national priorities in advanced manufacturing and healthcare technologies.
Q: Arizona has seen remarkable growth in the bioscience sector in recent years. How do you see The University of Arizona contributing to or capitalizing on this growth?
A: I learned when I came out here that the bioscience sector is the second fastest growing sector in the state, second only to the semiconductor industry. The sector is very broadly defined; it doesn't necessarily relate to everything that we do at the university, but those are big numbers and growing really quickly. So, how does that relate back to the university and what we do?
It lands pretty squarely on engineering because a lot of that involves science, technology, and manufacturing. When we look at how that reflects back on the university, it's really important for engineering to grow more broadly across all of the eight departments that formerly sit under the College of Engineering. But it also raises the importance of biomedical engineering in particular. That's where a lot of that workforce is coming from, so we've put a lot of emphasis on the growth of biomedical engineering in particular. The research in that department needs to grow, and the student enrollment needs to grow, as well.
Q: What are some of the most exciting research initiatives currently being pursued at The University of Arizona, and how do they align with the university's broader strategic goals?
A: The big picture, whether you attribute it to the current administration or the post pandemic mindset, is that there's incredible investments happening. There was a flood of legislation that started in 2021 (e.g., the CHIPS Act) that identified national priorities – advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and biotechnology – that relate to our economy and national security. Suddenly, economic development became part of the discussion happening at universities.
What's really exciting about some of the things that we're doing is not only being able to go after big programs, but also that we have specific expertise in things that are happening in this state. A really good example of that is digital health. Take wearables, for instance, which track your health-related characteristics very conveniently. We have a lot of expertise in that at the U of A. In particular, microelectronics, miniaturization, communication between devices, storage of data, processing of data, and artificial intelligence are all coming together in a really interesting way. We're getting a lot of the tools and capabilities to be able to do things that we dreamed about, really only ten years ago. There's a lot of capacity for faculty to do work in these areas, whether it's in cybersecurity, device development, or artificial intelligence algorithms for data analysis.
Q: Collaboration is increasingly important in research. How does the university foster partnerships across different departments and with external institutions to drive innovation?
A: It’s possible for people to be in the same college and not know each other. The strategic plan that we completed the year after I came to U of A catalyzed the process of getting to know what's around you, who's around you, and what they’re doing, and that was really beneficial. One of the things that we, the ADRs, started doing was meeting collectively as a group, which is really helpful for having discussions about what's going on and where there are opportunities to grow. The intensity of the research is really focused on about five colleges at the U of A, so that's five people – five ADRs – sitting around talking about how to get things done.
Outside of the university, what's really been interesting is that in the last four or five years, the federal agencies that drive a lot of research in this country (e.g., NIH, NSF, Department of Energy, Department of Defense) started helping drive regional collaboration with initiatives like the Tech Hubs, and before that, the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. Academics and people who are responsible for building research teams and sort of shepherding the research enterprise were great for pulling together regional partnerships.
Q: Looking to the future, what are some of the key challenges and opportunities you see for university research, and how is the University of Arizona positioning itself to stay at the forefront?
A: One thing that comes to mind right away is the workforce. Getting trained, qualified people, especially in the research enterprise, is essential for running our enterprise. The research enterprise at the U of A is built solely on a bedrock of individual faculty labs. Faculty do the research, write the grants, and get the awards, and they do it with the help of really talented students.
There are some universities that go out there and they recruit at a high level, but we're more organic. We like to hire younger folks at the assistant professor level and bring them into our environment to help them grow into the person that they want to become and the professional that we want them to become. I like finding those people and helping them be successful in this kind of job, but it’s a big challenge. In order for their program to work, you have to have talented students. A lot of faculty have undergrads that contribute to their research by working in their labs, and that part of the talent pool is essential as well. It's a challenge to get good graduate students. Everybody wants them, and we've got to be able to attract them to the U of A.
The other problem is space. It's always space. And this is a problem across higher education. I was reading an article just a couple weeks ago saying that the amount of deferred maintenance in higher education right now is at an all time high. It's staggering.
Q: How is the university preparing its research students and graduates to meet the evolving demands of the workforce, particularly in Arizona's growing bioscience and technology sectors?
A: Workforce, in engineering and in STEM more broadly, is a really interesting topic these days. Addressing the workforce needs is an even greater challenge in STEM, and probably even more so in engineering. A lot of engineers are white males, and that's the way it's been for decades. We haven't done a good enough job diversifying that workforce. It's still hard to get young women interested in engineering.
It's also challenging for people who didn't come from a Blue Ribbon winning school district; they're going to really struggle to get into the College of Engineering because it’s a very rigorous program. Ideally, we would like students to start at the College of Engineering in Calculus 1, that way they can do Calculus 1, 2, 3, and 4 in their first two years. While they're doing that, they are also allowed to pick up chemistry and physics. Those are fundamental courses that they have to have for their engineering courses. So, when a student doesn't start in Calculus 1, it creates all sorts of challenges. One-third of students now are only testing into algebra or pre-calculus, two courses before where we want to be.
It's easy in higher education to just push this off on the primary education system and say, but that's kind of a cop out. We've got to find ways to help them succeed because a lot more students could be engineers. It’s not a question of their intelligence or work ethic; they just didn't have the advantages that some other students have. In order to increase and diversify the workforce, we've got to address this problem.