Dr. Ramana M. Pidaparti is a professor and the Associate Dean of Academic Programs at the University of Georgia College of Engineering. I sat down with him on September 25th to discuss admissions into the masters programs at the college, as well as to ask him what excited him about his work with students. Our conversation was wonderful and I felt a real connection with Dr. Pidaparti's philosophy on learning and sharing knowledge. Here is what he had to say:
DB: So I graduated last winter with a degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and did a couple stints with a start-up and then with a field campaign by NASA and Duke, but my involvement was limited in those. So I’m traveling around the country talking to people about their jobs, what they actually do everyday, how they got there, etcetera. And I plan to start graduate school next fall. And I’m interested in moving sideways into engineering. I was wondering, do you have any insights about people coming from a meteorology background who want to transition to engineering?
RP: I don’t have any direct experience coming from Atmospheric Science, but in the past we have admitted students from physics, chemistry and biology. So when they come in from a non-engineering background, we ask them to do some prerequisites. Then they can get on to the graduate program.
DB: Yeah, I would probably feel more comfortable taking some preparatory classes.
RP: Right, so you can go and look at our curriculum for environmental and mechanical (those are probably the two [that you will have the best luck with]) and map out to see what you have and don’t have.
DB: That’s good, because those are the ones I am particularly interested in!
RP: In the grad school we have an M.S. in engineering, and that’s kind of a broad degree, I personally feel that that’s good. Especially people like you coming from another background, for instance I started in civil engineering and went on to aerospace. Then after I finished my PhD. I started teaching in mechanical. Which I knew a little bit about… but afterwards I started doing, like, biomedical projects. So I think it all comes together, and that holistically they are pretty much the same. I’m teaching a course in the sophopmore mechanical engineering program called Engineering Systems in Society.
DB: Ooh that sounds fun!
RP: The idea there is that you look at societal problems including climate, Enron, all that stuff, and address them using systems thinking. That’s my goal, that’s what I was trying to do in that class. Most of the examples [of engineering] that you see from history are related to civil engineering, nuclear bombs and stuff. They’re all quite related. I think the M.S. program in engineering is probably better in a way, and the requirements are probably one-third common core, and two-thirds open (so you can go to any college and take any courses).
DB: So how many hours, or how many semesters is the M.S. program typically?
RP: Twenty-four hours of coursework, and then another six hours of thesis work. So I think it’s pretty standard, y’know, a masters is pretty easy to get. Ph.D. is another thing.
DB: My undergraduate experience was very much like that graduate experience. I took about thirty, thirty-five hours of classes in a little over a year, it was very fast. So I’ll probably do that again.
RP: Yeah, exactly. It all depends on if the student can manage and is smart enough to handle it, then I think, ‘Why not?’ Our program is thirty hours so you should be able to easily knock it out in a year and a half, if you plan it. The only hard part is getting into the program. We have one student, I think she was from Oklahoma, and she is taking some courses in engineering to wrap up a two-semester, eight-course thing. So you have to spend one more year. But I think that can be reduced to one semester if you look at what you have in common with our curriculum.
DB: Yeah. Is there a lot of room for making your case [to the department]?
RP: Oh yeah. Like I said, masters level [they] should give [students] a chance to explore. It’s not my decision, there’s a graduate education advisory committee which is a panel of faculty and we’ll need to look at it case-by-case. There’s GPA, good experience, all those things matter.
DB: So it’s a more holistic approach.
RP: Yeah, and I always felt that (and I can only speak for students from Physics) we usually get students with three courses, but I’m also new here, I joined in January and different faculty have different takes. So we just try to do the best for you.
DB: Where were you before [UGA]?
RP: I was at VCU in Richmond Virginia, and before that I was in the Midwest for a long time. I went to grad school at Purdue.
DB: That’s a great survey of the eastern U.S.! I saw online that one of your research interests was design mechanics and the arts? Would you talk a little more about that?
RP: Yeah, so basically right now there is a trend on campuses to teach nothing but problem solving.
One of the ideas is basically the people who go to arts fields and are really creative and passionate about that stuff, it’s good to bring those kinds of people together: the left brain and the right brain and bring them together and see innovation it can bring.
And then after I moved to VCU they started a program called the Da Vinci Center for Product Innovation. They were admitting students from arts, business and engineering together to do that. It was about seven years ago that Stanford started the design school. Most of the time design is part of some engineering programs but they were the first in the country to start that. And people have business schools and talk about design schools and have different design thinking.
DB: I see a lot of that cross-disciplinary-type stuff too.
RP: I think most other schools are trying to mimic that kind of structure. So they are starting with a center, and then some program, and stuff like that. Now they are also opening humanities and social sciences. So they are providing that interdisciplinary approach. The reason I came here is to do something similar, because there are other business, arts and stuff [in the engineering program], but they are opening it up to humanities and social sciences. So they are bringing a diverse group of students and providing that interdisciplinary experience. I mean, before, it was all problem solving.
DB: So you are kind of an evangelist for interdisciplinary STEM education.
RP: Oh yeah, oh yeah! I mean I got in trouble with my promotion one time when I told them, ‘hey that’s all I can do, teach some classes and publish once in a while.’ That should be the fun way. So I’ve done a lot of projects and I really like it. Right now I’m looking at a similar concept, design thinking to the STEM education. Like I said it’s fun, because we are all intellectually curious and want to do something different. And this is their chance. If your student comes and says, ‘give me a project,’ then I have to brain storm and come up with something for them [laughing], so that they’ll have fun and I’ll have fun.
DB: So you’re also being pushed to your limits. That sounds fun!
RP: Yeah it is. I’ve done it, and then I get some grey hair and loose some. [both laugh]. That is my interest. I personally benefit, in a sense, when I work with other people, learn languages, that kind of thing.
DB: Interchange.
RP: Yeah there’s a lot of common things, and then setting up people for certain fields based on their passion. This person, he’s coming next month to speak [points to The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra]. He is the father of this systems view and he is also learning from Leonardo Da Vinci because Leonardo did everything, artist, painter, engineer, architect. I am really excited to go to this talk. That’s my perspective. One time I got some money to do a project in Egypt, that was modeling weather-related disasters.
DB: So you do a lot of projects pushing this STEM philosophy. What other research have you done?
RP: Actually I have done this one project… we are looking at the inflammation of the lung. So people with asthma or RCOPD, they put in a mechanical ventilator. Usually they’ll see how the patient is responding and based on that they’ll dial in their settings. But they don’t have any internal sensors to see what’s going on. It’s just based on patient response, and they lack higher-level data. So we are combining modeling and biomedical engineering in our experiments. Have you heard of Game of Life? It’s like sitting here and looking at your neighbors and then trying to make a decision based on that.
DB: Is it a type of game theory?
RP: Yeah, it’s one form… and then another project we are doing, we are making a drug delivery device. People with ocular distention, when they are sixty or seventy and their blood vessels leak so the have to take an injection. Injection is like surgery. So we are making an implantable device to put behind the eye and fill in the drug, and that drug will release at a constant rate. So that’s another project. Like I said, I don’t know a whole lot about micro- and nanotechnology, but just working with people and talking to people, I say, ‘oh, this sounds good.’
DB: How do you keep your research interests varied, because a lot of people get cornered into one little niche, that’s the way academia works.
RP: Basically talking, when I meet people and they say something, I’ll be like, ‘Go, go!’ and then see whether I can contribute. My goal is to see whether we can work together and then [contribute] to a publication or paper or project. I get tired of doing the same thing again and again, because it’s not me. I’ve learned that. I want to do something new every five years or so. Especially once we write the proposal and get some money, then it becomes real. We say, ‘hey here are some ideas,’ we put them on paper and then ask for some money. Once you get money, then it becomes real. We have to get students, train them, produce papers…
DB: It’s a lot of logistics.
RP: Exactly.
DB: But it sounds very exciting.
RP: Yeah, I mean if someone offers you a million dollars, I wouldn’t go to anywhere else. This is the fun part. Most of the time we have the [research] ideas but sometimes the students bring in their ideas as well, because they are digging more into the details. We brainstorm together.
DB: I’m sure they’ve had the most up-to-date schooling on the topic.
RP: Exactly, like I said, I just know systems and big picture. Like you said, the interaction and then the creativity and innovation has to be there, otherwise it’s no fun, I won’t participate. You’ve got to push me, and I’ll push you.
DB: I like that. It’s really exciting to hear your excitement. I haven’t heard that very much in academia. This conversation feels more like it belongs in the private sector. How did you bridge the ‘boring gap’ in academia [to bring creativity into it].
RP: Yeah, like if I teach a course I might bring in new material, because it should be fun for me too. And once you get money, it’s pretty much like creating your own thing. The knowledge part just drives me. Once my brain starts to work, they start bringing me problems. And I have to think up the solutions [both laugh]. I’m also marketable, and I wasn’t looking to move from VCU but someone submitted my name. They asked, ‘Why do you want to come?’ and I said, ‘I don’t want to come, but’… And here they don’t have departments, and usually there’re departments, like silos, so there’s no intermixing. That’s what excited me [about UGA].
DB: I have to ask you this question: What’s the next big thing for engineers? What process, what area?
RP: It’s kind of hard to predict I think.
There’s a lot to learn from biology and natural systems. They can show us how to adapt to change, and reinvent our approach to engineering. In biology it’s already been done.
So now we’re trying to come up with new strategies, processes, new materials, but nature has already done it.
DB: Do y’all have a biomimicry specialty, here?
RP: Yeah, actually I’m working on a proposal with someone from James Madison University [related to biomimicry].
DB: What do you like about your job? How does it help you achieve your goals?
RP: I like this job, interacting with students, and working with other colleagues from other disciplines, keeping up with the cutting-edge, and also just getting some money for the college by doing projects. And I get personal satisfaction from working with students and seeing them succeed, because their success is your success. Helping others to focus and be rewarded, that’s the fun part. Y’know if I spend an hour with you I hope it makes a small impact.
DB: It sounds like you’re very next-thing-driven.
RP: Definitely. Actually my son, when he was in middle school, they had to do a science project, and then suddenly it becomes mine, y’know?
DB: “Dad, here can you do this please?”
RP: Yeah, and now he’s in model U.N. and I think he likes it.
DB: Are there hard parts about balancing family and tough work?
RP: It is challenging at times, but once you get comfortable with the things you have to do, y’know, once you get tenure, I think you can still balance trying to have fun and take vacations and still get out [with work]. Mix-and-match a little bit. Sometimes I’ll go to conferences and bring my family along.
DB: Yeah, I grew up with my Dad dragging me to conferences all over the country and it was a blast.
RP: Sometimes it can be cool, y’know in different countries. Sometimes it’s up and down, but it’s fun and once you’ve traveled abroad you learn a lot. I’ve been to a few places and I don’t want to live anywhere else.
DB: Woah, Athens is the best place?
RP: Yeah because I came from a different part of the world.
DB: Oh yeah, you were from the Midwest before this.
RP: Yeah the Midwest, but not only this country. Before that India for grad school. I was brought up there and I don’t want to go back. I’m used to it here and whatever ups and downs, you try to understand the system…
DB: … which hoops to jump through.
RP: Right! So that kind of thing. I told my boss, ‘I’ll stay’. So, what goals do you have for yourself? What do you want to achieve?
DB: My number one goal is to be a father, that’s what I look forward to most in life. But secondarily, I want some sort of creative outlet that is interdisciplinary, that is varied and utilizes engineering and science and interpersonal skills and involves travel. Isn’t that the dream?
RP: Right, right. So you want to go to academia or get a taste of industry?
DB: Of course being my age I am very attracted to the start-up culture, private industry, having ideas and seeing them through to fruition. I’m sure that will change over time, but…
RP: Yes.
Nowadays I tell my students you don’t want to be a job seeker, you want to be a job creator.
I feel that that’s an opportunity, and it’s not easy, but at least if you’re thinking along those lines, then eventually, hopefully you’ll hit it one day. Hopefully later you don’t regret not trying. You’ve got to take a risk. Like I left my comfortable job, went to a different institution and had to prove myself all over again. This is my third institution [laughs]. But I think you do whatever you do and make it fun for you. It’ll happen. If you’re a little uptight then maybe it’s not going to happen. This is your skill set, your knowledge so just go with it and do them.
DB: Just… loosen up, be open to new stuff.
RP: Right, right, loosen up. That’s what I tell the new faculty when they are made to produce a lot in their first five years to get tenure. If you take pleasure, you’ll be stressed out, but if you say, ‘it’s my job’ you’ll be okay.
-- To learn more about Dr. Pidaparti and his publications, click here.