The Stanford Challenge: Imagining the Future
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- / " , iiv>VÌÀ IMAGINING THE FUTURE Issue 1 n Volume 1 n Fall 2008 The Jerry Yang & Akiko Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building (Y2E2), first of four buildings in the new Science and Engineering Quad (SEQ). THE STANFORD CHALLENGE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING The Stanford Challenge: Imagining the Future STEERING COMMITTEE I am pleased to introduce this inaugural issue of the Stanford Pictured above, the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment During The Stanford Challenge, which runs Engineering Benefactor, a newsletter for alumni and friends of and Energy Building (Y2E2) was the first building in the SEQ through 2011, a group of our dedicated the School of Engineering. Modeled on a similar university-wide to be completed. Next up, the Jen-Hsun Huang School of publication, the Stanford Engineering Benefactor Engineering Center, currently under construction, will replace the alumni and friends have committed their celebrates some of the inspiring Terman Engineering Center as the nexus of the school—housing time, expertise, and resources to assure partnerships that have emerged here classrooms, auditoriums, spaces where faculty and students can at the school during The Stanford gather, and a new state-of-the-art engineering library designed to that Stanford Engineering will reach its Challenge. support our quickly evolving research programs. campaign goals. We are extremely grateful As President Hennessy noted We have also broken ground on the Center for Nanoscale for the efforts of the Steering Committee, at the start of The Stanford Science and Technology, which will be the new home of the Challenge nearly two years Ginzton laboratory. Its laboratories will complement the nearby which includes: ago, the university’s mission in Nanocharacterization and Nanofabrication facilities. The fourth Douglas J. Mackenzie, MS ’82, Chairman this endeavor is nothing short of and final building in the SEQ, which will house Bioengineering extraordinary: to change the world. and Chemical Engineering, is scheduled to commence construction Yogen K. Dalal, MS ’73, PhD ’77 Stanford Engineering’s part in the in 2010. Michael L. Goguen, MS ’91 campaign is to seek solutions to important global problems and to educate the leaders who will turn great ideas People Joseph W. Goodman, MS ’60, PhD ’63 into real changes that will make the world a better place. To make sure that our world-class facilities are occupied by equally outstanding personnel, the second area of our focus is on Fredric W. Harman, BS ’82, MS ’83 During the campaign, Stanford Engineering’s four areas of strategic people, both graduate students and faculty. Without a doubt, the focus continue to be: Bioengineering, Energy and Environment, Hong-Seh Lim, MS ’83, MS ’87, PhD ’87 remarkable achievements that have emerged from the Stanford Information Technology, and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology School of Engineering over the past 50 years testify to the fact that Burton J. McMurtry, MS ’59, PhD ’62 (see page 2, inside). Within these areas, our funding priorities are the the recipe for turning scientific innovation into vital technologies people who will make a difference, and the facilities that will enable Kenneth Oshman, MS ’65, PhD ’68 is only as good as the talented faculty and students who have them to do so. perfected it. Ajay B. Shah, MS ’82 Places Our goal during The Stanford Challenge is to provide support for Harold A. Wagner, BS ’57 A major goal of The Stanford Challenge is to give faculty and students 50 more graduate fellowships and ten new faculty positions. John L. Walecka, BS ’81, MS ’83 the facilities they need to make the next great breakthroughs. In the School of Engineering, this means finishing the process begun ten Partnership years ago with the Packard (EE) and Gates (CS) buildings. Within As you will read inside, enthusiasm and support for our endeavors three to five years, after the completion of the Panama corridor have already come from a variety of sources, from non-alumni who renovations and the Science and Engineering Quad (SEQ), it really are interested in bringing students from their home country to will be the case that all of our departments are housed in facilities Stanford, to professors and their former students joining forces, to enabling 21st-century research and teaching. non-engineering grads who have embraced President Hennessy’s call to respond to the university’s highest priorities. This outpouring The SEQ is a sign of Stanford’s commitment to multidisciplinary to date has been extraordinary, as have been all of the gifts that problem solving. When completed, it will feature a remarkable space does not permit us to feature in these pages. community of more than 1,700 faculty, staff, and students, previously dispersed across campus, as well as the larger community that will Nearly halfway through The Stanford Challenge, we have made gravitate to the quad’s shared spaces and labs. The SEQ will bring great strides towards our objectives. But there is still significant together people from engineering, medicine, and the natural and work to be done, requiring an equal share of dedication from all social sciences, enabling them to work together as never before. CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 Stanford School of Engineering Strategic Priorities During The Stanford Challenge, Stanford Engineering will continue to focus on four strategic priority areas identified by Dean Jim Plummer. Within these, the dean’s highest objective is raising support for buildings, professorships, and graduate fellowships. Bioengineering — A fusion of engineering and the life sciences promises new discoveries, technologies, and therapies to improve human health and the environment. Environment and Energy — Meeting the needs of a growing world population in an environmentally sustainable way is a major challenge of the 21st century. Information Technology — Hardware, software, and communications are the pillars of information technology. Continuing research in these fields ranges from basic science through materials and devices to systems and applications. Nanoscience and Nanotechnology — Advancing the science and technology of very small structures holds vast opportunities for research and application development. From left: Eric Chen, PhD ’99, CEO, Brion Technologies; Fabian Pease, The William Ayer Professor of Electrical Engineering, Chairman of the Technical Advisory Board, Brion Technologies; Jun Ye, PhD ’96, President and CTO, Brion Technologies; and Yen-Wen Lu, MS ’93, PhD ’96, Senior Director of Engineering, Brion Technologies. Faculty Mentor Continues to Advise Former Students A start-up sometimes turns to its “technical advisor” for much more Chen agrees. He was a student in Pease’s lab at the same time as Ye. We attract the than technical advice. Fabian Pease, the William Ayer Professor After leaving Stanford, Chen had a successful career on Wall Street, of Electrical Engineering, once found himself playing brand which he gave up to become the CEO of Brion. But he knows how very best, the very consultant. difficult it can be for foreign students to reach the first rung on the career ladder. A former student, Jun Ye, PhD ’96, approached Pease with a brightest people product idea to improve semiconductor design and manufacturing, “The cost of living and education in the U.S. sometimes can be inspired by research the two had conducted at Stanford. He even prohibitively expensive for people coming from an emerging economy,” from abroad, had a company name: Bricore. Pease liked the idea but did not like he says. “Having fellowships is definitely helpful to those people.” the name “Bricore.” Pease says Chen and Ye were “two of my very best students.” That’s but we shouldn’t “I said, ‘That’s not a catchy name,’” Pease recalls. “‘It sounds like high praise coming from someone like Pease, whose distinguished detergent.’” career includes pioneering work on the scanning electron microscope and large-scale integrated circuits. take it as a given Ye and the founding team had a rethink. Ye, who is also a physicist, had given his newborn son the name Brion, a neologism that Pease also happens to be in charge of graduate admissions for the that we’re always combines “bright” and “-on”. (In physics, “-on” is often used as the Department of Electrical Engineering. He says that demand to get into suffix for particle names, such as “electron”). The founders decided the School remains high — about 1,500 applications for 200 spots each going to do so. it would make a good name for the company, since it suggested year — but that competition for top students increases all the time. “a shining and cheerful new being,” as Ye puts it. He adds that in This is true, he adds, not just from Stanford’s traditional U.S. rivals but Chinese culture newborn babies are considered an auspicious sign also from new contenders such as Chinese universities, which receive for launching a new business. major support from the Chinese government and are determined to become world-class institutions. Pease notes that, even now, about half The name also seemed appropriate for a new company in a field the grad students admitted to the School of Engineering choose to go that had found better ways to work with light in designing and elsewhere. printing silicon chips. The founders had devised clever technology to quickly identify and correct potential problems with incredibly “We attract the very best, the very brightest people from abroad, but complex designs — the chips had structures even smaller than the we shouldn’t take it as a given that we’re always going to do so,” he says. wavelength of light used to create them — before the chips were That’s why he thinks gifts such as the Brion Founders Fellowship are actually printed. critical. “We’re very lucky to have all these overseas students eager to come, but if we can’t find the money, there’s no way they can afford to Exactly a month after Ye’s son was born, the company, with Pease come to Stanford.” on board, had its first meeting with investors.