by 
Ann R. Karagozian, the summa cum laude engineering graduate class of 78, has been teaching engineering here on the Westwood campus since she received her PhD in mechanical engineering from Cal Tech.
Given that, she's a perfect person to ask two not unrelated questions:
- What's the state of basic research in this country and its universities?
- Will the skies get any friendlier when planes are powered by alternative energy?
Sitting in her office with a million-dollar view and Mr. Spock smiling beneficently from her desk, Karagozian said of research: "The trouble is with the economic situation, everything is being cut."
This despite bipartisan political support for at least the concept of basic research as vital to the future of American technological competitiveness.
But Karagozian holds out hope that federal basic-research programs are somewhat insulated from cuts and that the trend of private industry partnering with universities on all kinds of research remains a powerful and important one.
As for one of her main research areas -- fluid flow and energy efficiency -- Karagozian doesn't see any major fuel alternatives changing how we design aircraft, but there will be important incremental improvements in mixtures and efficiency going forward.
Karagozian on basic research:
Karagozian on the future of aircraft propulsion:
This article was originally published on EBN's sister publication Drive for Innovation.
This will be very much depends STEM challenges. You need to have strong foundation. Money resource is required but is secondary.
“Sitting in her office with a million-dollar view and Mr. Spock smiling beneficently from her desk, Karagozian said of research: “The trouble is with the economic situation, everything is being cut.””
Brain, I think her answer is apt and its true. Whenever economic crises arise, the first cut is from R&D expenses. I think the R&D expenditure has to be link with GDP and a minimum of 5% has to be accounted for R&D expenditure. Then only new technological inventions can happen.
“This will be very much depends STEM challenges. You need to have strong foundation. Money resource is required but is secondary. “
_hm, what is this STEM challenges?
@Jacob: Why do you feel the cash flow is secondary?
Jacob: Please refer to Brian's other post. STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math as related for Americal Education.
“Why do you feel the cash flow is secondary? “
Nimantha, that's not my comment, its re quoted from _hm comment.
“STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math as related for Americal Education.”
_hm, thanks for the clarification.
Base station mobiles versus storage solutions…..I am not sure where the synergy lies at this moment. howeevr I am not a semicon guru and I am sure there is a great opportunity for this merger. I sure hope so.
Actually, I think I do see the potential for synergy in this merger – the combination of high density secured data storage and he means to access that data with mobile technology.
“The combination would create a chip company with $5 billion in revenue and a broader portfolio of communications and networking chips. “The combined company will be strongly positioned to capitalize on the growing opportunities created by the rapid increases in data center IP and mobile data traffic,””
Tam, good step stone and beneficial in long run. They can tap the business opportunities by offering a complete solution for data centre IP and data traffic; both are hottest & evergreen in industry.
@FlyingScott, if you watch the headlines, there's all sorts of movement in terms of mergers and acquisitions. IBM selling off its chip business. Google purchasing Nest. Facebook investing in a messaging platform. And of course LSI/Avago. I suspect the technology company landscape will look much different a year from now than it does today.
Its better to get your company into acquisition if it has already performed well for few years and there are takers. Running a company long time has lots of operational challenges unless you want to keep doing same things again and again with equal passion and perfection.
Most of the reports on this merger take a business perspective. Thanks, Tam, for taking a look at how it affects our industry. I saw this statemenr from Avago (printed in NYTimes):
“This highly complementary and compelling acquisition positions Avago as a leader in the enterprise storage market and expands our offerings and capabilities in wired infrastructure, particularly system-level expertise,” Hock E. Tan, Avago's chief executive, said in a statement. “This combination will increase the company's scale and diversify our revenue and customer base.”
If you look behind the business speak, it seems like the net result, hopefully, will be improved availablity of producdts in that system level chip space. It's a hopeful sign.