Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Harvard University
The New Horizons in Engineering Distinguished Lectureship Series at Clarkson University is proud to announce that Dr. Frank Doyle will speak on November 17 at 2:30 pm, and via Zoom: https://clarkson.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAod-isqDoqEtGR1JsDty07uA_JLlY0PVAk . A reception will be held at 2:00 pm, in the Student Center MPRs. The public is most welcome.
How can we build robots that act like living organisms? What will it take to develop an artificial pancreas? Or create intelligent medical nanotechnologies? New intellectual spaces for interdisciplinary thinking are encouraging engineers to work with life scientists to find surprising solutions to complex societal problems.
In this talk, Dr. Doyle will make a case that world class Universities have a unique opportunity to explore new pathways that result from not only the convergence of engineering and applied sciences with the life and physical sciences, but also from embedding engineering into design, business, law, medicine, and the arts and humanities. Every day, scholars seek solutions to complex global issues—clean and renewable energy, climate change, cybersecurity, health care for a growing population, and more. Through collaborations with researchers across their campus, other universities, and corporate and foundation partners, engineers and applied scientists brings discovery and innovation directly to bear on improving human life and society.
Such a revolution is taking root in multiple US universities and adopts the unifying principle of convergence – the merging of distinct technologies, industries, or devices into a coherent whole. Experiences from Harvard’s multiple Schools will be highlighted, illustrating the power of a Convergence approach. It requires new ways of not only conducting research, but for funding and education as well.
Doyle will highlight an example from his own research lab – the artificial pancreas. In the last 20 years, his research group has been working with medical doctors on clinical demonstrations of feedback control algorithms for the artificial pancreas. He will outline the difficulties inherent in controlling physiological variables, the challenges with regulatory approval of such devices, and will describe several systems engineering algorithms we have tested in clinical experiments for the artificial pancreas.
Dr. Frank Doyle is the John A. Paulson Dean of the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he also is the John A. & Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor. Prior to that he was the Mellichamp Professor at UC Santa Barbara, where he was the Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Director of the UCSB/MIT/Caltech Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, and the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering. He received a B.S.E. degree from Princeton, C.P.G.S. from Cambridge, and Ph.D. from Caltech, all in Chemical Engineering. He has been recognized as a Fellow of multiple professional organizations including: IEEE, IFAC, AIMBE, AIChE, IMABE and the AAAS. He was the President for the IEEE Control Systems Society in 2015 and was the Vice President and Chair of the Technical Board for the International Federation of Automatic Control from 2014 to 2017. In 2015 he received the Control Engineering Practice Award from AACC and in 2020 received the Industrial Achievement Award from IFAC; both for the development of the artificial pancreas. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (2016), the National Academy of Inventors (2020), and the National Academy of Engineering (2021). His research interests are in systems biology, network science, modeling and analysis of circadian rhythms, and drug delivery for diabetes. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking with his family, racing sailboats, and is a certified soccer referee at the adult and collegiate level.
Dr. Doyle III will be the 21st Distinguished Lecturer in Clarkson University’s New Horizons in Engineering series, which is dedicated to improving the understanding of important issues facing engineering and society at the 21 Century.
For more details, please contact Dr. Liya Regel (Hon. Dr. Sci.’02), Distinguished Research Professor of Engineering, New Horizons in Engineering Distinguished Lectureship series founder and chair, lregel@clarkson.edu.
https://www.clarkson.edu/news/convergence-unexpected-partnerships-engineering-medicine-and-beyond
