Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi everybody welcome to UMBC in the Loop,
I am Dr. Ellen Handler Spitz and I am a Honors College professor here
and I'm talking today with Professor Govind Rao who is professor
engineering and also
Director of the Center
for Advanced
Sensor Technology
and we were joking before, we want you to know that sensor is an engineering term,
doesn't have to do with red canceling things and saying you can't
publish.
So I am a professor who teaches Humanities classes.
I teach about Art and Literature,
Anesthetics
and when professor Rao invited me to talk with him today I protested that I don't know
anything about engineering and he then said "Oh, but that's exactly right,
that will give me a chance to explain what engineering is all about"
and one thing that really intrigued me about
about talking to professor Rao
is the whole idea of
what an engineer is
because the word engineer
sounds a lot like engine
and it comes from a Latin word
"Ingenium"
which
has to do with
the spirit of a place
and it has to do in the same root as genius,
intelligence.
You can even think of that word genie
who makes marvelous things appear
and happens
umn... and
I
love that idea
and the french word for engineer is "ingenieur"
which goes back to the Latin.
I wanted to ask you
to talk a little bit about it,
what is it mean to be an engineer?
You know it's interesting that you
say that and thank you for agreeing to do this, uh...
part of what
I think makes an engineer a better engineer
is to have a very open approach to any problem that we are trying to solve
and most engineers if you
ask them what it is that you see yourself as
would describe themselves as the problem solver first and foremost; but
just about every problem
has a solution that's not
particularly straightforward and creativity is pretty much the hallmark
of any good engineer
and so it's very interesting to me to learn about the root words because
those are some of the attributes
that we try and inculcate not only in our students but all the projects that we deal with
and some of them
end up requiring really out-of-the-box thinking. Now to that
it's really interesting our earlier conversation about how you were
describing Art as
building, and
making new forms, new things.
I think that's very much the soul of engineering also
and so uh... I think
we're not as far apart as you might think ah... initially people do have
this
reaction to
Engineering and Science, the whole stem debate
where it looks incredibly complex but I think ultimately
we're all human beings and that's the common thread of humanity a connects us
and I think that's what
attracts
us as engineers. In my lab in particular
we're all about trying to make
new devices, inventions that will help people live better lives.
You know,
of um...
entymology,
the ancient greek word for Art is
"Techne"
which is the root for technology, like you already know the director of
this
this advanced sensor technology lab so
even in the root word of Technic
you have this sense that there's something artful, umn...
that we share
and I think that's really umm...
that's really
important, and also, I love what you said
about umm, about solving problems because sometimes umn...
formulating the problem
is really important. Formulating the problem,
if you formulate the problem differently then you can solve it.
If you keep formulating it the same way, is that true? that if you keep formulating
it the same way
you can solve it but you have to... and I think that's very
uh... artful too to try to imagine another problem
and then the solution can emerge.
Yeah, you know,
again it's a question of how you learn to do something.
Very often we learn the baby steps first
and then things get more complex but
as you get the problems that are really difficult ones
they involve so many
intricate
juxtapositions and connections that
it's no longer possible to take a simple linear approach
and that's where
you distinguish really creative good engineers
because you quickly learn that you need to approach a problem from many
different angles
much of an artist does it's not
one-dimensional, it's something you really explore.
So, do you think that ummn...
do you think that ummn...
that you need to learn,
have
to learn
a certain body of material then, before you can be create. We were talking
about this with my students
in a class I'm teaching umm...
sort of debating about
about first things, what comes first.
Does the idea comes first? Does the inspiration comes first? Does the image comes
first? Does the dream comes first?
or
is it in the process
of working with materials, or with,
or learning that that the
that the ideas come or is it sort of undecidable in engineering?
I think in the arts I think it's really
undecidable, and also I think it depends on styles
personal styles of working
but in a science lab like
your lab, I want you to just talk about what you do in your lab maybe maybe some of
your words, what is
an Advanced Sensor Technology Lab for those of us who fill it.
Our... you know that's interesting so we look at big problems
and I'll give you one
big problem.
I'll give you several examples but
one big problem that's facing
the world is infant mortality.
While we're doing this interview we're talking for about an hour.
Four hundred and fifty newborns will die
that is the death rate amongst
new lives
entering
this world
and the real tragedy uh... is not
just that they're dying that's bad enough
but many of them are preventable
and uh... and they are preventable because all you need to help a baby survive is to give
them
a nice comfortable environment
much like the mother's womb where they've emerged from
and keep them
stacy such that they can grow and thrive and prosper.
In many places women
go into labor, give birth
uh... outside of a hospital
and one of the hardest things that a baby has to do is just keep its body
at the right temperature
even advanced nations aren't immune as we saw on hurricane sandy
when the power went out
they had to transfer these precious little newborns
to another hospital that had functional incubators
so that's one project where we're putting a lot of effort
to come up with low-cost sensors that'll allow physicians, caregivers,
to not only provide the baby a comfortable environment
but also monitor their vital signs.
How can you measure when the baby is breathing okay, whether the baby's getting
enough oxygen,
whether the baby has enough nutrition?
Now these are currently devices that you would find readily and the first world
setting or even in the third world and an advanced hospital setting,
but where the bulk
of people are born
it's hard to come by these tools
and so we're trying to come up with
Paradigm Shifting Technologies that will allow you to make these measurement
in a very low cost manner such that
it's affordable and its benefits is spread throughout.
Prof. Rao, tell us what
actually
a sensor is?
Is S-E-N-S-O-R... the root word is Sex, and so you actually
measure and identify
a particular
component or substance
so one sensor that might be very familiar to you is glucose
which is a molecule that's sugar that's present in all the
nutrition that we
partake off and that's what ultimately gives ourselves the energy, that's what
allows an artist to become creative, you do need that sugar to fuel the brain cells.
And that leads to another big problem so there is this disease called diabetes
that I'm sure you're familiar with
and that has to do with the body being unable to produce enough insulin which
is a hormone that regulates
your sugar level
and
all our bodies have evolved. We're very capable of maintaining the
right temperature ourselves
um... the right level of
nutrition is also equally important and that
is tied into glucose regulation. Our bodies need
sugar for all the cells to survive as an energy source
and that sugar has to be maintained and controlled in a tied range.
If you have too much sugar in your blood
that's a problem.
It can have all kinds of complications.
Leading to kidney disease, blindness and eventual death
or if you have too little sugar you just pass out
so
it's really vital to exquisitely regulate that sugar.
Now, turns out
in some people
for a variety of reasons they lose that ability to control their sugar so
most diabetics have to
inject themselves periodically with insulin
and
to do that you first you need to figure out
" or sense " how much glucose there is?
and what you do now
is you take a little needle
get a drop of blood
and put it in a little meter that tells you how much sugar.
Yes, I've seen, I've seen friends do that, yes.
And that turns out to be one of the most important things for a diabetic
do to, to actually monitor their blood sugar on a pretty regular basis.
The guidelines call for four to seven measurements a day
perhaps more. Oh my goodness, but that's very intrusive in somebody's life.
Very much so, it's painful, it's inconvenient
and uh... as a result most patients don't do it
which means their blood sugar fluctuates wildly.
So, one of our project is looking at how can we make this much simpler, make
it non invasive.
That's great , that's great so it could be done
less frequently? or it could be done.... Painlessly. Monitored without the
patient's own intervention or...
Yes, maturated device that will tell a patient what their
blood sugar is. That's brilliant,
That's simply brilliant that's wonderful.
So but to do that....
you now have to formulate the
problem
that the current technology is painful
and
come up with an out-of-the-box solution
and our out-of-the-box solution
has to do with just observing
that ultimately our skin is not perfect.
It leaks constantly you're always giving off moisture
and so this led to the idea that
can we
see whether there's enough glucose
diffusing out the skin.
and so what we've come up with is a new device that will collect
the glucose that's
diffusing through the skin
and measure that.
So that way, the patient will wear a device that's unobtrusive
and simply be in contact with the skin. It would be designed,
we could use some art,
come up with a piece of jewelry.
As you are from India, I would want to wear something from India. Thank you.
Ah that's very... that's so interesting mmn...
but this again has to do with
the whole process that you talked about.
it's not something that an engineer can do
by themselves; I really rely on
a team like we have at our center
"CAST"
The Center for Advanced Sensor Technology, that's the abbreviation.
That really pulls people from many different disciplines
and that is the heart of our ability to come up with solutions.
We have a diverse ecosystem
of people and and you know any ecologist would tell you the most
ecosystems are the ones
that have multiple species
so we thrive on that diversity
not only in terms of
fields but backgrounds, people
are truly, where in an international mix,
we're a real multi crew.
You know, that's fascinating to me because mmn...
there's so much empathy
in this project.
I mean there's empathy for the patient who
is suffering with a diabetes, and who
has to keep on injecting
on himself or herself
all the time; so the project
is psychologically important. It's a psychological treatment because it
depends on having somebody who can say look...
I know your project seems to be connected to medicine
and um...
I think that the very very interesting to think about the uh...
the way in which
the most brilliant physician
who is incredible at diagnosing an illness
can
fail,
if the patient doesn't comply.
If the patient can't comply the physician says "okay, you have to inject yourself
seven or eight times a day" but the patient is maybe an artist who is painting a great picture
and forgets you know. When you're working or a writer
you forget. You're in in the zone you say, you're busy. You can't
keep doing that. if you did it, it would take you out of...
So here you come along,
the engineer and you come up with something which is extremely valuable.
Not only from the medical point of view but also from the
point of view of the empathy of that
patient. And ultimately
that's what we're about it's empowerment
create the tools using our technology
to help people to live better lives
and do it for broad sections of humanity
not just the first world
but the other ninety nine percent also. We are incredibly privileged in this
country
with access to just about everything you can imagine
and yet
our work isn't
done until everyone can have
lives of
dignity and access to really basic
healthcare
and that's what we're trying to use some of our talents towards. Can we come up
with solutions
that really benefit a broad cross-section of mankind?
and what's interesting is all these things tie into our education. It's like teaching a
sensors class,
and some of these projects so for example building a low-cost incubator
was a project that I assigned to
teams so they had to research different
countries or regions of the world where they might market this product
and what local features they would have to consider.
So, it was
very interesting just to see the student reactions because I have one team
develope
an incubator for Ethiopia
and so after the class
I was asking one of the kids
uh...
who...
typical UMBC profile
first-generation going to college
and working at the same time putting himself through
and he said it was eye opening for him to realized that there are people in this
world
who live on
an income for a dollar a day or less
and so that just
opens a whole new dimension you know so you
hear a lot of this globalization and
competing across the globe but people don't really understand
how other people live and I think that's vital.
And that, and that
raises the whole question of
the way which science connects
the connections between the disciplines among this mix.
I thinking and I'm listening too and I'm thinking of anthropology.
Thinking of how the anthropologist goes and studies
how people are actually living
in other, in different cultures.
And any...
and and not only that the poverty perhaps but also
the cultural differences, I mean.
When you mention incubator I'm thinking an incubator
is is
is used for a preemie for
premature baby so
I wonder how it would feel
to be a mother
in a country where there isn't a lot of medical knowledge as here and
to have to have give birth to a
tiny, under sized infant and then being
asked to put the baby into an incubator even the mother has to give up the child in a
sense for this and
but the mother has to be, it has to be explained to the mother that if she can't
do it she will lose the child
no things are, very it's very interesting thing to think that
the way those
cultural
themes, umn...
have to be taken into consideration
by the doctor about and by the scientific, by medical researcher. You
know and its so interesting you say that because
as an engineer
I have a natural
affinity for technology
and you make the assumption
build it and they will come, build a better mousetrap
and that's not always true, you know human beings are peculiar, you know they are not like us
engineers,
they do strange things and behave in unpredictable ways and so
that's part of the challenge to
expose my students to
the fact that ultimately there is a human being that's got to be connected
to this technology.
So to your point
we actually
talked to some social workers and outreached professionals and said you know
what's it going for
alleviating this anxiety?
and they said you know what
you have to understand the local culture.
Forget the mother
go talk to the mother-in-law.
That's the one who has the greatest influence. Yes, and I would of never thought of that.
No, of course, of course.
That's fascinating!
so these are some of the things we're learning,
on the job and my students are learning too,
so
this is something that is taking their education.
The reason, this conversation makes me so happy. I will tell
everybody who's listening to this that
the way professor Rao and I
um actually
met was through a mutual student
who was studying
literature with me
and studying engineering with professor Rao and I wanted to ask
professor Rao
permission
to allow this student to hear
a lecture by a
brilliant
intellectual british intellectual
Marina Warner of London, who was coming to the United States to talk
about the new book,
her latest book
on the Arabian nights
called "Stranger Magic"
and this, this,
this young student of ours
is a wonderful reader.
She reads literature with such psychological sensitivity and
when I was teaching at Stanford
I've often had
pre-med students, science students, engineering students who
would asked me for letters of recommendation and I would say why me?
I can't recommend you for your science
but I would write letters in which i would say
and I'm so glad this conversation is supporting us that
understanding in a deep way
something about
human psychology
and empathy and the way cultures work this whole thing
talking to the mother-in-law
because she has the power
in that particular constellation.
These issues are to be found
very often
in the arts,
in ancient studies,
in paintings
in sculptures,
in drama and poetry and epic poetry.
Oh, and by the way
this is a very daring of me; do know that I actually after coming to India four times,
I've actually
used an abbreviated version of rema hanna
in my teaching and if you would ever like to come in
talk to my students about it. I might take your course myself! Oh, no no no no.
I should take yours!
in going back to the baby
who fascinates me, the baby
who needs, who is born
into
a world
an outside world from the womb of the mother
which is different in every
every possible way from the mother's womb.
How do you let's how do you
how does that work? what kind of
device could there be that would help
to regulate, that will help the baby to maintain the proper
um body temperature.
and so on, how how would do you think about? how would you think about that?
So again this is an example where
when
growing up in india uh...
not many homes had refrigerators, that was a luxury and in northern India
summers can be quite brutal
in excess of a hundred twenty degrees uh...
and so people have adapted over millennia and come up with
very innovative solutions and one of the simplest ways to get a cool drink of
water as to have a clear pot
that you store the water in
and the water evaporates and
the water cools down by about ten - fifteen degrees.
And so our thought was to combine this clay pot
with a little chamber
and thereby
the hot summers cool the content of the chamber so that the baby can have
its own portable air-conditioned environment
and in the winter we thought
of a very simple system that would be solar powered and have a
readily available a truck light
headlight bulb or something
as a heating source to warm the baby so very simple appropriate technology tools
that can make a dramatic difference
cause these are not
areas of the world where
a plugin incubator will work
because there isn't any electricity
so it's interesting
we describe this concept now to an engel
that has field stations and Nepal and in the Copper Canyon in Mexico
where this is a huge problem because many of these isolated communities live
hours from any hospital or medical facility
and there's one more uh...
coral reef that's on the Gates Foundation has done admirable work
on this because
ultimately was a vicious cycle between over population and poverty
and
the reason populations explore is that when you have high infant mortality
parents can't
afford to lose a child so they end up having more children as a form of insurance
so if you can assure that the child
will survive
people have shown dramatic results on population growth
and ultimately this is a rapidly warming planet that we all share
and we've got to do something about it. And the parents become invested in the child who
alive and
raising the child and caring for the child and yes, it makes perfect sense!
so
you know we see this multiplier effects of our work. You know the other thing
that I love that idea because
the idea of the clay pot
if something is familiar
to the to the mother she grows up with this and using something using materials
rather than
when I walked into the studio
for this program and I saw all this technology around me so
you want something that's familiar
and I think
earlier
we touched on them but you used the word anxiety
and I think that that's very important I think that there's a lot of fear.
People are afraid
of something new
almost always and they are used to it, even when it doesn't work very well they
are used to it
they want to stay with it
and when something, that's why you say the engineer of the scientist says
look this is much better let's go for it
but the
but the
there's a pull back
there's a pull back away from that
so I think that the scientist
even we see this all around us
in our country
people who are very afraid of science.
Yeah, its interesting
I think there may be something to this. A colleague of mine observed
that the way we
interact with our children
when we're reading to them for example
you put them on your lap
and you hold the books so there is this sense of intimacy and
love that's being shared
whereas if it's math
it's usually someone yelling at a child saying do that drill so I wonder if
the roots are
you know inherently
planted at a very early age. I think that's a marvelous insight
that is absolutely... because I write about this this is my area, I write the
children's
book reviews you know on the
for the new republic
magazine and I've written a book
several books about this
and it is; I call this,
there's a British Psychoanalysis to use this term "The Holding Environment"
Donald Winnicott, and there is this sense of literally holding environment with
child sitting next to you or
several children and reading to them.
I even even read to my students the other the day in the honors college.
There is something wonderful about that that you're right
when you're teaching when they're teaching with the math teaching
or the science teaching I think it could be
wonderful to
brings some of that
warmth into that kind of teaching, it would make it
mmn... let me think
let me ask you about this
science
is supposed to be very objective you know
math problem is got to be done one-way and it's got to be done the
right way there's no... mmn...
which and yet
when I talk about reading stories to children there is a text
but the parent is very free, you know.
If the bears says "grrrrr" you know
"grrrr" you can make it very big and say "grr" you can change it and
What do you think about the
personal,
individual
learning styles or the subjective elements in the
learning
so science especially
when one is growing?
Ellen, I think technology is helping in that regard
because I think
there's an understanding
now that experiential learning is much better community-based learning is much
better
so putting together clusters of students and I think our chemistry department is
doing some ground make breaking work along those lines
it's team based project based as opposed to textbook pedagogy drills
and I think
think about
when you're a child how u explor the world, it's tactile
touch, taste, all the senses brought to bear
so we need to connect with that, figure out how we can adopt that with all these
wonderful simulation tools we have
to create
this rich learning environment, I think that's going to be the trend of the
future
but I think the key there is
I think most creative people are going to be
those who
can do both left brain and right brain
activities and flip
back-and-forth; you know also professor Rao I think one of the most
precious resources
of youth
is curiosity
and I was actually in New York, I was on the subway
and a little girl
a little girl was there
and she sort of
struck up a conversation and she started saying "what's that?" to a symbol over the door. And
said "what does that mean?"
she pointed to a symbol of the picture what is that need and what if that and
what is that she was asking me if i you know how to her mum
was there them
and another child and i started to say this that this i mean she was incorrect
that door
what was striking to me was the promoting her little mind
was but questions
wind why how
where for
this is the most
crashes i think that some of this wrote
you've got to do it this week
stance i do think taking your plane crashing out
that this
delicate little plant of curiosity which we really want to
grow
and foster
in our students
your spam
you know i think it
having said that there is a balanced though some subjects like engineering do
need dot
hard foundation yes
mathematical tables you have to learn by you
there is no you know eating your spinach has to be done second step
someplace but beyond that you're absolutely right i think
allowing people's curiosity to flower and letting it lead them down different
parts
in fact that's what we do so for me that ideal grad student is a curious student
one was always asking and cast of all of our gaza cast of characters who work
with me world was looking at things and saying how can i make this differently
how can i make it better even simple stover
are always thinking about it
to appoint or patient anxiety
you know you go to hospitals now played looked more like art galleries and the
people of kermit tasteful decorating and painting analysis where the nurses now
where flower yes if they don't wear those white
close anymore with little hassle it was a child live-in nurses
were the scariest of white now they
but because they were good
that's all for our bet
if you look at the word from patients point of view was flat on the back yet
they're still looking at ceiling tiles on fluorescent lights
so one of the fate of i'd like to do if i were ever hospital director though our
quickbooks mountain
on the war on the on the same way like my consciousness exactly the sistine
chapel without profit perfect example so
simple things like that i think
yet to always question look at things just a little differently he ag eureka
picnicking he think the children stuck
did you ever see elements mata lying in an old house in paris that was covered
with vines
with twelve little girls into straight lines into straight lines they broke
their bad investment you can expect
and anyway the one of them gets on
gets uh...
gets etc
what is appendicitis
and she is in the hospital
and she's lying on the bed just a second she looks dot and she says
the following
ticked crack on the feeling
out habit
but sometimes looking like a rabbit
notice exactly she had just lookin sheet but to use her television as a nation
and the crack wasn't just a crack
it for her it was about it
just coke i really want it could be considered spam it that this whole
question does eight million stephanie to me the question of
we remain by wrote
memorizing you have to memorize i guess the periodic table so i don't know what
it is in science you have to know these things
in order to be created
aren't always so strongly that we have lost this in the arts
why is it that still again
and students
are not *** to memorize
poetry this this week last week two weeks ago ike told me since they were
reading for a child and me it
not one of them in that class has ever studied latin
and i tell them this is than they had a professor from johns hopkins who came to
get a lecture for them and title and this is the most beautiful lacks in
thank you reid and i'd nate and i gave them
lots of choices of great passages from the indian
into lineal translation i think you must memorized
one
famous line
pretending to remind for aber
you will have this
i don't think we still far apart
and turns out
meeting that kind of learning is
because the gap because like the furniture at your
the natural tools of your mind in then
out is that
forced on at high calling them and you see you i did perhaps wingate weekly
thing to remember these things
you can use it
always use it if it's inside your head so i'm not sure that
we have to give up on that but we don't apply to crash
and again
all these young students score
deterrent
giving them the exposure to both sides just like we have the gender punishment
quiets my engineering students take your course yes i think the other way should
also be done where after manatee students taped some technology courses
like it or not that's what's defining our lives and also we don't want
until we don't want them to be afraid
etc thank you so much it was that put the absolutely tragic to talk with you
and um...
i'll be we appreciate your listing structure
express
but
kid