SOP-1 ENGINEERING EDUCATION/ENGINEERING EDUCATION RESEARCH TRACK
POSSIBLE PH.D. PATH : PERCEIVED ISSUES AND PLAUSIBLE ONE STOP APPROACH
Introductory "Foreword/Preface"
I firmly believe that findings and proposed course of action are applicable to ANY school, as they are fundamentally perceived of broad relevance/quasi universal appeal, and to a certain extent open to and likely encouraging/welcoming multiple bailiwick participation and/or invitation to participate. Further, I strongly believe that whatever academic research is conducted is that it should unequivocally have a palpable impact, if possible since day one. My first hand mentee feedback research seems to confirm this - that's about 4+ years of data, some little, pilot "proof of concept" "success story" readily available to scale up by almost any school. However, when I reach to say Education programs because of documented background I get "maybe you should touch base with Engineering" and when I contact Engineering they bounce me back to Education ... back to square zero and going in circles...
Backup verbatim copies of submitted drafts are available and may be online updated via following link (also may ease going over material) :
https://engineeringfundamentals.com/1000Ace/martin-balestie-rough-statement-of-purpose-2026.pdf
https://engineeringfundamentals.com/1000Ace/engineering-education-graduate-school-novel-proposal-and-possible-PhD-path.pdf
While I also believe it could recommend singling out only those with strong rankings and/or credentials in engineering fields, it needs not to be the case. To hopefully ease the reading, I'm borrowing headings from classical Ph.D. app submissions. Will be glad to expand and/or provide concept illustration/source/other and/or even encourage parties to first hand, hands on explore independent as needed proposed ideations. Best way to “settle an argument,” i.e. first hand, independently produced data. Hope it helps. Here we go!
Personal statement that describes a significant issue or topic within an educational or learning context that you are interested in investigating.
Problem Statement Significant Issue/Topic # 1: Engineering vs EE vs EE Research vs Practice vs Field vs Manufacturer/HQ
PROBLEM STATEMENT: chronic schism between academia and industry; the sometimes diverging academician trainer versus the professional engineer/actual practicing engineer PLUS the probably still perhaps unflagged/unnoticed similar schism between the professional engineer/actual practice engineer versus the manufacturer's or HQ engineer. Two or more orders of magnitude! Even regular engineering practitioners very often seem to "know the rules or what saw at school" but it is not obvious if they know WHY or whether rules or features can be reworded/reformulate - lack of hard core field knowledge item, be it by proprietary designs, "trade secrets", special interest groups or mere chance. In my experience luckily is not the finery but some fundamental overlooked.
After being retained as CS mentor by Maryland College Park for the third/fourth year in a row (plus Michigan's Chemical Engineering Mentoring platform & UC Davis ENG003) I decided to follow icon-legend-in-the-env-eng-field Dr. Young's advice and go for a Ph.D. Dr. Ritter (UDel) seconded the Ph.D. route as way to go versus just M.A./M.S.. Various school officers suggested I reach out to faculty and attend information sessions.
Because most of my upper courses are C&I (4xx/5xx) I thought the best way to return to school would be to apply for a Ph.D. in Education or some similar designation. I got all the industrial and environmental engineering training I could ask for on the job and via long time mentors (industrial grade cooling towers, engineering & manufacturing; Dupont reverse osmosis; Dr. Young anaerobic & industrial wastewater; Dr. Randall; Chris Tasser; folks from Evapco, Dupont, Brentwood). There are however a good number of notable process and engineering innovations.
Dr. Kolvoord (from James Madison U) kindly suggested I explore engineering education/engineering education research tracks. I attended numerous information sessions, even applied to some yet the overall possibly imperfect impression of the EER landscape seems to be populated with highly qualified talented people having experienced some sort of discipline or career disenchantment and somehow swerving to EER and/or engineering education at elementary and/or secondary level.
Some other cases seem to be engineering field related progression 100% within academia but hardly or any/zero actual practice. It's like composing [88 key instrument] piano music using just three!
I also found most engineering education webinars & program faculty a little bit unsettling, I was expecting profiles the like of a happy Dr. Jack Welch.retiree ... I can certainly use or could have used a second opinion there - felt a little bit outnumbered/secretly alarmed if you want and thought best to keep my mouth shut ...
At times I was left with a kind of complacent collectivism [unpleasant] impression. Kids likely pay the price later on something that can be 100% prevented.
Looked preInternet, outfielder or worse. But then all I'm saying is that there's tons of areas without coverage - I come in peace so to speak; there ARE coins to look for in some of the unlighted spots.
In the past 25 to 30 years, I have yet to come across a single [academic or industry] paper or book that presents cooling tower information comparable to what I have experienced in design and manufacturing. The same holds true for anaerobic processes and industrial wastewater treatment; since meeting Jim Young around 1999, Ive felt compelled to discard all the books I had at the time and have never sought to replace or update my collection. Nothing surpasses the insights found in manufacturers' literature and/or Nummer Eins pointers. Most of the time books help to pick the right words/wording and subsequently touch base with experts, at times some of the authors. That proves there's tons of badly needed unpublished material!!!!
So that present approaches seem or sounded OK for early vocational guidance but what about the college kids in far more immediate need to land a job or an internship? That's where there may be a huge vacuum (-> experiential learning and more).
You do research about any given topic/issue but then you do something about it!
It would be great to somehow give back. The Ph.D. path seems to be an awesome way to articulate this. I must have been one of the most [remote] pampered engineers ever (no, I was never able to pay them back except for gratitude, tons of life long/life changing pointers). Partial listing: Dr. James C. Young (over 25 years!), Dr. Clifford W. Randall (VTech), Dr. B.J. Lerner (Beco Engineering), Dr. Phil OLeary (Wisconsin Madison), Chuck Brunner (incinerators), Dr. Mike Switzenbaum (UMass), Gastle Lettinga, Dr.Curt McDowell, Chuck Tharp, Dr. Vikram Pattarkine, Chris Tasser, Dr. Glen Daigger, John Harrison, Arturo Manjarrez/Kurt Liebendorfer (Evapco), Anant Upadyahyah, Yves Haegeman, Dr. Rob Segar (Missouri Columbia) , Dr. Sarina Ergas (bioremediation; UCF), Dr. Holland (Hydrosonic Venturi Scrubbers), Brian Graham (IPEC screens), Randy Meetze (FRC Dafs), Bob Johnston (Vincent Corp.), Nils & Mimi Young (DBS Manufacturing), Rich Aull (cooling towers, Brentwood Industries), Kody Ballard (Dupont CCRO), Dr. William Ritter (U Delaware), Bob Kolvoord (James Madison U.)
Glad to show we pioneered all these ideations 20 - 25 years ago by way of preserved manuscript emails (Penn State's Ray Regan; VTech's Cliff Randall; Dr. Mike Switzenbaum UMass; and of course Jim (Dr. Young).
Yet there's tons of up and coming engineering topics hardly covered (in the existing online themed primer series):
1. Dry anaerobic digestion (food waste; farm/agribusiness waste; organic waste); e.g. 400, 800 tons/day (vs compost)
2. Radial deionization (Chris Tasser, Carollo California) (of some historic interest perhaps now)
3. 95+% recovery reverse osmosis (Dr. Arrowood/Dupont, Joe Wong, Brown & Caldwell California; Bruce Alderman; Kody Dupont CCRO; Mark Carroll ADM; others)
4. Granular activated sludge (John Harrison; Jim; Dr. Glen Daigger; Paula Dorns Nereda)
5. Low charge industrial refrigeration ( Evapco, Kurt Liebendorfer/Arturo Manjarrez); splits for refrigeration
6. Bulk volume fermenters (Dr. Young), e.g. 10,000 m3 * 2; large cover/liner reservoirs/other/msw
7. Hydrogen (Chris Tasser, Carollo California)
8. Oil less refrigeration
9. Falling film chillers, e. g. 20 tons ice/day (Dr. Spang)
10. MBRs (membrane bioreactors) also MABRs
11. antifouling cooling tower fills 500/190/75 audience
12. fused glass steel applications, e.g Florida Aquastore; various
13. PFAs
14. nutrient removal via anaerobic methods (wastewater treatment); sample commercial systems
15. syngas methanation