Category: Commentary
Seats at the Table
As I continue to experience a uniquely quiet and thought-provoking summer, I find myself able to spend more time cooking, doing home stewardship, and engaging in other "domestic research". Does this herb go with this meat, or this type of cheese? Which type of battery is best for my classic sports car? How can I get those stains out of the ceiling from where the roof leaked a few years ago? What is my best sleep schedule? Let's set up some research, and collect some data!
Research, I often tell the students in the lab, is an act of communication and documentation. The more unique or non-standard the research, I explain, the more the burden falls on the researcher as writer (rather than the audience) to understand the context and implications (and even relevance) of the research. I sometimes hear complaints about that burden: "That's not fair!" (I will not digress too much on my feelings about "fairness" in this sense. No, it's not maximally convenient to the writer. Actually, it's much harder, and sometimes relegates work to being ignored, or non-influential, or unappreciated, or even flat-out rejected. And sometimes, that is simply unjust. But pointing out that something is inconvenient, or inequitable, or unbalanced, or unjust doesn't mean that it's not true.)
Over the past few weeks, I have had lots of opportunities to think about professional colleagues of mine. It might be a LinkedIn update, or a work-related email, or a professional society web update, or any of the various ways that academics engage with their professional discipline and their personal or research networks. Of course, we're all busy, so I don't mean to say that I am in active, daily interactions with any of them, let alone all of them. However, that's not the point. For any subset of them, there can be a variety of events or projects that cause me to interact with or at least consider "Hey, what's xyz up to these days?" Some folks have been moving around, so it may take me a moment to find out about where they are right now, or what they might be working on in research or campus administration. So, I may do a search on Mark, or Gary, or Mike, or Alec, or Steve. I may remember a past research project or see a news story, so I want to follow up on Harriet, or Stephanie, or Tonya, or Pamela. Normally, those of us in the university world think nothing unusual for academics to do that sort of thing. If you include me in the list, that's a group of 10 folks. Not even that hard for a dinner reservation at a restaurant (well, when we get back to having dinner at a restaurant, but that's another discussion for another day), if you could get us all together in between our busy schedules. We're not all in the same discipline, after all, nor are we limited in our work obligations. That's what happens when one becomes a full professor in engineering.
By the way, the NSF likes to collect and analyze data, so when several close friends of mine (and my daughter, over some French toast during a visit in Madison) challenged me to do some thought experiments, it was easy to go to the Survey of Earned Doctorates. One of the original versions of the question involved how well most people know about the world of academic faculty, particularly at research universities. Well, most of the people I spend time with know… because that's who I spend a lot of my time with, and besides, anyone who knows me hears about what I do. But that's not really a representative sample of the world, is it? (In fact, that is exactly the sort of example I'd use to say, "that's not systematic observation!" in a stats or human factors class.) But for the rest of the world, the idea is kind of abstract and remote, and outside of their experience. So, all 10 of us being full professors in engineering departments (when we're not being department, college, or campus-level administrators) would make us part of a group of about 11,600 folks.
However, I am also intentionally telling this story in a particular way, to build up to a particular punch line for dramatic effect. (I admit: I like doing that.) Actually, there is nothing untrue, or misleading, or even tricky about the story. I'm not picking folks that I have only seen on TV or in a movie; I've interacted with some of these folks this year, either on Zoom or in email or in person. But if you did see us all in a restaurant, sitting and talking about research budgets, or faculty senate actions, or the challenges of supervising too many graduate students with too little time, those topics would not necessarily catch your attention first, or surprise you the most.
We're all Black.
Why is that important? Of those 11,600 or so engineering full professors, maybe 250 of them are Black males. Only about 50 are Black females[1]. (A male-female faculty ratio of 5:1 is not actually that surprising in engineering, so having the table be close to gender parity would be a surprise if you knew it was engineering faculty.) That's not very many people. And to be honest, if I were asked "what can these people do to increase STEM diversity?" my answer would be fairly simple.
Exist. Do your work.
(This is my own personal version. Others may reference a quote, such as "Do what you can, where you are". Versions of this are attributed to Arthur Ashe, or Teddy Roosevelt (who attributed it to Bill Widener).
I admit that I am not the sort of person who grabs a bullhorn to lead a crowd in an activist demonstration on any topic. (The only times I've used a megaphone or mic to stir up a group would be as a coxswain for a rowing team, or as a host / MC for a STEM-related research conference or public outreach event.) But I have come to a growing recognition over the years that just standing there and speaking in my own voice, in front of a class or at the conference or as host of the event, can be a very powerful statement and surprising communication. As my daughter had pointed out, if I retired tomorrow, I would be able to say that I made a difference and have left a legacy. But I'm not likely to retire tomorrow. What is changing is the sense of what work I will choose to do, and on whose terms. That is actually fairly new for me, to decide to pick my own terms and communicate my own messages, in my own way, in my own time. I'm not even completely sure what messages I will be choosing to communicate (including this one). I do recognize that the burden is on me to make the message as clear and understandable as possible. However, I am no longer assuming that, when other people don't get or believe the message, that it must be my fault. Just letting go of that may be a key to doing my best job in answering my own question. What is my work? Not for you, or him, or her. What am I best suited for as me, in the world that is, even if I wish to design for the world that is not?
Actually, that's a good question for everyone to ask, and not be afraid of finding a new answer.
[1] (These numbers come from NSF Table 9-25, from 2017.)
Guidance, Navigation, and Communication
This is the most normal contact I've had today. Thanks for this bit of structure.
While this was not how or where I expected this blog entry to start, after a long absence. However, these comments are especially notable for me, since they came not from one, but two different people in two different online meetings in two distinct research project contexts. They were notable not because I was doing something uniquely innovative or novel, but exactly because I was doing something relatively mundane: regular weekly meetings with my students, and regularly scheduled project updates with my research team. Yes, there were a few technical hiccups, as there often are, but for the most part, they functioned as we always expect them to function.
And that, in a nutshell, was what was most appreciated today. I think it is no exaggeration to say that very few people alive today remember a similar period of rapid shift from normal to unprecedented, with such a sense of vertigo as we collectively stare into a social, economic, and cultural abyss. But that is not where I want to focus my emphasis in this entry; there are plenty of places to talk about that. I want to talk more about what we in the lab have been learning this year, which has become unexpectedly one of the most valuable possible lessons for me (and maybe others, but I will let them be the judges of that).
Fall 2019 was really busy. I was teaching my two courses (Perspectives on Systems Engineering, or PoSE, as well as Work Analysis and Design) with a bit over 200 students in total. Two students were finishing their dissertations (Megan on Cybersecurity Incident Response Teams, and Jordan on Spaceflight Mission Support Operations Teams), and three more grad students (and an undergrad) were joining—two from a different department with different cultures and traditions of graduate progress. I was also faculty advisor to the professional society student chapter. Add that to my normal level of travel (Japan in August, London in September, Washington DC and Seattle on consecutive weeks in October), and our regular habit of individual meetings (written as "1:1" in my calendar) just sort of fell by the wayside. We were making progress overall, and I was still having (most of) our weekly GROUPER meetings, so no problem, right?
Well, not quite. New students need orientation and support to start a new program—even if they are simply completing their BS degree and starting an MS/PhD in the same program. The culture of a lab changes significantly when the "veterans" leave and the "newbies" come in. If all the veterans are leaving at once (and living in other cities or even time zones as they finish), who is most responsible for managing the communication and socialization of the important aspects of the organizational culture? The advisor, of course—even if the lab is fortunate enough (as we have been) to have a set of new student "onboarding" documents. Thus, it was easy enough for me to think, "well, this is just a little schedule shift," when postponing 1:1 meetings, it's HUGE for someone just starting on a new path in a confusing feudal environment.
So, among the last gasp efforts of the overwhelming Fall semester, we made sure that we put a priority on making sure everyone had a regular 1:1 meeting, and that such meetings were a priority when possible. (Sometimes, from February Frenzy through March Madness and April Anarchy, we might not have 1:1 meetings for everyone at their regularly scheduled time, but we know to discuss that with the travel schedule weeks in advance.) I was even able to welcome a new international visiting student, and within her first week on campus, we had 1:1 meetings for her as well. Everyone remember to breathe…
Within the first three weeks of the new semester starting in January 2020, the difference was obvious to the students, and to me as well. Yes, it helped that I wasn't teaching in the classroom ("A Professor is ALWAYS teaching!"), but each week, significant progress was being made in the crafting and focus on research projects, social and psychological development, and understanding of what I'm looking for and how to get there. As a result, when I asked for a "Captain Kirk to Scotty" response from the lab, not only could I get one, but the response seamlessly added into the discussions of each individual's projects as well.
Figure 1. Scotty: "I need at least three days, Captain." Kirk: "You've got an hour." image from https://movieplus.news/25-false-things-about-star-trek-that-everyone-believed/
Since the lab has been experiencing "distributed operations" for at least four years (remember the students in other time zones part?), we have frequently had at least one member of the lab (including me, when I was working in Washington, DC for a year) "dial in" remotely via Webex, Google Hangouts, Skype, Zoom, …. It's not weird, it's just that not everyone makes it to the same room every week. So, if there is an illness, or travel, or simply a schedule conflict, "Can we do the 1:1 remotely next Monday? Sure." In essence, regular contact, regular discussion, regular updates had all become… regular.
Back in February, one of our research project teams was having its quasi-monthly meeting. It's hard getting people from four universities and a federal agency together for project updates, but we were able to find a mutual window in the schedule: March 23. We don't know much else about the news and research environment ahead (our project had been already upended by a Sunday morning news story), but we do know that. As the possible impacts of "shelter in place" and "social distancing" were discussed in early March, GROUPER made a fairly simple decision on March 11, two days before Purdue's Spring Break: "We'll just assume all meetings starting March 23, for the first two weeks after Spring Break, will be electronic rather than physical." At least it seemed simple at the time.
GROUPER studies how people get, share, and use information. We focus on elements of information sharing, knowledge exchange, and task coordination. We've talked about differences between physical interactions and online communication, and how we manage and moderate our expectations of those online information flows, for over 25 years. (See here, and here.) But today, there was an additional value to doing things we do regularly, in a way that we could recognize as familiar and repeated. And yes, there was a value to me as well. Guidance and navigation aren't just for spacecraft, but for explorers of all types; communication is not a luxury, but a human need.
500 Days, or Five Good Months
600 Days, or Six Good Months
Sundials and stelae. Stonehenge. Tulum. Humans use artifacts and architecture to help mark the passage of the seasons and celebrate calendar landmarks. Some are purpose-built; others, although not originally designed to reference a particular celestial passage, take on their own significance as reminders of the lengthening and shortening of days. (One of my favorites, of course, is the alignment of the sun along the Infinite Corridor: not just a geek-enriched celebration, but a bi-yearly marking of the darkest weeks at the bottom of the year in Cambridge.) I have now learned enough of the patterns of my home in Lafayette to note the seasons as the sun transits the windows and doors of the house from east to west, spring to fall. Near the Spring Equinox in March, the sunrise tracks down the hallways, and makes prisms through the windows that fall on the far walls. The return of longer days, late sunsets, and warm breezes seem to grant me additional energy and enthusiasm for projects and innovation: six good months are here, until the Fall semester and Equinox return in August and September. (Or so I thought, back in May, when I wrote the first draft of this entry. It's mid-June now, so I'm down to five warm and good months. It's also just a bit less than 500 days for total mission duration, as I will point out later.)
Figures 1,2. Springtime prisms on the walls.
Interestingly, the sunlight this spring felt especially auspicious, even though we still had snow well into April. (A lesson for me, that I respond to the quality of light, and not just the outdoor temperature. Snowfall on the still-bare trees, framing a brilliant blue of sky, was still a treat for me, and an encouragement to "get to it".) So, what is compelling my energy and enthusiasm now? As I mentioned in "Origin Story," I had the opportunity to see the crew of Apollo 8 in Chicago a few weeks ago, relating some of the story and observation of what it was like to be on that mission, and how much that experience changed—not just them, but the lives and thoughts and dreams of so many others during the bleak pains experienced in 1968. You mean, all of that was 50 years ago? Of course, it sounds like distant history when I say it, but it feels like near and precious memory.
Calendars and anniversaries seem to carry special significance, particularly with base ten multipliers. Fifty years. A half a century. A golden anniversary. That is the basis of special celebration. A century plus fifty? Longer than human lives, an announcement of longevity and recognition of legacy, although a bit more difficulty to say or spell: a sesquicentennial. Combined, there is a sense of serendipity and convergence, and I must admit, a celebration of purpose and precious acknowledgement of the prettiness of what can be achieved with an integration of purpose and imagination and fierce determination. Even the celebration becomes itself such an integration.
A few years ago, the campus put together a proposal to create a Center for Human Imagination; I was inspired by the effort, and wrote a series of vignettes centered on such a convergent celebration, being held as part of the Purdue 150th Anniversary, on the 50th Anniversary date of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing: July 20, 2019. The Center never came to be, but in some ways, I have it even better now: There's no need to worry about the Center's activities, and indeed, the celebration of "One Giant Leap" can expand to encompass multiple Giant Leaps, looking forward as well as to the past. I can think of no greater experience of my passions than to be "Flight Director" for such a mission of celebration and imagination. The world will celebrate July 20, 2019, and Purdue is a natural focus of that attention. By mid-October, Purdue's celebration of its legacy and look to the next 50 – 150 years with a look to past and future in exploration and space. Yes, these are concepts Passionately Felt. But a successful mission requires more than passion.
Elegantly Crafted: It takes something special to walk into a room and present a plan to do what others might even fear to imagine. But, well-crafted, the pretty math and elegant design wins out. The fictional rescue plan in The Martian could only be the design of… (insert awe-struck whisper of appreciation and respect): "a steely-eyed missile man". But we don't have to rely on fiction. The Apollo 8 lunar insertion trajectory was no less a work of elegance, crafted only a few months before the mission. And don't forget Kathryn Johnson, our quintessential "steely eyed rocket woman" who crafted the math to bring John Glenn back home.
Excellently Executed: Also in "Origin Story," I described the challenge of the hero living their life forward, not knowing if this is the moment that creates the legend (what legend?) that the screenwriter will weave into our dreams. Preparation, talent, desire, opportunity… In sports, maybe you are remembered as the player who made that amazing shot to win that game… and then, two days later, you did it again. Or maybe you're a test pilot, trusting an "extra gallon or two" in the tank in the face of "1201 alarm" and "30 seconds".
Figure 3: Flight Director's Notes: Passionately Felt, Elegantly Crafted, Excellently Executed.
Why do I want to be Flight Director? I love making connections. I thrive on bringing the pieces together. They're not all my pieces, and none of this is just one person's story. It's certainly not just about the one moment of peak experience. There are many moments, and several hundred days, available between now and late October, 2019. (Just a little short of 500 days, you might not be surprised to know: just enough time for some beautiful orbital mechanics and gravity assist to get all the pieces in place.) They don't happen all at once, and I mustn't ignore their beauty when I find them. Perhaps a piece of crafting becomes visible in the shower, steam and water vapor glistening as the sunset shines through my bathroom window. No, that won't happen every day. It requires alignment, and notice. And a few good days, weeks, and months.
Figure 4: Alignment of the light.
(This took a couple extra weeks to write and post. Hey, it's a busy time of year.)
When I was young I thought of growing old,
And what my life would mean to me…
Would I have travelled down my chosen road,
Or only wished what I could be…
— "Kyrie," Mr. Mister
This spring has been an interesting time of innovation and re-imagination, both locally and more broadly. Although I will not be taking a flight to Wakanda in the near future, I was obviously very intrigued by the Black Panther "origin story." Living out one's origin story is hard, in part, for one simple reason: no matter how seriously or strongly one feels one's passion, the subject of the story has to live their lives forward in time. The movie scriptwriter and director can work backwards based on the story they want to tell (and the events they already know will be important for the story arc).
Figure 1: Flight to Wakanda sign, Atlanta airport (credit: CNN)
Unexpectedly, I have had the chance to consider my own origin story over the past few weeks—not just because of the opportunity to reconnect with history, but the ability to see in the present how pieces of the story fit together to tie present and past (and maybe, to tie past and present to future).
Bring to mind, if you will, a moment from your childhood where many things were possible, and you felt that a hero or heroine was speaking directly to you and your imagination of what you "want to be when you grow up". I remember begging my parents to let me stay up late on Christmas Eve when I was six years old-not to wait for Santa Claus, or listen for reindeer, but to listen to astronauts speak for the first time from the orbit of the moon. The following Christmas, one shouldn't be surprised that I had an Apollo Saturn V model (like this one, shown below) waiting for me on Christmas morning.
Figure 2: Saturn rocket model, 1969: photo from http://fantastic-plastic.com/REVELL%20SATURN%20V%20PAGE.htm
It's critical to recognize that things rarely work out this clearly or directly; I meet people my age and older who still ask the question of what they want to be. (Sometimes, that's about the awareness that life takes us on different paths; sometimes, it's an admission that even as our bodies get older, we don't always feel like we've "grown up". Wasn't "grown up" supposed to mean that things made sense, or were more clear, or had resolved all the youthful uncertainty? Apparently not.) But, nonetheless, imagine such a moment. And now imagine that a chance to see and hear that hero appears in your email inbox, in the form of an invitation: come see a panel discussion by the crew of Apollo 8 for a book launch about their mission to the Moon. The opportunity sells out, as would be expected… but not before I have my tickets. I'm off to Chicago, to hear about the Earthrise photo and the Christmas Eve message and, and, and…
This is the event that made me, and gave me the life I live today. This is primary inspiration.
I arrive at the Museum of Science and Industry in time to work through the line, and find a seat, before the lights go down.
Figure 3: Barrett at the MSI, with NASA SG Jacket
The movie director and screenwriter in my head can create a scene for the event, but that's not really how it works out. I'm not called out, or accidentally run into Frank Borman in the hallway, or finding myself shaking Bill Anders' hand. (As it turns out, I'd already seen and Jim Lovell before, so what does that say about leading a fairly special existence?) However, is this really something that I can mark as a failure or disappointment? I am learning more of what it was to them to be an inspiration to the world, as well as the inspiration and impact they felt to see all of human existence out their window in a single frame, knowing that they were the first to do so. They are telling the story so that the director and screenwriter are stunned into silence. The crew describes the surprises, and serendipity, and nearly sacred experience, as they experienced it and as they remembered it: living their lives forward, rather than worrying about the director's intention.
Figure 4: Apollo 8 crew
And what about me? Well, I am wearing my NASA Space Grant jacket, with the iconic "meatball" logo. Not surprisingly, that gets some attention: a few people ask if I work for NASA; I'm much better now at saying "yes". After taking a look (and some picture) at the Apollo 8 Command Module (and a framed and signed version of Earthrise), I am approached by a woman with a clipboard. Would I mind being videotaped for the Museum about the Apollo 8 event? Of course. I'm excited: perhaps too excited to answer the questions smoothly or calmly, I try to express the excitement of being able to be reminded of my origin story…
If the director in my head were managing this story, I would probably have finished here. But surprisingly, there is more. The very next day, there was an awards dinner for Engineering faculty, and I was awarded the Engagement and Service Award. I did not expect or anticipate video testimonials describing my effect and impact, through Indiana Space Grant and the senior capstone projects. I am unable to refute the messages or their meaning; I see no reason to reject the story anymore. And a week later, I am back at the Indiana FIRST Robotics State Championships, watching the excitement and tension of the competition in one of Indiana's historic high school gymnasiums. This is new history being made, of course: the students are vying for the chance to represent Indiana at the World Championships in Detroit, where the NFL draft has taken a backseat in an NFL city to the prior commitment of K-12 students and their robots. A total of 15 teams earn their opportunities that day, including brand new teams and teams of underdogs who have overcome negative assumptions and lowered expectations to win awards of excellence. It feels like a small thing, for INSGC to offer financial support to help them on their journey. Who knows which of them will remember this month as part of their origin story, and the events that set them on the path for a life beyond their imagination, and successes not yet dreamed.
Figure 5: Detroit FIRST Championships, Einstein Round Robin. There is an origin story being written out here.
Expanding the Territory
Now that I have returned to Purdue, I am back to experiencing some of my past habits and activities as a faculty member. In my previous entry, "Crossing Paths," I mentioned my trip to North Dakota for the Space Grant meeting; last week, the travel was to Austin, Texas for the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) meeting. After being in Washington for a full year, it was both refreshing and curiously strange to be back at an academic conference. More than anything else, I was able to enjoy re-connecting with colleagues and collaborators and others in a community that I have been an active part for over 25 years, rather than the valuable (but disconcerting) experience of learning a new environment and new norms in an unfamiliar context.
A year away from something so immersive as one's primary research community does permit a new experience and view upon one's return. It is not just that my presentations took on a slightly different tone due to the experience of writing for diplomats; I was thinking about the presentations differently, colored by my growing understanding of what it is to speak on policy topics. I was very glad to see GROUPER alumnae and hear of their successes; I enjoyed watching the current students present well and receive appreciative comments from the audience. That was much more satisfying in many ways than actually being the one presenting all of the papers. It's an interesting expansion of perception and shift in perspective on the territory (dare I say legacy?) of one's career. Interestingly, I could also hear it differently this time, aided by the alternative experience of last year. Where has the influence gone, and how has it traveled from its headwaters? Does the river notice its impact on the stones as it flows?
I recognize that some of what I missed while in Washington was the regular opportunity to work with and mentor people whose personal and professional trajectories could be increased. What I could begin to notice in Austin was how much influence my past efforts have had on others, even when I didn't realize previously that what I was doing would affect them in a lasting way. In retrospect, it's not surprising, but at the time, I found myself at a loss for words when I was introduced to a promising student by someone who had already been positively influenced by their interactions with me. I wasn't actively recruiting new students… but I would be pleased to have such exciting and passionate people to help explore new projects and possibilities.
Another area of recognition during the past two months since I returned from Washington was the change in context to describe the applications of our work in the lab. Yes, it's easy to excite other space folks about the NASA research on Mars exploration analog projects; pilots often don't need to be convinced about the value of our aviation weather information studies. But policy impacts? Can't we just leave that to others? As I have learned, the answer is "no". The connections won't be evident to all, as we've already learned from the story of Cassandra and "postcards". What is the broader context of connections, within and beyond the communities that already sense the value of what we do?
Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised about this, but nonetheless, it has taken me a while to process this change in thinking due to my experience in Washington. My conversations while in Austin did not just cover the next steps for the HFES, but next steps for national science and technology policy. The research discussions were not just posed in the context of a single principal investigator grant to a directed funding agency call… but possibilities to address broader elements of engineering's role in society. What justification would you provide to say that your research was worth funding to people who weren't specialists in your area, or even in STEM research in general? (Oh. This is exactly what is being proposed in the U.S. Senate.)
I happen to like GROUPER's statement of why we exist… however, I'm biased, and I already know what it means to talk about "human processes of information flow, knowledge sharing, and task coordination". But what is that good for? A very similar question was asked by, and of, the National Academy of Engineering (now renamed as part of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, or NASEM) to explain the role of engineering research and technology development to address 14 "global Grand Challenges" facing society in the 21st Century. Speakers at the Global Grand Challenges Summit (GGCS) in Washington in July asked members of the audience to think about how their work might address any of the Grand Challenges: in essence, a call to consider expanding one's territory of impact. And when I brought that question to the lab, an interesting insight emerged.
GROUPER research addresses seven of the 14 Grand Challenges.
Five of these are pretty obvious: PERCH research on brain injury recovery and personalized medicine for chronic care directly touches on "Personalized Learning," "Reverse-Engineer the Brain," and "Advance Health Informatics". CORAL and SHARK work on secure supply chains and network operations center teams hits on "Secure Cyberspace". These projects, together with our STINGRAY work on spaceflight operations, provide examples of "Engineer the Tools of Scientific Discovery," particularly discovery conducted by interdisciplinary teams of humans. In addition, there are two more areas that benefit by GROUPER's ability to capitalize on connections. It's not just the individualized brain trajectories and chronic care models, but the discussion of Systems Engineering to support improved information architectures for non-text references, that helps address the push to "Engineer Better Medicines." Improved information architectures, improved network operations and event responses, and better cognitive framing for addressing uncertainty in event prediction and response all assist in the effort to "Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure".
That's a very big territory. There's more to do, not less. Who else wants to go explore and map such beautiful frontiers?
(Yes, this took a while to write and post… in part because of the path of transition from Washington, DC back to Lafayette, IN. That's part of the story. Happy Equinox! –BSC)
As I return from the National Space Grant Directors meeting, I am reminded strongly of the total solar eclipse on August 21, as well as how unique events can change one's perspective in ways that cannot be fully undone. I have gotten to explore this a great deal myself, but one of the insights of this week's meeting was watching and talking to one of my colleagues who was the emotional and operational leader of the national Space Grant Eclipse effort. More about this after a bit of a dream sequence retrospective.
Four weeks ago, I wrote the below comments, not quite knowing how to finish the entry or find the right pictures.
What a transition this is turning out to be. On Friday, I was still in Washington, meeting with colleagues at the State Department, and the Embassy of Japan, on science and technology innovation topics and global health strategy. Some packing, some sleep, and then by Saturday evening, I was off. Driving at night, sleeping for a couple of hours in West Virginia, and then arriving at the Evansville Museum about 2:00 (Central time) Sunday afternoon. Very quickly, I could tell the shift in my interactions and response, talking with the student research balloon team from the University of Southern Indiana, or USI. (I continue to have great appreciation for Glen Kissel, who has become a fantastic advocate for NASA and student education in his role as Affiliate Director at USI.) After an early bedtime, I was up and at the Museum again this morning at 6:20, to get on the bus for the tour to the path of the total solar eclipse in Hopkinsville, KY. We could not have asked for a better day so far: light breezes, and only the highest and wispiest of clouds an hour before the start of the eclipse. I have some extra time to start this entry this morning before the eclipse start; more will come later, after it's all done. In the meantime, a scientific, spiritual, transforming experience.
Figure 1. Image of totality from Hopkinsville, from local media.
I noticed that, whether it is about science, or about statecraft, my role as translator and ambassador continues. Wearing NASA-themed clothing is pretty much a guarantee of such interactions at an event like this, with the expectation that I will be able and willing to answer questions. This is what happened, with a media interview for a Nashville metro radio group, brief interactions with a variety of visitors and even members of the NASA family (children of William Wagner, a former NASA solar physics director, who used to chase total eclipses for work).
Figure 2. This is the experience I came for.
A truly unexpected surprise involved a conversation with another MIT Humanities alumnus, who asked me about Japan's policies for energy generation. (No, I was unable to explain Japanese domestic political positions on this issue.) I was asked for career advice for an 11 year old who wants to be an astrophysicist. A particular major? Which subjects / courses to take? No, my answer, in a setting like this, is much easier – and yet, much more challenging:
"Don't let anyone talk you out of curiosity and passion."
As we drive back, just a census of the license plates points to what that means. Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, of course. Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania? Check. But at the event, the census was much broader: California; Czech Republic; Hong Kong; Switzerland. What would drive someone to travel the world to experience totality in a small Midwestern town? I met someone at the hotel last night, who started planning his family trip over five years ago; he made his hotel reservation well before the hotel was finished construction. If those are not the expressions of people transforming their passion into experience, I don't know what is.
What was it to be in the path of totality? The need for sunglasses dissipates; the air cools, and then the breeze picks up. A couple of planets, bright lights in the nighttime sky, appear in their courses. Within a few seconds of the alignment, one begins to notice a "360 degree sunset" of red and purple, combined with the downward illumination of the clouds in the distance. (We were extremely fortunate, that the sun was not obscured by clouds during the entire eclipse.) I will not even try to describe my internal experience of totality. I can only say that I feel it a tremendous gift to actually be able to experience it, in the context of my life of research and education and engagement.
Figure 3. Being in the umbra: "sunset" everywhere
Tomorrow, I go to work again… back on campus, with lectures on defining and scoping systems for engineering solutions. New students, new project efforts, new experiences to consider and curiosity to pursue: what new paths are out there?
Back to September…
Not surprisingly, a lot of the Space Grant discussion highlighted the Eclipse event, and for good reason. It was a "Really Big Deal." By several estimates, this was one of the most experienced digital events over this decade: the largest government and NASA digital event ever, and a total audience in the range of that for a Super Bowl… for a STEM activity. That is literally a national and international experience of space science in your life. The person who put Space Grant in the middle of this path was another Space Grant Director, Angela Des Jardins, a self-proclaimed introvert who became a primary face of the Great American Eclipse. The Space Grant meeting was really her moment, the culmination of five years of dreaming and doing, now done. I found my response to her moment enlightening as well. I could see how others demonstrated their appreciation, and their expression of being affected and influenced by her actions. I remember how she started on this event planning, never imagining what outcomes would result from a dream expressed and passion pursued. Do I really need my own eclipse? Well, one can make the point that this eclipse was not of Angela's making, and by the time the film crews appeared, she was as much a product of the experience as a cause. There is nothing wrong with that, and even if the outcomes of my experience or presence is not always as tremendous or profound, there are outcomes that I do not see, and those outcomes can be important for any number of people. We all cross a number of paths, and I don't always integrate the number of paths that I do traverse and tangent. These are great reminders.
The Last Weekend, Part 1: Talking in Jazz
"It's a beautiful day outside. I wish they could all be like today."
"It is wonderful. I'm glad we have any day like today."
The past two weeks have included some of the most beautiful weather one could hope for in Washington. Of course, we've also had the thunderstorms, and flood warnings, and 95F weather, but today was wonderful. As a result, it was easy to take a few extra minutes to walk around the various neighborhoods and take in moments of beauty and peace on what is, amazingly, my last full weekend of The Adventure here in DC. (Next weekend, I will be on campus for Commencement and Liang's PhD hooding; after that, it will be moves with Amber and myself, taking up much of my attention.) A sunny day, with a bit of breeze and clear blue skies to allow my mind to explore and expand across my internal and external landscape. Walking around down on the National Mall can even have those moments of peace among all of the people, if one listens. Hear that? A musician busking across from the Museum of Natural History, or in front of the Museum of American History. What's that singer singing, at Lafayette Square next to the White House?
One thing that has helped me gain a sense of balance while I have been here has been the effort to take the time to notice and appreciate elements of nature and ephemeral beauty when they occur. I noticed this earlier this month, when (on an early Monday morning return from Indiana) I was listening to a delightfully resonant piece of music while walking among one of our busy commuting streets. Taking pleasure in the music (perhaps I was dancing just a little bit?) was something that could emanate easily in that sense of pleasure and enjoyment; people I passed brightened up a bit and smiled. Why was the music so important? Recently, I have come to the realization that I don't just want to hear the music, I want to allow and enable others to hear that resonant tune that brings joy to the face or even a tear to the eye. So, it's been on my mind a lot recently.
Imagine, then, a cool and sunny day earlier this week (yes, in July, in Washington); I crossed the street and, just as I walked past an old streetlight on my way into the office, a breeze caught and rustled my clothes and touched my face. This was truly a gift of sensory awareness. I looked up, and there between the old streetlight and a new tree, silhouetted by the sun, was a delightful dragonfly moving between branch and blossom.
"Dragonfly out in the sun, you know what I mean, don't you know…
"And this old world is a new world and a bold world for me… And I'm feelin' good."
An actual dragonfly gave me the reminder of the shared experience of the classic Nina Simone tune, Feelin' Good. How can I be upset about that? That was the start of a very productive day.
Hearing the jazz in a moment's pause on the way into work… and wanting to share that with others. Recently, I was told by one or two GROUPERs, and my best friend, that I "talk in jazz". How can that be? What can that mean? Well, imagine that people studying a discipline are learning to recognize notes and specific tunes. Well, one can play a melody using nothing but tuning forks, and someone could recognize a snippet of a Brandenburg Concerto, or a rock anthem, or a jazz standard. But most of us would not go to a concert to hear that. We want to hear the instrumentation, and the virtuosic performance, and maybe a unique interpretation. Especially in jazz, that unique interpretation does not just stay on the melody, but is a combination of skill with the basic melody and rhythm, and the ability to experiment with it within boundaries, while remaining honest to the structure and returning to the theme in time. (Perhaps my upbringing has something to do with this. I remember, as a young kid, reading the liner notes to a jazz album; I think it was Miles Davis' "'Round About Midnight". One of the solo riffs during the title song has a distinctive reference to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as a type of musical joke—a baseball game at midnight? It's where the musician went, and took us with him. I learned to hear the song differently because of those liner notes.)
Scan and connect; read widely and question deeply. Those are mottos of the lab, and critical elements of my personal philosophy. Don't just hear the melody… listen for the nuggets in between. (Fortunately, as my son has gotten more accomplished in music, he has forgiven me for my strange form of dancing. Maybe Dad isn't completely lacking in rhythm. Maybe he's trying to dance to all of the notes.) Megan and I were sitting in a restaurant while she told me about this idea of talking in jazz, or in other words, talking around the answer. No, I am not meaning to tease my students, or in a more predatory sense, "play with my food". I can hear much more, and want to share it, in the complexity and richness that some of the world appears. "Experience is a convolution function that elicits latent segments of the matrix of personality set" was something else I said to Megan. That's not play. That might be an alternative time signature, or some unique syncopation… it's also a reference to one of the pieces of the Cassandra's Postcards entry.
Maybe I need to be reminded to play the melody a bit more often. W. Ross Ashby wrote a cybernetics text on "requisite variety," which suggests the complexity of genetic variability is what gives us adaptive range in a variety of environmental conditions. That adaptive range is not always tested, if the environment doesn't change. The genetic variability doesn't go away, though. It is only when tested with changing environmental conditions that the relative value of variability is highlighted… in individuals or in populations. But just getting people to read and recite Ashby's Law of Cybernetics is like playing the melody of Feelin' Good on a set of tuning forks. We don't learn important questions there: How is it used? What does it evoke? What do we learn by that experience?
I have already started to recognize elements of my experience here that I will miss once I return to Indiana. But there is a richness of available experience everywhere, and it is wonderful whenever I can experience it in beauty and pleasure. A summer day with bright sun and blue skies is a great opportunity. And guess what? I even got a moment to replay a bit of the melody: another dragonfly.
Figure 1. Dragonfly: You know what I mean.
Fishes and Ponds
Among academic metaphors, it is one of the more popular, even among people who don't have a pervasive aquatic metaphor infusing their entire lab. This time of year, it's considered often, among new grad students, new faculty, and established faculty considering a new position:
Do you want to be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond?
Figure 1. Koi experiencing a bit of Japan in Washington, DC
(Let me not leap to "big fish, big pond" territory right away.) In essence, this is a question about "fit". Some places are major research institutions, where annual expenditures for the college of engineering or science may be measured in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Some places want to be such research institutions, but may have additional emphasis on teaching, or lesser resources available, or just aren't as committed to the task. And other places are not research focused at all. Maybe it's the lovely undergraduate-only institution where the entire student body and faculty and staff can fit in the lower bowl of the basketball arena of Enormous State University (which may or may not be a major research institution).
Unfortunately, this is also a question about ego, and aspiration, and social desirability. What's a big fish? Apparently, someone who is successful at "the game" of having a large research portfolio, lots of publications, lots of students. If there's a competition, that's okay with them, since they'll probably win. Maybe they thrive on competition. Maybe they like the acknowledgement of winning the award, or touting their h-index, or their success in amassing whatever it is that counts (as my friend reminded me recently) as the coin of that realm. As Depeche Mode would sing (as I was first learning that I liked this research thing), "Everything Counts in Large Amounts".
But, let's be clear. Not everyone wants that life, or that world, or that type of competition. That does not make them lesser creatures. I am considering the story I just heard about a successful research faculty who decided to shift to a small, undergraduate teaching institution. I am learning about the cultures of university departments where, for whatever reason, tenure is extremely difficult, or moderately straightforward, to achieve. On the other hand, some folks are learning that the constant pressure to compete for funding, for publications, for attention, is not something that feeds their soul or enhances their quality of life: the extra dollars and accolades are just not worth it.
I continue to be amazed, and a little disappointed, at how frequently this issue comes up in questions to me and to my students. Will I be upset if one of the GROUPERs goes into industry, or to a regional or teaching university, or ***shudder*** has to take a job in government? For lots of faculty at research institutions, there is only one valid career path… and it just so happens to look like the path they took, to be faculty at a research institution. I don't believe in that assumption, and I have said so in some fairly public settings. Why? Well, it's not sour grapes. I have come to realize, I sit in a fairly unique spot: I have spent my entire academic career at leading research institutions. But what do we mean by big, or small, and why does it count?
A pond, or a lake, or an ocean may be big or small only in comparison to other scales of reference. If you're plankton or a piece of algae, does it really matter if you're part of the water bloom in a tiny county park, or a county-sized bloom in an ocean? It may not influence much of your daily life in any significant way. More importantly, one of those may be outside of your range of survival conditions. If I'm a thermophile animal, what I care about is the hot spring vent, not how big the body of water is. And this leads me to the second dimension: the ways that different bodies of water differ on not just what are the components for survival, but the sorts of creatures that you might find yourself sharing the body of water with that would make one's life better or worse.
Figure 2. Where are you, and what do you reflect?
One of the unexpected lessons of this year in Washington is that the question of fish and ponds is wrong on several major dimensions. I'm very well known in my professional society, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, or so I'm told; it's hard for me to spend a day at a conference without seeing 25 people I know from long experience. But we're a "small society". Obviously, the electrical engineers or the mechanical engineers really have it going. Except… maybe not. Most undergraduate-only teaching institutions don't have any engineering departments at all… but if they have any STEM disciplines, it's more likely to be physics or biology or chemistry. But, even then, and even in aggregate, that may not be the ecosystem that everyone wants to swim in.
I have spent a fair amount of time this week thinking about function allocation and expertise coordination and human-machine teaming… as I have done for much of my career. And I am in Washington. For many people, there is no bigger single pond. To paraphrase a colleague from this afternoon: I am swimming in the pond of the oldest Cabinet agency of the greatest superpower on the planet, so we should be able to have some resources at our disposal. But how much of those resources are actually from an ecosystem I recognize: folks who thrive on STEM food like I do? Several people I've met have pointed out the same thing: actually, there is relatively little science and technology expertise within the major "halls of power" in Washington. This is not a new thing. A recent article describes the general feeling for scientists and engineers from both Congress and the White House, at their respective locales on Pennsylvania Avenue, in these terms: "Officials in Washington don't have a real taste for hard science, and only hire scientists when they must. 'It's like eating your spinach before your ice cream.'" (Note: this description doesn't even distinguish science and engineering.) I would say that this is not very flattering, or very appealing. In one sense, most of what I spend my days thinking about, and most of the people I know of as famous, are not even at the level of side conversations for perhaps 85-90% of the people in my office building. Not great feeding, in other words.
So, am I a big fish, or a small one? In this pond, my level and type of expertise is fairly unique, and others would be hard pressed to duplicate it. In fact, this pond doesn't even know what an h-index is, and doesn't care to. Does that make it a small pond? If the documents we write and review this month affect the policies of 70% of the world's economy over the next 10-15 years, I wouldn't say that is a small pond (or an exaggeration of the impact of some of these emerging technologies on the world). I'm having an effect where I am, in ways that suit me. Overall, isn't that the most we should ask of anyone, and the most we can hope to achieve for ourselves?
Returning to Practice
I've been interviewing Millennials for work.
In one sense, that is no surprise at all. Many of the students applying for graduate programs stay in the same age range. I have, by contrast, gotten older. Incoming students who were approximately my age (or older) are now the age of my children (or younger). This is the nature of the cycle of life (cue the music from "The Lion King," which is now considered "Classic Disney"). So, why was this experience different?
First, and most important, was that I was not interviewing people for work in the Lab. These were postdoctoral fellows applicants for Department of State positions. The vast majority of them are still just a few years from their PhD dissertation, experiencing a very different world and context than I did when I was interviewing for my first faculty position. Well, that suggests another difference: I interviewed for a faculty position, and never seriously considered a postdoc. I have spent months engaged with discussions of the role of scientists and engineers engaged in Science Diplomacy, and the interplay of innovation and policy—quite frankly, the education I had come to Washington to have in this very interesting and challenging period. These folks aren't being recruited to work on my favorite projects, or to have exactly the sort of background I would like a GROUPER to have… but there was still a request from my unit chief for what sorts of people to identify in the stack of resumes and personal statements.
Signs of life.
I was starting to wonder about what that would look like in this context, and in fact, I was starting to question if my time away from the university had left me cynical or unable to see beyond my own narrow daily priorities. Maybe it was a broader sense of unease with the sudden transition from a snowstorm in late March to 90 degree days in late April. Where and how and when was I operating? (I had come to feel a certain sense of stress and negative anticipation regarding my transition back to Purdue, starting in late March when I was requested to provide new course syllabi for my Fall classes. There are new opportunities for next academic year, but after eight months here in Washington, I am neither ready to start right back in on the academic world, nor think in terms of another full annual cycle of activity here.)
And yet, my unit chief wanted me to not only be involved in the interviews, but to craft a few questions for them. It was, as I have said before, a bit different to operate in support of others, instead of being my own "Principal," but that is part of my learning these days. I've also been learning a lot about the differences in cultures of science, and hearing about the distinct experiences of what I have come to call, "Millennial Scholars" (those who may be part of the generation born in 1985 or later, but also have completed their advanced STEM degree programs since 2010). I've even produced a few of those people myself, but I already knew enough not to look for people just like Ashley or Karim or Marissa or Jeff (or those who are in the lab now). The discussions in the AAAS meetings in Boston and Washington still had an immediacy and curiosity to me: I was meeting so many people interested in a concept, science policy, that I had long thought was an oxymoron. Why were they interested in this? What new was going on?
What are the challenges and opportunities, strengths and weaknesses, of these Millennial Scholars?
This is, in my experience with the lab, a "signs of life" question. Signs of life it had become a part of my thinking at a time where spring is definitely upon us in Washington. I'm walking much more around the city again, and over the past few weeks, I have been able to enjoy the cherry blossoms and new plants and warm weather. In other words, "signs of life returning" was part of my daily experience.
Figure 1. Signs of life: Tulips at the bus stop
The answers were also informative, as well as reminders of an earlier age. There were those who seemed to have trouble thinking about themselves, and their colleagues, in such a comparative context. However, this compared to several who actually commented about the relative lack of a sense of historical comparison as a weakness of Millennials. What was another weakness? There were several comments about the ease with which new information and new activities and experiences were available, leading to a sense of being dabblers in a variety of skills ("jacks / jills of all trades, masters of none"). In fact, that ease of collecting and novelty even extended to the strengths and weaknesses of networking. Although the world of embassies and interagency discussions and think tank receptions clearly indicates a value to the work of engaging with others… there is a difference between engaging in an effective, distributed knowledge network, and collecting friends and likes as a way of keeping score.
I found myself curiously replaying one conversation in my mind, about the concept that Millennials were more interested in finding ways to align their actions and employment with their passions. Now remember, I lived in Cambridge, MA and California during the 1980s startup crazes, where people were all about passion. I heard the Flower Children talking about living a life of meaning and service. And, most importantly, I have learned how much my career as a professor is actually well aligned with my passion for exploration and sharing what I found.
Figure 2. Albert sharing a sense of passion. Maybe science diplomacy was never so far from my thinking after all. (At the National Academies Keck Center, 500 E St NW)
Was this really different? And then I heard an interesting alternative take on this thought. "Well, if I can't rely on a pension or Social Security to be around, there is no reason for me to trade boredom for security." From that discussion, I was transported back to the first few times I taught the course Sociotechnical Systems at Wisconsin. I had known about two different models of work and income as "covenants": income and status as a way of demonstrating success and favor, or work as a demonstration of one's passion and artisan's skills. It took discussion and debate in class for me to learn that there was a large population with a third approach: work was something one does to get enough income to spend the rest of one's time doing what one really preferred to do. Apparently, lots of people live that way, whether they're working second shift at the auto parts store, or vice president of global distribution for the auto parts company. I have not chosen to live that way, and I can't really imagine doing something I hate just to have the income to do what I love, later. Is that what others were assuming we were all doing? Or were others doing this a lot more than I was ever aware?
I felt like I had come full circle in the discussion, and my awareness of my own experience as a young scholar. I am convinced that there are confusions in each generation, not sensing the range or intensity of experience from when prior generations were young and emerging, like new plants bursting into the sunlight and struggling against snow and wind and dangerous frost. I can appreciate it much more now, because I have been in both places, and I have come to feel them both. I am not yet done with the intensity of feeling and learning. And yes, I am still pleased to take a moment on a Spring day and feel the sensual joy of lamb's ear as I walk from meeting to office or home. Because, even after a great enlightenment, a return to practice and repeat of small things still has value.
Figure 3. Lamb's ear on 19th St NW. A good reminder of small lessons.
Weekend Balance #2: Cassandra's Postcards
Curiously, the concert that I left work to attend last night was something I discovered almost exactly one week earlier (even to the same clock time). The group I went to see was Black Violin, two classically trained violinists who are a) black, from Ft. Lauderdale; b) insistent on thinking outside of the box; and c) have a strong alternative vision of how the world can be different than it is, beyond existing stereotypes or interpretations. (Yes, the highlighted words and links are in fact the names of their albums. Go listen.) Last Friday, I was on the train to spend the New Year's holiday in my hometown of Philadelphia with friends. I had put on the music just for some simple enjoyment, and found myself transformed and emotionally intense and resonant. (Yes, it's also when I found out about their concern in Washington, DC last night.)
Black Violin, with the National Symphony Orchestra, Feb 6, 2017
One of my favorite descriptions of my approach to the world was provided by a GROUPER a couple of years ago, during a 1:1 meeting at a conference. (I can still see the design of the French patisserie / café in my memory.) The description was that I live part of my existence in the future, but the nice part is that I "send postcards". This is a delightful image, but it hides a painful and problematic truth: not everyone can receive "postcards from the future," or even know that they exist. I used to think this was a simple problem of better explanation, but I have had to come to the recognition that there is more at play. An alternative metaphor comes from my son, who once made a surprised and surprising revelation once when watching me dance to a piece of music to which I resonated very strongly. He admitted that he had thought that I simply didn't have a very good sense of rhythm. Then, as he got older and started thinking more seriously about music composition and production as a career, he listened to more music, more often, at a deeper level. His statement at a friend's house was with a type of confused awe: "You're trying to dance to all of the notes, not just the normal beat."
One of my favorite and most inspirational books of my life is called Cyteen, for a number of reasons (including some too complex to go into here). I am particularly taken by one of the descriptions of a major protagonist's sense of their life's work… that, if they are devoted and dedicated to their passion and their gifts and their uniqueness, because of and not simply despite their unique or alternative make-up, they may have the opportunity to someday speak their "Word," their major contribution to history's arc. While Speaking Words to History sounds pretty cool (at least for my sense of doing what I was built to do), it comes at a major, even profound cost. I am drawn most to the myth of Cassandra, who was cursed for defying the god Apollo (isn't that usually how things like that turn out?) by being able to see and foretell the future, but being unable to alter it, and being doomed to have others not believe her when she told them. (I have to hand it to Apollo, though: that's a pretty exquisite form of sadistic torture. But really, just because she turned you down for a date? I mean, you're a god and all…)
Poor Cassandra. (From Wikipedia page, public domain image: Cassandra (metaphor)
It's really hard to explain to GROUPERs the process of finding and sending postcards from the future, and more importantly, I don't think it's a proper thing for me to insist that they do so. For nearly all of the students I've met, it's not the right lesson to be teaching, and there are certainly a wide range of valid and important jobs that one can take on without invoking divine curses. Having someone who can simply receive the postcard, and translate part of it, is worth a lot. For example, our current experiences of politics, local and national security, and even the nature of honest communication is based on elements of situational context, information cues, and media characteristics of different information and communication technology channels. We're asking about tolerance and acceptance of new communications media in various organizations. That sounds like a really great research project, especially when combining new forms of social messaging as various types of an advanced, or evolved, model of email (written electronic communication), or other group interactions (with or without audio and video capabilities). It might still be considered a bit ahead of the curve, or timely, because we're in the midst of it now. But consider a study of organizational acceptance of alternative media channels conducted in 1992, fully 25 years ago. That's before there were any iPhones, or web browsers, or T1 lines (or many of my students). No graphical email or tweets with emojis. Do the questions even make sense? For most people, not really. (At least that's the memory of reviewer comments for the Taha and Caldwell, 1992 submission to the Human Factors Society conference.)
Back to the train last Friday. Imagine me trying to dance to all of the notes as the train pulls into (and then out of) Philadelphia as I continue my journey. The lights of Philadelphia's Boathouse row are still holiday festive. I am crying my resonance to the music playing in my ears. I finally feel like a type of homecoming has occurred, one that I had sought in vain for nearly 40 years. In the midst of this, an insight. Normally, I wouldn't tell anyone, or I'd write it up piecewise in journal papers. Not this time. I'm going to show you the postcard here.
View #1: The Spectrogram
A few years ago, Jeremi London (not the actor) and I worked on a model of STEM education based on the concept that what we in fact try to teach engineers in order to be functional, productive engineers is not a single thing, but a large matrix of skills, habits, attributes, and techniques. Different courses supposedly load on different matrix elements, and different students have different strengths and weaknesses in those elements. I visualize this as a type of dynamic matrix of peaks and valleys, as you might get in a audio spectrogram. What we might think of as intelligence or skill or functionality is actually an aggregation of those peaks and valleys across that range of matrix elements: a person's functionality is, generally, how well their peaks map onto the things they need to do on a daily basis. Zero functioning is actually hard to imagine, and if most of the population was in fact functioning at zero, we might not even see it as a relevant matrix attribute element to consider. (If someone had a peak there, would we even think about it as a peak? Consider the question of tetrachromats.) For the sake of analysis and comparison, it's important to both retain the spectrogram as a matrix, and also consider a simplified representation of it. You could call it IQ or something. Let's just describe it as the determinant of the functionality matrix.
View #2: The Bowl
Some of you know that I have a deep, longstanding, and personal interest in questions of neurodiversity: creating models of acceptance, encouragement, and tolerance for people with different sets of skills and forms of excellence. (This isn't just a "feel good" about diversity and tolerance as a moral issue. This is about benefitting from excellence where it is found, including functionality peaks due to alternative wiring that represent "signs of life" not common in the general population. Well, if you're training PhD students, that's not a bad thing to look for: higher, and more distinct, functionality peaks than exist in the general population. After all, not that many folks get PhDs.)
So, the more your spectrogram pattern of peaks and valleys differs from the standard version (not just higher peaks, but peaks in different places), the less "standard" you are. (Standard, in this case, represents not just the population norm of the matrix determinants, but the modal matrix pattern.) In an extreme case, someone with a whole lot of peaks in places where standard people are close to zero, and very low functioning where standard people have peaks, would find it exceptionally hard or impossible to communicate with standard folks at all. (The concept of "communication" here might work as a multi-dimensional convolution integral, or a multiplication of functions against each other. You don't worry about that just now, unless you really want to.) The more non-standard a person is, the further their pattern is from the standard pattern, and the more overall capability and functionality it might take to compensate for the mismatch, and be seen as equivalently functional as the modal, standard person. If we considered a function where the matrix determinant was the height, and the difference in pattern was a radius (different types of different patterns would be angles, so we're in polar coordinates), the "bowl" would be a surface of "equivalent perceived functionality," with an edge being at a place where someone, no matter how many peaks they had or how profoundly high those peaks are, could not interact with standard folks well enough to be seen as functional. (So, you can't see in our standard visual spectrum? Well, we think you're blind, even if you have a great visual experience of radio waves. Too bad if you can hear and sing the vibrations of the planet. We work in 200 – 4000 Hz, thank you, and if you can't hear or produce in that range, we won't hear what each other is saying. Literally.)
View #3: The Disk
Another of the elements we have been playing with in the lab gets the shorthand description of "The Six Dimensions of expertise," with a corollary of "the disk". As we described the matrix above, there are lots of different ways we could organize the elements of the matrix of ways people are good at different things. They may be socially skilled and charismatic; they may be great with tools and interfaces; they may enjoy structured rules and processes; they may enjoy mathematical analysis and quantitative exploration. There are other ways to slice skills up into different collections, but there's been a lot of work recently into "four-quadrant" cognitive styles inventories that are used in organizational assessment. For the purposes of this discussion, all this tells us is where in the spectrogram the matrix elements of your peaks and valleys are likely to be found. Useful, if we want to do systematic comparisons of different patterns of functioning (and convolutions of functionality for communication or information alignment). Which is the "right" four-quadrant model? That's not a proper question; it's kind of like asking what is the "right" set of compass directions. We agree on one for the purposes of discussion, even though there isn't even alignment between magnetic and geographic compass directions, and it's even possible that we could have a situation where magnetic south points towards geographic north.
View #4 = Function (#1:#3)
What I've described for each of the views above is far from a standard description of how we consider psychological concepts of intelligence, personality, functionality, or cognitive diversity. Lots of researchers toil very intensely in intelligence assessment or engineering aptitude evaluations, or the genetic contributions to Asperger's syndrome, or refinements of MMPI or Myers-Briggs inventories (to use examples of standard questions in each of the three views). Mathematically, however, what I have laid out can be combined (although it's extremely hard to draw the picture in three dimensions). Imagine the spectrogram matrix (#1) of a "standard average person" (both in terms of normative / neurotypical wiring rather than autistic spectrum, and in terms of average intelligence), where the matrix is organized according to a four-quadrant disc model where different capabilities are ordered within quadrants with respect to their relative frequency and strength in the population. Take the determinant of that matrix (note that this result should be independent of how you order the matrix elements). We'll now define that "value" of the bottom of the bowl as "standard normative functioning in the modal pattern".
Whose Project is This?
Is this what the lab is currently working on? My goodness, no. I would NEVER assign this, in totality, as a project for a student thesis. It requires significant revisions of three or four major disciplines, as well as some advanced mathematics for the methodologies, and new forms of data collection on thousands or millions of persons on a set of variables we don't even define well, let alone currently measure or collect. But, for the first time, I have been willing to describe a panoramic postcard of this type in a public venue. Why? For years, I was worried that lots of other people would understand, and jump on the problems, and start working on them, and that my best contributions would be left behind, meaningless and trivial. Then I started to think that this would be considered foolish and ridiculous, unless and until I took on myself the responsibility of being able to explain it better so that "most people" could get it. But, Words Spoken to History are not widely understood, even for years or decades, and the measure of the mark on the tree of knowledge is not how many people applaud when the mark is made. Galileo learned this lesson, as did Leonardo DaVinci, and Marie Curie, and Rachel Carson (and Ariane Emory). Am I comparing myself to them? No, not even close. I'm just trying to Speak my Words.
Thank you, C. J. Cherryh, for the concept of sets, and A-E, for the introduction.