On Campus continues EDUCATION
so impressive. It changed my landscape. I didn’t feel like there was a ceiling over me anymore.”
Collins also had an inspirational half hour with the legend-
ary Walter Lincoln Hawkins, a pioneering African-American scientist at Bell in the 1940s. “Link set a new baseline for what can be achieved,” Collins said. The next milestone in Collins’ journey was a post-doctoral research position at Los Alamos National Lab. “It was like being a kid in a candy shop. There were famous people everywhere and the environment was very open-door.”
Collins studied combustion, how turbulence influenced flame propagation, a continuation of his doctoral work. There are large-density changes within a flame, Collins said. “A gas is heavy before it is burned and light afterward. The turbulence interacts with these density jumps. We had the idea that we could analyze these interactions conceptually by considering the related problem of a turbulent suspension of particles.” What Collins calls a multiphase flow. This was nearly virgin territory, and it inspired the chemical engineer to study the behavior of particles in a gas.
“Jerry Erpenbeck was a pioneer in analyzing the structure of liquids and we thought we could translate that work into understanding how particles behave in a turbulent gas. Jerry spent three days showing me how to do it, and it translated into a career.”
His next stop was an 11-year hitch at The Pennsylvania State University, where he began to publish the results of his studies. His 1997 study of droplet breakup in turbulence was named the best paper by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
In 2002, Collins joined the Cornell faculty and in 2005 he was named the S.C. Thomas Sze director of the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Stints as the director of graduate studies for aerospace engineering and on the univer- sity’s Strategic Plan Advisory Council brought him forward to the deanship. Today, Collins oversees the academic and administrative work involved in educating more than 3,000 undergraduate and 1,400 graduate engineering students at Cornell. He is aided by 240 faculty, 250 non-professorial academics, and a staff of 225. His day begins at 4 a.m.
“I get up early and do e-mail triage,” he said. “It’s also a good time to work on my research and write papers. I am in the office by 8 a.m.” Then begins a busy day of “gaining informa- tion” through meetings with academics and staff. Collins works with the college’s directors and chairs to oversee the school’s curriculum, to manage project teams, and to provide the ‘Dean’s opinion’ on budgets and space. Two days a week, he steps out at 5 p.m. to stay in shape in spinning classes; other days, he is
14 USBE&IT I SPRING 2011
at the office until about 6 p.m. before heading home to his wife Sousan Collins and their 10-year-old daughter Ashley. The biggest surprise for the new dean?
“I find that I enjoy traveling to talk to the alumni,” he said. “I learn a lot and their input has crafted my vision for the school. I talk to people who graduated 50 years ago and to people who graduated five years ago, and their stories of their time at Cor- nell and since give me a sense of what is valuable here. They tell me about the rigorous discipline and the problem-solving skills they learned as undergraduates that helped them in their careers. They sing the praises of our interdisciplinary efforts that gave them a background in business and entrepreneurship, and I’ve learned how no two of their career paths look alike, especially among the younger people.” That input has shaped Collins’ ideas about where the Col- lege of Engineering and Cornell are going. “Cornell is in the process of re-imagining itself as a university,” he said. “It’s a once-in-a-hundred-years kind of thing, and it is great to have a seat at the table with the provost and the other deans for that process.
“In the Engineering School, we are reflecting that change by becoming more diverse, collaborative, nimble, and entrepre- neurial. When you bring people together from different cultures and disciplines, you get a creative friction. You knock people out of their comfort zones, and that’s what makes things happen. And that flexibility will take us to some of the biggest opportu- nities and challenges of tomorrow.”
MENTORS
Mentors loom large in Lance Collins’ career. He credits his achievements to a series of advisors who helped him move forward at each step in his life. “I knew I hit paydirt when I met someone who had a lot of knowledge I needed and who was willing to spend the time to teach it to me.”
Sol Medoff – Medoff was the head of Collins’ chemistry
club in high school. He treated Collins as an adult and taught him advanced biochemistry. As an adult, Collins journeyed to Ajijic, Mexico, to seek out Medoff and to thank him for his influence on his life.
Stuart Churchill – Collins’ advisor at the University
of Pennsylvania, remains a close friend to this day. Collins recently attended Churchill’s 90th birthday.
Frank Harlow – Collins’ advisor at Los Alamos helped
advance his understanding of turbulent flow phenomena, opening the door to Collins’ life work.
www.blackengineer.com
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