New Jersey Governor    tours SEAS laboratories New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman visited the School of Engineering and Applied Science recently as part of a week-long focus on technology in New Jersey. Gov. Whitman toured research laboratories in the Center for Photonics and Optoelectronic Materials (POEM) and viewed technology displays sponsored by Princeton researchers and private companies. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Keren Bergman, left, discusses fiber optics with New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman. POEM was chosen by the Governor's Office for a visit because it represents the fruit of a collaboration among the university, state government, and private industry. POEM was founded with financial contributions from Princeton University and bond funds from the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology. POEM's research is sponsored by private industry and the center receives royalties as technology it develops is licensed for commercial use. Research by POEM faculty and graduate students has resulted in profitable collaborations with private firms, including the Sarnoff Corp., Lucent Technologies, and Sensors Unlimited. In 1997 POEM generated more than $5 million in sponsored research and accounted for more than one third of the University's "invention disclosures," the first step in the patent application. Gov. Whitman toured two laboratories: those of Professor Bede Liu and Assistant Professor Keren Bergman. In Professor Liu's laboratory, Multimedia Research in Education, the governor watched demonstrations by four New Jersey school teachers showing some of the classroom benefits of multimedia. Dr. Bergman demonstrated applications of high speed optical network switching in her laboratory, Laser Systems for High Bandwidth Internet. She described to Gov. Whitman a laser capable of downloading the entire contents of the Library of Congress in a few milliseconds. "The science and technology I'm seeing is mind-boggling," Gov. Whitman said. "It makes me want to go back to school, because I feel like I have missed a lot." Technical displays, representing Princeton researchers and industry affiliates, filled the atrium of the E-Quad. Gov. Whitman participated in several experiments, including the making of high-tech vanilla ice cream with liquid nitrogen. That particular experiment, a favorite of Electrical Engineering Professor Stephen Lyon, is part of an outreach program for children in kindergarten through grade 12. "The most important message I think Gov. Whitman can get today is something that I have seen change over my 20 years in the high technology field," said James Sturm '79, professor of electrical engineering and director of POEM. "High technology has become a more pervasive force in today's society and as technology has become more pervasive, scientists and engineers themselves have changed. "Rather than cloistering themselves and speaking mostly to each other, scientists and engineers have increasingly reached out from the university walls to the community and also to industry at large. Today, we see lots of collaborative projects and these are things that didn't happen 15 years ago. Industry is now viewed as an integral partner in our programs and research." [ contents ]      [ previous story ]      [ next story ]      [ top of page ]