The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center publishes a free newsletter to provide information about career paths in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, computing, and healthcare. It features profiles of different degree fields, salary profiles, and timely information about careers. en-us 2010 Sloan Career Cornerstone Center http://www.careercornerstone.org A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics outlines growing trends in the number and type of postsecondary awards below the bachelor’s degree (certificates and associate's degrees) conferred over the decade between 1997 and 2007. "Changes in Postsecondary Awards Below the Bachelor's Degree: 1997 to 2007" showed that the total number of certificates and associate's degrees conferred increased 28 percent between 1997 and 2007, to 1.5 million. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2010/cornerstonenewswinter.htm#scccnews1 The introduction of K-12 engineering education has the potential to improve student learning and achievement in science and mathematics, increase awareness about what engineers do and of engineering as a potential career, and boost students' technological literacy, according to a recent report from the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council. The report examines the status and nature of efforts to teach engineering in U.S. schools. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1209.htm#scccnews6 Semiconductor Research Corporation and Intel Foundation are partnering on an innovative program that provides science and engineering undergraduates with valuable, hands-on research experience and mentoring. The Undergraduate Research Opportunities (URO) program, designed to stimulate and assist the next generation of technology leaders, supports hundreds of students each year at 14 university campuses nationwide. The SRC and Intel Foundation are seeking additional partners to expand the program over the coming year. The URO program supports qualified undergraduates interested in physical science and engineering disciplines in advanced research projects, workshops and other resources that encourage and enable them to continue their education beyond a four-year degree. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1209.htm#scccnews3 Can algae someday make the fuel that fills the tanks of our cars and trucks? It's a question that could make a difference to our energy future and our environment. Scientists already know that certain algae produce oils that can be converted into diesel and other fuels. What we don't know is whether we can make affordable, large-scale quantities of algae fuel. That's why ExxonMobil has teamed up with Synthetic Genomics Inc., in a long-term project to research and develop next-generation biofuels from photosynthetic algae. The goal is to produce a commercially scalable, renewable fuel that is compatible with today's gasoline and diesel. Why algae? Biofuels made from algae could be transported and used like today's conventional fuels, therefore avoiding the expense of creating a new infrastructure. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1209.htm#scccnews2 The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) is a transformative infrastructure project that will provide an expandable and adaptable network for observing complex ocean processes such as climate variability, ocean circulation, and ocean acidification across a range of spatial scales at several coastal, open-ocean, and seafloor locations. Continuous data flow from hundreds of sensors will be integrated by a sophisticated computing network and will be openly available to scientists, policy makers, students, and the public. The OOI is expected to transform ocean science research and education by providing unprecedented power and bandwidth for an interactive connection to the ocean through diverse sets of sensors, and near real-time access to data. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1209.htm#scccnews1 A new earthquake-resistant structural system for buildings, just successfully tested in Japan, will not only help a multi-story building hold itself together during a violent earthquake, but also return it to standing up straight on its foundation afterward, true and plumb, with damage confined to a few easily replaceable parts. The team that designed the system was led by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Illinois. During testing on a massive shake table, the system survived simulated earthquakes in excess of magnitude 7. The system dissipates energy through the movement of steel frames that are situated around the building's core or along exterior walls. The frames can be part of a building's initial design or could be incorporated into an existing building undergoing seismic retrofitting. They are economically feasible to build, as all the materials employed are commonly used in construction today and all the parts can be made using existing fabrication methods. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1109.htm#scccnews7 Which new college graduates are faring best when it comes to salary in the current economy? According to a new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), engineers are pulling down the highest starting salaries. NACE's Summer 2009 Salary Survey report shows that four engineering disciplines and computer science account for the many of the disciplines getting the highest starting salary offers. The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center offers complete profiles on each of these fields, including preparation, employment, responsibilities, an "average" day, and career path forecasts. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1109.htm#scccnews6 Blind for nine years, Sharron "Kay" Thornton has just regained her sight through a first-in-the-U.S. surgical procedure at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The procedure -- modified osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis (MOOKP) -- implanted her eyetooth in her eye, as a base to hold a prosthetic lens. Thornton, 60, was blinded by Stevens-Johnson syndrome in 2000, a rare, serious skin condition destroys the cells on the surface of the eye causing severe scarring of the cornea. On Labor Day weekend, after the last in a series of surgeries by corneal specialist Victor L. Perez, M.D., associate professor of ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, bandages were removed from Thornton's eyes and she was able to recognize faces only hours after her surgery. Two weeks following her surgery, she is already reading newsprint with a visual acuity of 20/70 and it is expected to improve further as her surgical scars heal. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1109.htm#scccnews5 NASA is currently inviting college students to get involved with NASA's return to the moon by helping to design the tools and instruments needed for the next-generation manned moon rover. Student projects will tackle real problems to be solved for a successful manned lunar mission. Examples of problems include: navigation in the darkness around the moon's South Pole; sample retrieval and on-site analysis; radiation detection and avoidance; communication with lunar outpost, with orbiters and with Earth; video capture of sorties for transmission back to Earth; astronaut rescue and recovery; and lunar regolith mitigation strategies for rover and space suits. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1109.htm#scccnews3 Futurity.org is a new website originally developed as a beta by Duke University, Stanford University, and the University of Rochester. Now it offers information on the latest discoveries in science, engineering, the environment, health, and more from dozens of North America's leading research universities. Learning about the new ways science, math, and engineering are applied through research is a good way to find out what it might be like to work in these fields. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1109.htm#scccnews2 You've heard about flower power. What about tree power? It turns out that it's there, in small but measurable quantities. There's enough power in trees for University of Washington researchers to run an electronic circuit, according to results to be published in an upcoming issue of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Transactions on Nanotechnology. "As far as we know this is the first peer-reviewed paper of someone powering something entirely by sticking electrodes into a tree," said co-author Babak Parviz, a UW associate professor of electrical engineering. A study last year from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants generate a voltage of up to 200 millivolts when one electrode is placed in a plant and the other in the surrounding soil. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1109.htm#scccnews1 This school year, teens across the nation are pledging to support math literacy by signing the Texas Instruments Count Me In! Pledge and committing to tell others why math education is so important to the future of their world. Students also are be encouraged to challenge themselves to consider taking higher-level math courses to broaden their college and career options. Teachers also can sign the pledge to win free TI classroom technology and professional development. Studies have shown that high school students who complete math beyond Algebra II continue to college at much higher rates. By the time today’s high school students graduate from college, more than 6 million jobs will require the skills and understanding of math, science, and students who take more math classes have more earning potential than those who do not. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1009.htm#scccnews7 Plastic surgeons are turning to mathematics to take the guesswork out of efforts to ensure that live tissue segments that are selected to restore damaged body parts will have enough blood and oxygen to survive the surgical transfer. In the world’s first published mathematical model of tissue transfer, mathematicians have shown that they can use differential equations to determine which tissue segments selected for transfer from one part of the body to another location on the same body will receive the level of oxygen required to sustain the tissue. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1009.htm#scccnews6 Here's a question. How many gumballs of different sizes can fit in one of those containers at the mall so as to reward a well-spent quarter? It's hard to believe that most people never consider it even when guessing the number of candies in a bowl at Halloween. But physicists at the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at New York University recently developed a new way to help answer the question. They say the solution is found in how the particles pack in terms of how many neighboring gumballs a single gumball can randomly touch within a given container. The new model predicts the geometry of randomly packing spheres of different sizes in terms of how many nearest neighbors a particle can have, how far apart those neighbors can be and how free space is distributed throughout the packing. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1009.htm#scccnews5 Researchers have figured out how to make DNA bend and twist into a variety of new shapes. These curvy new molecules could someday be used to build nanoscale devices – smaller than the width of a human hair -- for delivering drugs inside the body, growing new tissues or studying single proteins. The exciting thing about this research is that it gives scientists a way to make nanoscale objects with curving surfaces. For comparison, imagine if we could not make the curved objects we see in daily life -- we'd have no wheels, arches, hooks, etc. This is the same kind of limitation nanotechnology researchers have been facing. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1009.htm#scccnews3 The U.S. high school student team competing in the 41st International Chemistry Olympiad won one gold and three silver medals at the event held in Cambridge, England. The students, from Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey and New York, competed against more than 250 students from 65 countries.Participating in local, regional, and national programs and projects is a great way for students to network with other kids who enjoy math, science, computing, and engineering. Many projects encourage teamwork, provide a chance to do hands on science, math, and engineering, and can expose students to resources that can augment classroom experiences. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1009.htm#scccnews2 Recently, President Obama proposed the American Graduation Initiative, a $12 billion federal investment to substantially expand the capacity of the nation's community college system. If implemented, the new program would represent an historic new federal investment in the largest and fastest growing segment of higher education. Community colleges already enroll almost half of all U.S. About 6.7 million students are earning credits at 1,177 community, technical and junior colleges. During the extended economic downturn, the almost 1,200 two-year colleges have seen dramatic enrollment growth, fueled by high school graduates seeking a lower cost entry into college and adult learners needing new skills to gain employment or keep their jobs. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews1009.htm#scccnews1 Folding paper into shapes such as a crane or a butterfly is challenging enough for most people. Now imagine trying to fold something that's about a hundred times thinner than a human hair and then putting it to use as an electronic device. A team of MIT researchers is developing the basic principles of "nano-origami," a new technique that allows engineers to fold nanoscale materials into simple 3-D structures. The tiny folded materials could be used as motors and capacitors, potentially leading to better computer memory storage, faster microprocessors, and new nanophotonic devices. Getting the materials to fold back and forth into an accordion-like structure has been one of the researchers' biggest challenges, along with getting the faces and edges to line up accurately. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews0909.htm#scccnews1 There is no age restriction on the chance to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the universe. Caroline Moore, a 14-year-old from Warwick, NY, has made such a mark on astronomy with the discovery of Supernova 2008ha. Not only is she the youngest person to discover a supernova, but this particular supernova has been identified as a different type of stellar explosion. "It's really a strange supernova," said Moore. "A supernova is a huge explosion deep in the core of a star, whereas a nova is an explosion on the outside surface of a star. Of Supernova 2008ha she says, "It's somewhere between a supernova and a nova. So it's not nearly as big as the explosion of a supernova." http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews0909.htm#scccnews2 Corals, it appears, have a genetic complexity that rivals that of humans, have sophisticated systems of biological communication that are being stressed by global change, and are only able to survive based on proper function of an intricate symbiotic relationship with algae that live within their bodies, say researchers at Oregon State University. Disruptions in these biological and communication systems are the underlying cause of the coral bleaching and collapse of coral reef ecosystems around the world. Corals are tiny animals, polyps that exist as genetically identical individuals, and can defend themselves and kill plankton for food. In the process they also secrete calcium carbonate that becomes the basis for an external skeleton on which they sit. The calcified deposits can grow to enormous sizes over long periods of time and form coral reefs--one of the world's most productive ecosystems -- harboring over 4,000 species of fish and other marine life forms. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews0909.htm#scccnews3 Semiconductors are unique substances, which, under different conditions, can act as either conductors or insulators of electricity. Semiconductor processors turn one of these substances -- silicon -- into microchips, also known as integrated circuits. These microchips contain millions of tiny electronic components and are used in a wide range of products, from personal computers and cellular telephones to airplanes and missile guidance systems. To manufacture microchips, semiconductor processors start with cylinders of silicon called ingots. First, the ingots are sliced into thin wafers. Using automated equipment, workers or robots polish the wafers, imprint precise microscopic patterns of the circuitry onto them using photolithography, etch out patterns with acids, and replace the patterns with conductors, such as aluminum or copper. The wafers then receive a chemical bath to make them smooth, and the imprint process begins again on a new layer with the next pattern. A complex chip may contain more than 20 layers of circuitry. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews0909.htm#scccnews4 Cloud computing is a hot topic in the technology world these days. Chances are you've heard someone talking about cloud computing as the way of the future. So what exactly is cloud computing? There are varying definitions, but cloud computing is essentially a form of distributed computing that allows users the ability to tap into a vast network of computing resources through the Internet to complete their work. If, for example, someone wanted to analyze traffic patterns on the nation's highways, they could upload and store their data into the 'cloud' and have multiple computers crunch the data and then present the results back to them in a unified way as if the work were completed by one giant machine. This may sound a bit like grid computing, another type of distributed computing that allowed users to tap into computing resources through a network to get their computational jobs done. With grid computing, you submit what you want computed to a batch scheduler, which puts your job in a queue for a specific set of computing resources, for example a supercomputer, to work on. Cloud computing is a little more flexible in that many cloud computing platforms allow users to know ahead of time how much computing capacity is available from the cloud, so the work can be done faster. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews0909.htm#scccnews5 Of the 92 naturally occurring elements, add another to the list of those that are superconductors. James S. Schilling, Ph.D., professor of physics in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Mathew Debessai, Ph.D., -- his doctoral student at the time -- discovered that europium becomes superconducting at 1.8 K (-456 °F) and 80 GPa (790,000 atmospheres) of pressure, making it the 53rd known elemental superconductor and the 23rd at high pressure. "It has been seven years since someone discovered a new elemental superconductor," Schilling said. "It gets harder and harder because there are fewer elements left in the periodic table." This discovery adds data to help improve scientists' theoretical understanding of superconductivity, which could lead to the design of room-temperature superconductors that could be used for efficient energy transport and storage. Superconducting materials have unique electrical and magnetic properties. They have no electrical resistance, so current will flow through them forever, and they are diamagnetic, meaning that a magnet held above them will levitate. These properties can be exploited to create powerful magnets for medical imaging, make power lines that transport electricity efficiently or make efficient power generators. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews0909.htm#scccnews6 The college Class of 2009 held its ground with its overall average starting salary offer, according to a new report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). NACE's Summer 2009 Salary Survey report showed that the average starting salary offer for new college graduates now stands at $49,307. That’s off less than 1% from the average $49,693 that 2008 graduates posted last year at this time. Accounting majors did better than the average, and posted a 1.9% increase for an average offer of $48,993. Computer science grads saw their average salary offer rise 1.6% to $61,407. As a group, engineering graduates enjoyed the highest salary increase. Overall, the average offer to engineering graduates rose 3.7% to $59,254. Chemical engineering graduates posted a 2.7% increase to their average salary offer, which now stands at $64,902. Computer engineering graduates saw their average offer rise 3.6% to $61,738. Much of that bump up can be attributed to the types of positions these graduates were offered. Electrical engineering graduates earned one of the larger increases; their average offer rose 5.6% to $60,125. Civil engineering graduates, however, saw their average offer just nudge up slightly -- 0.8% -- to $52,048. http://www.careercornerstone.org/scccnews/issues/2009/scccnews0909.htm#scccnews7