Advances in materials are essential to continued economic growth, to the security of the nation and to ensuring human well-being. Nanomaterials science enables new catalysts that reduce the carbon emissions of chemical engineering plants, sensors that can rapidly and reliably detect viruses and a wide array of nanoelectronics devices. Continued innovation relies on a healthy ecosystem encompassing industry, academic institutions, and government laboratories and an educational system that attracts and trains talented engineers and scientists.
The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly disrupted this ecosystem. Haydn Wadley, a University and Edgar Starke Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science co-convened a National Academies of Sciences workshop to discuss how the pandemic has affected science and engineering education, and explore opportunities to reimagine materials science and engineering education and the imperatives of developing a more diverse workforce. Wadley joined workshop Chair, Katherine Faber, Caltech Simon Ramo Professor of Materials Science, in organizing the December 2020 virtual workshop.
The National Academy of Sciences press recently published a proceedings from the workshop, Materials Science and Engineering in a Post-Pandemic World: A DoD Perspective.
“The pandemic has touched every aspect of materials science and engineering, but the impacts on the workforce pipeline combined with dynamics that were already under way before the pandemic may have far-reaching implications,” Wadley said.
Wadley, who chairs the Defense Materials Manufacturing and Its Infrastructure Standing Committee that sponsored the meeting, opened the workshop with two guiding questions: what are the best strategies to nurture current students and future talent when COVID-19 has disrupted the education of students at every age and level? And what new approaches will be needed to reestablish the global supply chain that underlies materials, manufacturing, research and engineering?
Approximately 30 speakers and panelists offered their perspective on these questions, delving into the workshop's major areas of focus: addressing COVID-19 impacts on the student pipeline; university-government R&D partnerships; the impact of the pandemic in the international context; post-pandemic workforce needs of the U.S. Department of Defense; and potential solutions to recruit and train a new, diverse generation of materials scientists and engineers.