Joe Lyding enjoys the Beckman Institute Open House because it gives him a chance to demonstrate his group’s research to the general public, test his students on their ability to explain that research for a lay audience, and, last but not least, because he too gets be an Open House visitor.
“I love these things. I have a ten-year-old daughter and I like to bring her around and let her see all these things,” Lyding said. “I think it’s a real eye opener, especially for the kids to see something that goes beyond their traditional education where everything is defined and people grade you on what is known.
“Here we are pursuing what isn’t known. The ability to work on open-ended problems is what research is all about. A place like Beckman has created the ability to work on open-ended problems and an important part of that is to be able to explain them to the people who are paying the bills.”
Bringing Beckman research to the people who are paying the bills is part of the Institute’s mission of public outreach. Every two years the public is welcomed into the building for the Beckman Institute Open House to learn more about the work that goes on at one of the country’s top centers for interdisciplinary research.
Beckman faculty member Deana McDonagh shares Lyding’s feelings about the usefulness of Open House.
“It’s an opportunity to actually share with everybody the work we’re doing that we’re so enthusiastic about,” she said.
That sharing can be a useful tool for understanding one’s own research.
“Because we have to consider the general public, it makes you very sensitive to how you communicate and on what level,” McDonagh said. “I’m a firm believer in keeping everything simple and straightforward, so the maximum number of people can understand what you’re doing. It really makes you become more fluent communicating with people on all levels what it is you are doing and why.”
“It’s a good exercise for us,” said Lyding, who leads the Nanoelectronics group at Beckman. “If we can’t explain what we do in terms that everybody can understand, then we probably don’t understand it ourselves. So it’s a very good exercise for me and the students to be able to do that.”
And it serves as a test for Lyding’s students.
“It’s actually interesting for me watching my students trying to describe stuff,” Lyding said. “It tells me a lot about how well they understand it. They’re actually being tested by me in the process of trying to convey what we do to the public. I find it very intriguing.”
The biennial Beckman Institute Open House will take place March 13-14 and will feature 31 exhibits, a larger number than in recent years. The thousands and thousands of visitors who have taken part in the Beckman Institute Open House over the years have seen little robots racing around, an up close view of an insect’s world through the Bugscope microscope, and intriguing displays illuminating the science of the brain, among many other exhibits.
Open House 2009 will again feature those popular displays, but will also include some of the research being done by newer Beckman faculty members like McDonagh. She plans on using one of her research tools in the exhibit – one that should draw lots of interest from visitors. McDonagh, an associate Professor of Industrial Design at Illinois, has worked with collaborators at Beckman to fashion a kiosk for testing product design. A light will illuminate an unusual item inhabiting the kiosk and a TV monitor will capture visitors’ unrehearsed reactions for those nearby to see. McDonagh hopes exhibits like hers will serve to fire people’s imaginations when it comes to science, especially the imaginations of younger visitors.