My Life as a Research Scientist by Leonard Newton
My Life as a Research Scientist.
Leonard Newton, Saint Paul, MN
My wife doesn’t understand me. My kids are the same. I work all the time, but it isn’t work at all. It is fun, like a video game or Sudoku, like solitaire on steroids. It is COOL.
How did I get so lucky? By not caring so much about being popular in school that I wanted more to be smart instead…. that I had a great role model from my father….and that had good training as a teenager to have the discipline it took to stay in school and do that hard work necessary to learn science.
My school didn’t offer calculus, so I taught it myself in 11th grade. My school didn’t teach much physics, either, so I had my own science projects purchased in kits. Once I got to college, things got a lot more challenging, but the discipline from my adolescence was a key success factor that I needed. Later on, I worked for two years after my BS degree in engineering, but felt I needed more of a challenge. So I returned to school again to earn a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science from the University of Minnesota, known at the time as the best in the world.
I felt on top of the world, and to come down to start a job in a company was a bit of a let down. I was not only unknown but considered lacking for my depth of useful knowledge. At that time, a lesson in humility was necessary to round out my education. I learned that the greatest minds I have ever known were in those with little formal education. I learned that scientific thinking often leads us exactly in the wrong direction. And I learned that I had a role to play in the company only as long as I was a team member and not a team master. Frankly, it was a difficult time.
But over time, and a large bit of luck, I had enough successes to get my name known inside the company. Many of my peers move ‘up’ into management positions, but I wasn’t cut out for that. My love was in the science. I am so glad I didn’t lead down that pathway.
Now I have (within reason) unlimited freedom in my job as a scientist. I do three levels of activity – the work for my company’s short-term issues, the work for its longer term growth, and work for fun with a nod towards some day becoming something revolutionary. I have had some of the latter actually become important in the past, so my track record is encouraging. Each day is different. Each day is defined by my own agenda. Each day involves working on significant problems with people around the globe. Each day is important for the future of my company and for the Earth.
Short Term work issues…..
What exactly I do is design of parts of extruders for the fabrication of sheets and films. My company makes a lot of sheet and film out of polymers (plastics and adhesives), and we must have efficient ways to work with materials that degrade, materials that are unique blends, or are layered or treated in special ways that no other company can do. We are optimizing cost of the equipment to issues related to yield and productivity.
Usually, we are dealing with many unknown factors in the design, such as wear on equipment, friction and flow instabilities in the polymer melts, and periodic fluctuations in set points, all of which lead to unexpected outcomes. Nearly every day I see an unexpected outcome from a field experiment in a plant. The field of polymers is still relatively new, and from a manufacturing perspective we are working with many unknowns.
My job as a scientist is to use computers and first principles to model the process as best as I can. First I test my process models with known outcomes, and then I attempt to find a better outcome. The cost of running the model is greatly less than the cost of running an experiment. If I can convince the engineering staff to install my new process in the plant, we find out what happens and go on from there.
A great challenge for any large company is also its strength: diversity. We have literally 1000s of products fabricated with different processes. Sometimes the processes are completely different. It is challenging for me to model fast enough to keep up with the demand. When problems come from a plant, the line engineers want solutions fast – sometimes faster than I can work to build an acceptable model.
Longer-term work…..
When the short term problems are under control, I have time think about the company as a whole. Profession organizations like ASME, AIChE, and IEEE bring similar-minded people to discuss issues of the day and learn from one another. Inside the company we have groups, too, but I found a missing niche that was not represented – the manufacturing engineers.
The engineers working in the plants are the heroes of any company. They are hundreds of miles from help at headquarters, yet they face seemingly insurmountable issues nearly everyday. Equipment breaks down; materials are sometimes faulty; things ‘change’ for no apparent reason. The engineers are like Scotty on Star Trek, working as best he can with little help from anyone.
These line engineers are brilliant, but they would be even more effective if they talked to each other in neighboring plants. So I developed a network of connections where they can do just that. I am the nexus for the moment (everyone goes through me), but soon they will be self-sustaining without me. People write me with their problems, and I forward to others with who may have the solutions. The process is self-generating because people feel connected, they feel valued for their know-how, and they get problems solved with little fuss. I was the person who put it all together, but I am proud of the team spirit we have all generated together. I hope it will soon have a life of its own.
Finally, there is the fun stuff….
Going back to my childhood, what I love to do is math. And on occasion I get to visit universities to see what people are doing. At the University of New Mexico last year I chatted with a Ph.D. student working on a new modeling method I have never heard of before. I asked what it was, and he told me. I looked it up, and have spent the last 6 months teaching myself how to do it. It is magic, completely unlike anything I have ever done before. Cool stuff. Can I use it for my company? I am not sure, but I am going to try.
When I think of how hard I worked to get to this position, I feel very fortunate I didn’t get sidetracked along the way. I am very privileged, and I know of few people as fortunate as myself. I am proud to be a research scientist.