CENTER FOR DIELECTRICS AND PIEZOELECTRICS
Fall 2014 Meeting
Industrial Advisory Board Meeting
November 4, 2014

Click to view IAB Minutes in .pdf format

Present:

1. Call to order at 1:10 PM

2. Spring 2014 IAB meeting minutes—approved

3. Review IAB Chair Election Process
-Chair and co-chair elected for two year term. At beginning of Year 2, co-chair begins serving as chair and new co-chair is elected, to begin with Year 3.
IAB approved continuing in this pattern.

4. Introductions: New member company representatives at the meeting were:
-Rob Hodder, Ferro Corp.
-Al Metcalfe, Morgan Advanced Ceramics
-Anton Polotai, MRA Laboratories, Inc.
-Protochips also a new member, no representative at the IAB meeting.

5. Membership/Recruiting/Other Issues (Beth Dickey)[Slides attached] New members:
-Protochips (associate member—in-kind, as approved by the IAB)
-MRA Labs (associate member)
-Ferro (full member)
-Eaton Cooper (full member)

Recruiting:
Companies visited by Beth & Clive: ABB, AFRL, ALD Solutions, Corning, Dow, Dupont, Eastman, GAM, Knowles, Lockheed, Lucideon, PI Advanced Ceramics, Pneumaticoat,
Radiant Technologies (in-kind, associate membership—not yet finalized) Appreciate intros from current members to new prospects.

-Mike Lanagan has good contacts at national labs
-International site: Clive & Beth visited Sheffield University July 2014
-Sheffield interested, no issues with membership agreement; working out the logistics, particularly NSF funding, before putting formal proposal before the IAB
-Clive reviewed list of Sheffield faculty visited; he has a long relationship with them, and there are also excellent new faculty
-Continuing to discuss; if acceptable to Sheffield and NSF we will pursue
-IP/Funding logistics: there will be no sending money between the U.S. and the U.K.; fees from members recruited will be kept at the site that recruited them. They need enough money to run at least 3 projects to be viable.

Budget:
-Three projects phasing out of this FY
-6 active projects with 1 more year of funding
-Able to fund 5-6 projects in this cycle (total 12 projects running at a time)

Project Selection:
-Voting: please prioritize projects beyond the 5-6 funded for consideration in case more funds become available

Future Meetings:
-ICE2015 – 7th International Conference on Electroceramics, Clive Randall, chair; May 13-16, 2015 at the Penn Stater Conference Center, State College Pennsylvania (Penn State)
-CDP Spring 2015 Mtg.; June 18-19, 2015, Nittany Lion Inn, State College, PA (Penn State)
-CDP Fall 2015 Meeting: may be in Japan following the 17th US-Japan Seminar, Nov. 15-18, 2015 (Beth Dickey is one of the U.S. chairs); a decision will be made soon.

6. Review of Meeting/Projects (Steve McGregor)
– Steve gave summary of project rating and comments; questions/comments invited
– Comments generally positive; some are very specific, best addressed directly between company and PI
– Clive: comment regarding ALD passive component project, incorporating Ni & Cu etc. interesting, will pursue—good input.
– Posters: great session, one member said best yet—very diverse set of posters
– Steve: Annual process questionnaire required by NSF, will need member input. Steve gives summary without names or companies, through LIFE form site.
– Visitors (non-member companies) signing NDA’s; NSF best practice. Member opinion?
– More work in advance of meeting; could keep companies from attending
-Legal process could take months—not practical—could kill recruiting efforts.
– Steve: alternative is to label material “Proprietary”
– More comments: contact Ron or the directors
– Meeting logistics and venue:
– Internet service very unreliable! Critical when relying on to do LIFE forms.
– Venue itself fine.
– Speaker in front of some participants—configure room so this does not happen.
– Time spent on CDP vs. non-CDP projects at meeting: Beth is interested in comments.

Upcoming Meetings:
– CDP Spring Meeting, at Penn State: Nittany Lion Inn, State College PA, June 18-19, 2014
– ICE 2015 Conference at Penn State May 13-16, 2015; it was decided to move CDP meeting to June to minimize conflict issues.
– Fall 2015 CDP Meeting: Under consideration: hold CDP meeting before or after
17th US-Japan Seminar on Dielectric and Piezoelectric Ceramics, Nov. 15-18, 2015, in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan
– Combining always good; but long approval process for national labs
– Companies: funding for international travel late in year is a challenge
– Faculty: difficult to send students
– Beth: will submit proposal for NSF support to send students (this was done in 2009 in CDS; students also visited TDK Corp. and Tokyo Institute of Technology)
– Need decision quickly, even if meeting is in Raleigh, to start arranging venue

8. Project Selection
– Members received proposals in advance
– 1-page quad chart slide for each + questions—total 5 minutes for each
– Ballot – column for votes and column to rate interest independent of votes
– Four member companies not present and did not send absentee votes; vote on whether Ron should contact absent members and extend the deadline to give them another chance to vote. It was decided to keep the hard deadline but Ron will contact the companies to find out why they did not vote and encourage to use their vote next time.

– Steve provided spreadsheet on voting results, attached. [DIRECTORS’ COMMENT] (Note that this is an updated version from the IAB meeting, as Steve had made some calculation errors). Approximately 6 of the top ranked projects will be considered for funding, based upon available funds and a final decision from the directors. The first four projects are very clearly favored and commitments for funding will be made. The next six projects are only differentiated by a span of three votes, so the directors will select up to 2-3 of these projects for funding, taking into consideration a balance of projects across the six research thrusts. The remaining unfunded proposals will be kept under consideration until next June, in the event that additional resources arise from new memberships. Directors will make a final decision in consultation with the IAB chairs to rationalize the final project selection.

9. IAB Caucus (faculty leave room)
– Reception/IAB breakfast: both were good, want to continue
– E-mail voting on issues (in-kind memberships, etc.): members responded well, process working well.

Venue:
– Power cords everywhere, could be done better
– Not enough chairs, etc.—logistics could be better
– Get all talks on one computer—minimize time between. Faculty need to get in on time!
– Poster session: room was warm, a little cramped.  Data on posters should be kept clear, no big messages across the data.
– Zip file on Box.com: like this better than downloading one file at a time.
– Quad chart for proposal presentations: worked great.
– External speakers high quality—continue.

10. Directors return/Discussion Summary
– Beth: may add parallel sessions, topics getting spread out—could cover more.
– Clive: Add one ‘chalkboard’ talk per meeting on various topics—grad level, fundamentals; members like the idea.
– Clive: YouTube-type education video another possibility.
-Susan: many are posted already on nanofab site—give members a list?

Meeting came to a close at 3:35 PM

ACTION ITEMS:

• Continue current pattern for electing IAB Chair and Co-chair (elected for two year term; beginning of Year 2, co-chair becomes chair, new co-chair elected, to begin with Year
• Continue to discuss University of Sheffield as international site.
• Decision soon on Fall 2015 CDP Meeting in Japan or Raleigh.
• Meeting venue: configure room so speaker does not stand in front of some participants.
• Distribute list of educational videos on nanofab site.
• Posters: Keep data clear, no writing across.