Colleges & Universities Nurture the Next Generation of Scientists/Entrepreneurs

New Jersey Business, Jun 01, 2006 by Sheridan, Sharon

From tiny nanotechnology to large-scale communications systems or biometrics, New Jersey's colleges and universities work to be at the head of the class in using and developing innovative technologies. Undergraduate and graduate students can pursue hands-on high-tech research and turn research-anddevelopment results into business startups as they train to become the nation's next generation of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs.

Here's a review of some high-tech innovations occurring at the state's institutions of higher education:

Rowan University

Perhaps the state's newest university research park is at Rowan University, Glassboro, where ground was broken in April for the Innovation Center, the first building at the South Jersey Technology Park, located about a mile from the current campus.

The 45,000-square-foot laboratory and office building will house the university on the first floor, including engineering and science research and development labs, plus the Rowan Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, says Dr. Anthony Marchese, park director.

The second floor, with about 20,000 square feet of space available for lease, will feature wet labs and office space. "We're targeting technology-based companies to move in," Marchese says.

The Rowan Center already exists on the current campus. "It's basically a university center that focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation with respect to economic development in the region. It offers services to the community to, help entrepreneurs start their own businesses," Marchese explains. The center also offers services to faculty and students to give them business opportunities as an offshoot of their research.

"We focus a lot on our undergraduate students in engineering and business," Marchese explains. Rowan maintains a venture fund for undergraduates, providing money to about 30 students over the last five or six years.

One resulting company, started and owned by a Rowan graduate, manufactures retrofits for ski lifts to accommodate snowboards. Another installs photovoltaic solar cells for residential and commercial applicants. "They've actually been quite profitable because of the incentives that are available in New Jersey for that kind of thing," Marchese says.

A third student-founded company manufactures specialized automobile tail lights.

Rowan hopes to open the Innovation Center in time for the fall 2007 semester and anticipates constructing a new building at the approximately $15-million park every two years, Marchese says.

Rutgers University, Camden Campus

Businesses also grow at Rutgers' southernmost campus, which hosts a business incubator that later this year will move into the new Camden Waterfront Technology Center being built by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). About 35 companies now in the incubator "receive the basic business incubation support, the business plan guidance and the financial guidance, the connections with venture capital," says Communications Director Mike Sepanic. "As much as possible, they receive technical support." The new center will add wet labs.

The incubator has hatched four businesses so far. The "poster child " says Sepanic, is CerionX, which produces laboratory technology in Pennsauken. It employs about 15 full-time employees and another 15 subcontractors and sells its products nationally.

Faculty and students, meanwhile, are involved in hightech research on campus.

"We've got some pretty active scholars who are doing very cool research in computer science," Sepanic says. One researcher, for example, is creating graphical passwords to provide greater computer security.

A NASA-funded project is studying ice worms. What's the relevance of such a project? The research "intends to not only look at how organisms survive in space, but how one might transport . . . biological materials with minimal deterioration," Sepanic says. An end result might be a better way to transplant organs from donors to recipients or improve methods for transporting and storing blood.

That project, Sepanic notes, is one of many examples of student involvement in research. "As a small campus ... we have to combine research and teaching opportunities, because it's the only way for us to really give our students that rich experience. Frankly, it's just a good idea. It's just a very good learning experience for the students."

Rutgers University, New Brunswick Campus

Students, especially at the graduate level, also are heavily involved in research at Rutgers' New Brunswick campus. Graduate students earn their degrees by working on research projects in laboratories, explains Dr. Michael Breton, associate vice president for research. "That educates the upper echelon of researchers for all of industry."

Research occurs in various ways. Rutgers is getting into nanotechnology, a big research area, through its Institute for Advanced Materials and Devices. Last spring, the university opened Rutgers Technology Centre II on Route 1, contiguous to the EDA's Technology Centre of New Jersey. Occupants include a wireless communications group called WINLAB and an energy storage research group that formerly worked within Telcordia.