hp_02_fall_2010

CoverCasper Friedrich ‘ ‘Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer’© Creative Commons

3fall 2010

Editorial

Big accomplishments such as the (re)discovery of America or Brazil hap-pened by serendipity. In fact both Columbus and Cabral were searching something else: a maritime route to In-dia from Europe. However this was only possible because they decided to face the unknown, traveling in search for alternative routes to the ones already established. This is often what happens with scientific research. You have to be-gin walking in a road that you still don’t know where is going to end. Some of these enterprises have a happy end, others do not.

While apparently opposed fields of research, both space exploration and archaeology have to deal with the un-known. Moreover, they have to deal with invention and memory. In fact, in his book Histoire et verité, (published in 1955) French philosopher Paul Ricouer stated that “only a culture capable of assimilating scientific rationality will be able to survive and revive”. But he also stated that one has to be aware of our past, of our roots, “not simply to repeat the past, but rather to take root in it in order to ceaselessly invent.”

Therefore, memory and invention are crucial elements to pursue a path to-wards progress. These are also two es-sential conditions to travel. One has to keep in mind his past experiences and be able to step forward when facing a different challenge. Thus, traveling be-comes a good metonymy to research. The painting that we reproduce in the cover of the present issue, is titled

“Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer” (Wanderer above the Sea of Fog) and was painted by Casper David Friedrich in 1818. The lonely figure of the trave-ler facing the horizon at the same time mysterious and seductive is a good image to translate the experience of someone engaged with a research project. This issue of Het Proefschrift is dedicated to the theme of “Traveling as research”. However, in this case traveling means not only a journey or a trip but also a voyage to our memo-ries, both collective and individual.

The contributions for this issue bring together some of the different ways where traveling can contribute to en-hance research. Eva Heinen shares with us her experience in the US to re-veal how she is comparing Dutch and American behavior in terms of bicycle commuting; Mehdi Saffarian presents a research in progress to make the experience of traveling by car safer; Samur Araújo shares with us his re-search about how traveling within our digital memories can change our in-teraction with the web; Rajbeer Singh Basera reports how was is transfer-ence, as a post-doc, from India to The Netherlands; Hélène Clogenson and Andrea Simonetto allow us to travel

back to the 1950’s and revive the emo-tions of listening and dancing to the sound of Rock’n Roll; Prof. Hans Beun-derman reminds TU Delft’s PhD com-munity of the final steps in the voyage to one’s Doctoral Defence-ceremony Day; Sónia da Silva Viera, guides us through the hospitable spaces in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineer-ing; Jelmer van Ast and Mathieu Ger-ard reveal an application they created to help us traveling at a conference; Madan Kumar Lakshmanan presents his nomination essay as Promood’s “Su-pervisor of the Year” to a central figure in his research trip – Prof. Homayoun Nikookar, whom also contributes with some considerations about how the re-lation between supervisor and PhD re-searcher should be; Prof. Wubbo Ockels shares with us some of his experiences as a former “extra-terrestrial”; we also reveal Mira Pasveer role as marketing manager for PhD students and the In-ternational Neighbour Group Delft as a contribution to make you feel more at home in Delft.

Final Note: In this issue Rajen Akalu an-nouces his steping down as Promood’s president. I had the pleasure to work with Rajen in the edition of the present and the previous issues of HP and I owe Rajen my acknowledgement for his contribution making our HP jour-ney joyful, challenging and, above all, a good opportunity to have good chats and exchange memories and inven-tions.

Editorial

Words from the board

PromooD news

Opinion

State of the Art

What are you doing?

Life Post-Doc

Relax Corner

Traveling and Serendipity

Nelson Mota

Contents

03

04

05

07

08

09

10

11

PhD Policy

Inside TU

Heroes of everyday life

Supervisor of the Year

His master’s voice

From the other side

Links

Upcoming events

12

16

18

20

21

22

24

26

[email protected]

4 het proefschrift

hp editorial team:

President:Rajen Akalu

Editor-in-chief:Nelson Mota

Associate Editors:Alberto Gonzalez, social eventsNishant Lawand, career developmentRodrigo Teixeira Pinto , marketing

Layout and Design:Nelson Mota

Chairman’s outgoing note…

The French novelist Marcel Proust wrote that “[t]he real voyage of discov-ery consists not in seeking new land-scapes but in having new eyes.” This year the Promood board consisted of approximately twelve PhDs. That is a lot of [critically trained] new eyes!

I took the position as Chair of Promood because I wanted to gain experience managing academics. It is quite a task to manage a group of similarly neurotic individuals coming from very different academic backgrounds and working in various faculties at the university. Like many PhDs, my natural inclination in the university environment is to put my research first and place everything else a distant second.

But at some point I realized that a PhD more of a journey to an uncharted des-tination than making yourself at home on an island. It takes effort to take responsibility for your own PhD ex-perience and practice to not respond defensively to criticism. Both can be learned in an organization like Pro-mood.

Promood has been an opportunity for me to connect with PhDs working in vastly different ‘worlds’ to my own. I came to really appreciate the various talents the Promood board members and the contribution they brought to the group. Together, we’ve accom-plished a great deal.

For example, in order to reach as many

PhDs as possible we experimented with very different activities com-pared to previous years. These ranged from sporting events to board games, beer tasting and speed dating. These events afforded an opportunity to so-cialize as well as find out the interests and concerns other PhDs were facing.

The highlight of the year occurred in April when we hosted a career event. Here, we connected PhDs, alumni and working professionals for a career dis-

cussion and networking session. The event was both successful and well at-tended.

There are still significant challenges ahead. Important issues such as PhD contracts and salary conditions need to be addressed. There also significant changes in organizational structure of PhD education that need to be moni-tored and evaluated. I’ve had the oc-casion to engage with all levels of the TU Delft university administration in this regard. Learning about difficulties that other PhDs have encountered has certainly assisted me making my own PhD path a smoother one.

During my term as Chair I’ve never lost sight of the fact that PhDs represent two-thirds of the academic staff at this university. I took as my aim to make Promood both engaging and relevant as an association of PhDs at this univer-sity. I’m very satisfied with the result of this effort. I wish my successor Sylvie Soudarissanane bon voyage!

Rajen Akalu

Words from the board

Colophon

colaborators on this issue:

Alberto González, Andrea Simonetto, An-nelies Mooij, Eva Heinen, Hans Beunderman, Hélène Clogenson, Homayoun Nikookar, Jelmer van Ast, Madan Kumar Lakshmanan, Mathieu Gerard, Mehdi Saffarian, Mira Pasveer-Aarts, Nelson Mota, Nishant S. Lawand, Patty van Woerden, Rajbeer Singh Basera, Rajen Akalu, Rodrigo Teixeira Pinto, Samur Araújo, Sónia da Silva Vieira, Sylvie Soudarissanane, Wubbo Ockels© Promood and the authors of the articlesNovember 2010Circulation: 1700 copies

[email protected]

hp _ het proefschrift

is the journal of PromooD, the independent representative body of the PhD candidates at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).

For more information about PromooD:www.promood.tudelft.nl

5fall 2010

PromooD Newsevents, facts, membership, ...

PromooD BBQ 2010September 24th 2010, TBM Podium, TU Delft

© Photos: Kevin Thomassen

Once upon a time, the Internet was a place where a company would up-load the content they wanted to show you, and you would have to put up with it wether you liked it or not. Then the YouTube folks came, and the In-ternet became a collaborative space where everyone uploaded the videos they wanted to show you. Creativity boomed and suddenly millions of vid-eos of kittens (and a chubby Jedi boy) flooded the Net.

Web evangelists call sites such as Wiki-pedia, Flickr, and YouTube, the ‘Web 2.0’. These websites are just empty con-tainers, and rely on their members and visitors creativity to fill them.

Until this year, when people would come to us and say ‘please organize this event’ we would note the sugges-tion down and do our best. Unfortu-nately our time and resources are lim-ited, which meant that only a few of

those proposals ever came into being. During 2010, our events programme has transformed and become much more collaborative.

This year we have taken a different approach. When someone from out-side came and said ‘please organize a singles party’, we said ‘if you organize it, we will give you our support’. And when someone proposed a dance workshop, we were all for it, as long as they took care of everything we would

let them use our contacts and propa-ganda machinery to organize and promote their idea. Around half of our events have been organized by mem-bers not in the board. Yes, definitely this year we have become Promood 2.0.

This does not mean we don’t organize anything by ourselves. We are still loyal to the true “PromooD PhD Classics”: the barbecue, the printers market, and Sinterklaas. The barbecue was a great success, and Sint is already loading his steamboat in Spain!

Promood 2.0

Alberto Gonzá[email protected]

6 het proefschrift

PromooD organised a Career Event 2010 at the Berlage Hall in TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture. This event was focused for the next step after PhD.

It was planned for those who were seeking a career in academia, in indus-try, in a non-profit organisation, any research centre. The aim of this event was to bring together PhD candidates, alumni and working professionals from several areas discuss, exchange ideas and to encourage networking.

Experienced professionals from differ-ent areas were called at this event to provide expert advice and guidance to the PhD candidates community.

There were 13 different professionals invited from academia and corporate companies with the expertise from var-ied fields. They shared their own PhD and also gave valuable guidance for the life after it.

The program started with an welcome speech from PromooD’s president Rajen Akalu which was followed by a substantive keynote speech on “Man-aging your career as a PhD” given by Deepa Kundur, a Professor at Texas A&M University.

This lecture gave the PhD student’s an insight for the future possibilities that a PhD candidate could pursue. After this speech a structured networking session was conducted. During this session all the participants had an op-portunity to join in a round table dis-cussion with the professional which they had preselected before the event.

This discussion continued until the end of the program accompanied with

refreshments and drinks to lighten up and add a friendly relaxed atmosphere.

Promood’s PhD career development programme guided the people to take to their desired location in the path of their future profession. This pro-gramme of activities gave the PhD stu-dents the option to work towards their next step and develop the transferable skills at the same time.

Nishant S. Lawand

PromooD Career Event 2010 April 15th 2010, Delft, The Netherlands

[email protected]

© Photos: Marko Mihailovic

PromooD Newsevents, facts, membership, ...

7fall 2010

Staying Abroad for Research

What does your bike look like? You might recall a weekly article in the university magazine ‘Delta’. Where else in the world would this be a weekly subject? You won’t be surprised that after revealing my PhD subject, “Typi-cally Dutch” is a common reaction. Even more here in the Netherlands than outside. My PhD research focuses on bicycle commuting. As most know, the bicycle has a unique position in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has the highest bicycle share in the world. The bicycle is more or less integrated in our lives. The Dutch are born to cycle and cycle from early childhood. Everywhere is bicycle infrastructure. In short, the bicycle has obtained a big role in our transport system. Remarkably how-ever, little research attention is given to cycling in the Netherlands; much more in countries with little cycling activity such the UK and USA.

The situation between the Netherlands and the USA is very different. I tried to compare the Netherlands with the USA, in particular Delft with Davis. I was interested in the position of the bicycle in the USA and especially in the public view towards cycling and the integra-tion in the daily life. In my ongoing PhD research, I created the opportunity to stay three months in Davis, California.

The United States are known for car dependent and bicycle unfriendly. The bicycle is most often not viewed as a mode of transportation but more a way of recreation or a sports attribute. That in most cities the infrastructure in a way prevents cycling to work and being able to cycle without stress confirms this. Nevertheless, a strong movement is visible towards a better integration of the bicycle in cities. In contrast to the Netherlands, current cyclists are organ-ized and commit themselves to make a change.

The research stay did not only provide with me essential research data - I inter-viewed sixteen inhabitants about their commute behavior. The combination with being actively involved in another culture is essential for the comprehen-sion of the culture. Short visits do allow to get a the most important difference, but it need time to grasp all cultural as-

pects of importance: attitudes, norms and exception to these. Behavior is at first interpreted from one’s own cul-ture instead of putting it in perspec-tive of a native inhabitant.

To give some examples, the interviews showed a larger environmental aware-ness of the inhabitants in Davis. Dutch participants acknowledge the envi-ronmental benefits of cycling as well, but did not attach importance to it:

“It is important for environmental rea-sons. I think that the driving part is one of the worse things we are doing to so-ciety. And for all kind of reasons. The air for example, not only for people riding it, but also for people breathing it” (Davis, female, 48, 3km, bicycle)

In terms of health awareness and im-portance respondents answered a like. Everyone understood that cycling was healthy found this important, al-though the behavior was not neces-sary affected.

“Exercise is important. I work in a hospital and see very often the con-sequences of inactivity. So that is the most important reason.” (Delft, male, 48, 18 km, bicycle)

Equally informative was experiencing the difficulties of cycling abroad. De-spite that Davis is one of the cycling cities of the USA, visiting some shops by bike is hard. In addition, the large number of stop signs prevent you from having a easy ride through the city and force you to stop and accelerate at eve-ry crossing. Experiencing these (and many other) burdens in your everyday life is much more valuable than reading it or facing it on a short visit. A longer stay makes you face the real difficulties.

Moreover, staying abroad provides with putting your own life in perspec-tive. You will get new ideas and experi-ence a life in a different situation and with different habits, which is a unique personal experience. This is helpful for your research as well. You get new ideas, concepts and consider applying different techniques. It helps you to put the research into an international perspective. I helped the professor with the data collection of one of her research. And I had the opportunity to present and discuss my work with pro-fessors and other PhD students from outside my university several times. They questioned different steps and assumptions which enriched my re-search. Being away from my regular working location provided me a fresh view on my work.

Traveling for work is for many a dream. Getting paid while staying in a warm, friendly resort, with good food and meeting only nice and interesting people. Although everyone who has traveled for work knows it isn’t all good, it does provide you with new insights and useful experiences.

Eva Heinen

Opinionabout research, sports, life and other subjects....

Eva Heinen (Voorburg, The Nether-lands) is a PhD candidate in the Section of Urban and Regional Development in the OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment of TU Delft.

[email protected]

Behavior is at first interpreted from one’s own culture

instead of putting it in perspective of a native inhabitant

Rear Window Notification Display (RWND)Developed by: T. Holper, J. Kalsbeek, A. Mesu, G. Smink

8 het proefschrift

Balance between Authority and ResponsibilityHow Driving should Look and Feel using Automation and Augmented Feedback?

Paying attention to the right thing at the right time is important for many activities. For driving, it is critical. In the Netherlands the annual costs of road accidents have been estimated at 12 billion Euros or 2.6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (SWOV fact sheet, 2009). Regarding the efficiency, the additional time cost by congestion is estimated at about 2% of GDP in de-veloped countries (Quinet, 1994).

Currently, major changes are taking place in the way we are driving our cars. Drivers are increasingly aided by automation and augmented feedback, such as Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), Electronic Stability Control (ESC), and night vision. In the Biomechanical En-gineering Department, Faculty of 3ME, TU Delft researchers are trying to an-swer fundamental questions about the effects of increased use of in-vehicle technologies on safety and efficiency of drivers. The tendency to use auto-mation systems in vehicles, can either impair or improve how we distribute our attention, thus diminishing or en-hancing safety. Also, considering the

indispensability of human involve-ment in vehicles, there is a growing interest in developing state of the art driving systems with humans as their integral component. One solution is that man and machine cooperate intuitively by realizing the required control forces together. The idea is to combine the use of hands and feet with inceptors like haptic steer-ing wheel and gas pedal, and visual feedback complement. To realize this idea, thorough understanding of hu-man motion control is required to quantify the benefit of the haptic and visual feedback. In collaboration with the Faculty of Aerospace, through a project funded by Nissan, researchers here were successfully developed and evaluated a haptic gas pedal system for cruise control application. The first commercial version of the system is known as Distance Control Assist and launched in spring 2008. Researchers are now trying to extend such solu-tion for assisting steering system and smart lateral control of cars (Mulder & Abbink, 2010).

Autonomous vehicles do not necessar-ily mean progress from which humans can really benefit. “Ironies of automa-tion” occurs where “by taking away the easy parts of human tasks, automation can make the difficult parts …more dif-ficult” (Bainbridge, 1983). One of the key unsolved issues in the automo-tive industry is the balance between exploiting increasingly powerful tech-nologies and retaining authority, with clear roles between humans and auto-mation. Currently, a team from Biome-chanical Engineering are working on making an interface for integrating hu-man with Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) systems, which enable both driving with tighter inter-vehicle distance and platooning among vehi-cles. Simulation studies show that in-troducing such systems into the high-ways can significantly increase traffic throughput and safety of the road networks (van Arem et al., 2006) due to better use of space and more homog-enous driving patterns. The interface is part of the shared feedback control-ler to moderate authority transitions between human and the car, which is not only facilitate driver performance in regular highway driving, but also in complex and unanticipated transition scenarios, such as merging and resiz-ing a platoon when driving with CACC systems. The validated system should eliminate both unnecessary human intervention and also over trust of the humans on the automation.

Through these and its other automo-tive research activities, the mission of Biomechanical Engineering is to enhance drivers’ safety, road capacity and driving comfort, through tailored integration of human with technology. The work toward having dynamic and natural cooperation between human and automation is a key factor for suc-cess of future intelligent vehicles.

State of the artbibliographical reviews and news from the scientific community

Mehdi Saffarian by

Mehdi Saffarian (Abadan, Iran) is a PhD researcher in the area of Human Machine Interface in the Biomechanical Engineering, 3ME Faculty in TU Delft.

[email protected]

9fall 2010

What are you doing?Research abstracts from TU Delft’s phd community and research centres

All our memories come from our liv-ing experiences in our environment: the people that we have met, music that we have listened to, places that we have been to. These memories sup-port us in all our daily tasks, such as to recognize places, people, concepts, etc. Nowadays, many of us are immersed in a digital environment, living experi-ences that also build a memory about our digital experiences. This particular memory that we have about our digital environment, helps us to achieve many tasks inside the digital world.

Many researchers have shown that to re-find information is one the most performed tasks that people do in their digital environment. Unfortunately, the tools that we have today do not reflect well our digital memory: they lead us to spreading our data among many applications and formats, conse-quently leading us to high mental load to re-find it. This problem is a specific variation of what is known in the litera-ture as information fragmentation. This information fragmentation impacts directly how users re-find their data, and besides it causes loss of informa-

tion and relationships among data. For example, once you have saved an e-mail attachment to your file system, you lose the information by whom the file was sent, and to later recover such detail becomes very hard. Current ap-plications do not capture users’ digital memory, nor how users organize and link information in their minds, conse-quently mentally overloading the user to accomplish their tasks, especially when this involves re-finding tasks.

Unfortunately, history is repeating itself on the Web, and nowadays, us-ers’ information is being spread and encoded in many different web sites and services, again forcing users to manage applications instead of the object of interest: their personal data. For example, users use Gmail, Flickr, Facebook, Last.fm, Twitter, Delicious, etc, to manage their information but cannot manage it as a medium, in an integrated and unified way.

We envision a scenario where the Web will be a living system, composed by many entities that themselves evolve over time. The users’ digital memory itself can be conceived as a web, that together with data from other webs, such as the web of (linked) data, will form the whole cyberspace that sup-ports the human being in their lives.

In our research, we will make a step towards a web of digital memories, by using Semantic Web technology for weaving the users’ personal data into a web of data that, in level of granular-ity, is closer to the users’ memory. This scenario leads us to many scientific challenges from different perspectives, in understanding memory and re-find-ing, in knowledge representation, elici-tation and integration, in privacy etc.

Samur Araújo

Samur Araujo (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) is a phd student in the web information system group, EWI Faculty in TU Delft.

Linking Personal Data: towards the web of your digital memories

[email protected]

10 het proefschrift

Explicit or Implicit Experiences

As I set to move to The Netherlands, well-known as Holland in India, a lot of questions and uncertainties start-ed capturing my imagination and thought process. Moreover, they made me worried about weather and food, as I was recovering from long illness and stretching working hours during all seven days of the week in last few years. This was due to demanding re-search conditions at Center for stud-ies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), till August 2009, and multi-tasking job as Assistant Profes-sor at Center for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at Cen-tral University of Gujarat (CUG). If I talk about my experiences at JNU, be-fore I put post-doctoral experiences, then I would say it was my grooming ground as a research scholar who got free, autonomous, diverse, democratic, interactive, and global academic envi-ronment. Moreover, debates and dis-cussions on various issues were carried during nights after dinner in common dining hall of the different hostels.

As I was leaving Delhi I had faced heavy rain. I left with an assumption that at least this is not going to be scenario in The Netherlands. But, a big surprise! It was raining here and that too heav-ily without any break with very low temperature and high speed winds those I had seen during my childhood in desert of Rajasthan, a province in northern India. At the airport, Taxi was waiting and thanks to Dr Otto Kroesen and TU Delft who have made these nice arrangements, including my residence Leghwaterstraat, 268. As I got settled down and became acquainted with few important places for survival, I set to take up next task to join the section Technology Dynamics and Sustainable Development, Faculty Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft on 1st September. I found things very sys-tematic but somewhat similar to what I have been went through in JNU. In ad-dition, I found lot of similarity in both conditions, my past and present.

TPM has assigned me, on first day, working desk. Further, I found some my colleagues, PHD students and pro-fessors, who also have their respec-

tive working desks, common printer, photocopy and scanning machine. This was something new which I have not imagined that PhD students can get free printing, scanning and pho-tocopying facilities!! Further, another something unexpected facility is cof-fee and tea machine for PhD students and Workers of TU Delft and that too free, cost covered by the university.

I got another big difference in secre-tariat where I met section secretary who had handed over all stationary and other material. Moreover, she ad-vised that any PhD student, Post Doc and Professors can take these things whenever they need by using their card to open the door without paying any money for that! So infrastructural differences make a remarkable differ-ence in experience and work out put.

TU delft is found to be with some more very good values in term of making collaborations and working with dif-ferent individuals from different de-partments, groups and sections. This makes people here more oriented to take up real problems with industry and policy, and find out solution. Per-haps this kind of approach I missed in my earlier career.

On the other hand, TU delft is some-what less indulge in open discussions and debate what I had witnessed in past. Moreover, I could not find even a single place where night talks and dis-cussions are organized wherein speak-ers can speak on particular topic and audience can put their own questions. Further, I found students are more fo-cused on few issues which are mostly concern to their research or life but they are found clueless about diverse issues even on the Netherlands!

Weather forecasting is an important way to plan everyday life and visits to different place in Europe. This is possi-

ble only through using reliable satellite data and live results on rain, tempera-ture and wind speed. On contrast, one cannot be so sure about such weather forecasting in India, often they are not so accurate, thanks to dynamic nature of local weather.

Moreover, a student cannot imagine getting the beer on the campus in JNU as it is available here in TU Delft as a common drink. Further, students have lot many drink parties which may be some slightly different then what we had hostel nights.

One of the most strange experience, I could call it, is that of using word ‘Bike’ for the bicycle which so commonly used here almost majority people in TU Delft. As I was habituated to use this word for the motorbike not for what Dutch people use it. Moreover, I have again use bicycle after 12 years because I have been using motorbike before I arrived here. But, It’s a learn-ing experience that how using a bike here helps to climate and lowering air and noise pollution on the TU campus. Further, it may be long story which may describe about dissimilarities in my pre post-doctoral and post-doctoral expe-riences.

I found a good overlap in both situ-ations as both are multidisciplinary vibrant academic universities. The aca-demic freedom, autonomy and non-hierarchical scenario are common in both situations. Therefore, it provides me motivation to carry on the research with making big efforts for any change. I could find that the people can com-municate in English which make life easier and moving faster. Moreover, TU Delft provides a great opportunity for pursuance of great academic career.

Rajbeer Singh Basera

Life post-Docand what then, after your phd?

[email protected]

Rajbeer Singh Basera (India) is a Post Doctoral Fellow in Section of Technology Dynamics and Sustainable Develop-ment at Faculty Technology, Policy and Management in TU Delft

11fall 2010

Relax Cornerabout music, cinema, books, whatever

Hélène Clogenson (Paris, France) is a PhD student in the department of Bio-Mechanical Engineering at the Faculty of 3mE in TU Delft.

We grew up with the notes of ever-green glories transmitted on the radio, such as “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry. We found ourselves smiling during the nights at the disco, while songs like “You’re The One That I Want” (Grease) were played with general enthusiasm. Rock’n Roll, the to-feel-good music, the exciting dance, and the rhythm are part of us. All of them belong to us, they mean something, they remind some undefined freedom we are entitled to own. But, how could you dance on these songs?

There are various styles to dance Rock’n Roll. Maybe the first images that pop up in our mind are the ones of acrobatic Rock’n Roll, with the “girl flying around”. But there are also a few more rock and roll dance styles such as 4 Four Steps Style Rock’n Roll. This is the “Saturday night fever” Rock’n Roll dance style! It is “simple”, it is social and fun!!! It also offers us space for creativ-ity and spontaneity. It is the rock and roll that makes us dance during parties or anytime/anywhere we feel like! It is the dance our feet are claiming for as soon as a good “classical” or nowadays song is heard! On the street, in a bar, with friends. There are no limits!

In this style each dancing figure, or move, is based on four, eight, twelve… beats. The figures range over simple turns, springy jumps, over fast and slow body movements, and combina-tions of all of them. The style, although not acrobatic, is for sure dynamic, powerful, and choreographic. And, the music is, without a doubt, excellent!

There are a few things that make life enjoyable: Rock’n’Roll dance is one of them. It is a mix of glances, complic-ity, unpredictability...and laughs! And that makes it even more exciting. It is a social activity, and therefore a perfect gateway to meet with friends, as well as encountering new people. Overall, it is a good excuse to stay a bit togeth-er.

But, how could we learn how to dance Rock’n Roll in Delft? We are doing something in this direction. We are set-ting up a new association “Rock’n Delft” in order to organize events, workshops, and we will eventually teach an entire Rock’n Roll dance course of fifteen les-sons. And all for free!

We created a Facebook group, Rock’n Delft, which everybody is invited to join. This will be the meeting point for the people interested in learning and dancing Rock’n Roll or willing to help us with the association.

The next events will be posted on this Facebook page, so stay tuned! To give you a sample of some future activities, November will be a month full of dance. Two workshops are already scheduled: one with the Mechanical student as-sociation Leeghwater, on Monday November the 15th and one with the Cultural Center, on a Friday evening, the date still have to be defined. Don’t hesitate to come over and try it!

Consider helping us by spreading the news, showing your interest by attend-ing the events and being part of the as-sociation.

We are Hélène and Andrea; Hélène, a French PhD student at BMechE, has been dancing and teaching for about four years now, jumping from France, to Norway until here. Andrea, an Italian PhD student at DCSC has been dancing Salsa and Rock‘n Roll for quite a bit.

Join the group for further information or just drop by our offices at 3mE for a talk!

Hélène [email protected]

© Photo: Steven Cuylle

Andrea [email protected]

Andrea Simonetto (Como, Italy) is a PhD student in the Delft Center for Sys-tems and Control at the Faculty of 3mE in TU Delft

Rock’n DelftRock’n Roll dance,

music, fun!

This article intends to inform you on “the rules of the game” that are applica-ble to the final phase of your PhD proc-ess. This will help you plan and realize a safe landing at your Doctoral Defence-ceremony Day!

The early beginning of your PhD proc-ess is therefore not so much the focus of this article. This is notwithstanding the fact that “a good beginning is half of the job done”. Each PhD student should from the very first start be aware of the legal context and formal docu-ment for obtaining a doctoral degree in Delft: the Doctorate Regulations issued by the Board for Doctorates of the TU Delft.

Be aware that this Board released a new version per September 2010; you can find it on the TU Delft website.

So we assume that you are formally registered via the PROM 01 and 02 forms and fully informed by the time you enter into the final phase!

Various sources for adequate infor-mation are available. First of all your supervisory team should guide and guard you up to the final countdown.

The Doctorate Regulations contain in Part III: “The order of events in the doctoral defence procedure and the minimum time schedule”. This scheme clearly shows all responsibilities and steps to take for all actors involved. There is a special version with extra TIPS added for the PhD candidate.

Furthermore the -draft version- of the Code of Good Practice for PhD’s is a useful framework to view your actions as a “professional”. It will be an essential part of the philosophy of the TU Delft Graduate School that is to be imple-mented in 2011, but it is already in use on informal basis e.g. in the TUD PhD Start-up Days.

Any further questions? Contact the Of-fice of the Beadle via [email protected] or in the Aula building.

The start of the final lap is – accord-ing to the minimum! time schedule- 11

weeks before the defence date. This period may seem long but does in-clude the whole process of quality as-surance of your thesis! Be certain and anticipate on planning this phase well in advance together with your super-visors.

The signature of your promoter on the draft thesis and form PROM 03 is an es-sential requirement for you to be able to book a defence date, time and loca-tion via the Office of the Beadle. Unfor-tunately incomplete booking requests can not be accepted by the Beadle: it will frustrate other candidates who do match their planning adequately with the regulations.

The order of events then describes each subsequent step to be taken by you and/or your supervisor during this –minimum- timeframe.

The seasons in the year have quite an influence on the availability of de-fence slots for you! In general the peak months are: January, June, September and November/December. Since PhD’s enter the TU Delft all through the year there is no formal reason for these summer and end-year peaks, but we assume that there are causes related to contracts/visa and a planning habit based on “finish before summer/new year”. This often leads to unused de-fence slots in the quiet months!

To relax the pressure on the pre-sum-mer peak the TU Delft decided to in-troduce parallel sessions in that period and to reduce the summer closure to 4 weeks: mid July to mid August.

You could use this insight to plan your final phase and ceremony in the rela-tively quiet months!

A variety of rooms may be available. In the past year all ceremonies used to be in the Senate Hall; this room has a capacity for about 200 visitors. Some-

times however there are only 10-20 people in the audience. Depending on the month of the year the Beadle may be able to offer more options: the main Auditorium (Aula/1000P), the Kronig Hall (TNW/ 40P), or the Committee Room 3 (Aula/40P).

It is only fair to be realistic in your ex-pectation as to the number of expect-ed visitors; you might even take ad-vantage of early availability of defence slots in other rooms than the Senate Hall!

Be aware that the Senate Hall and Com-mittee Room 3 will be redecorated dur-ing summer 2011: the TU Delft may not be able to fully satisfy your wishes in that period.

The Day should be one of the high-lights in your academic career: all in-volved in the TU Delft will strive to help realize this for you…and your support-ers.

Therefore be well in time to have an ap-pointment with the Beadle for all logis-tic aspects during that day, including important details like the dress code for you and the Defence Committee.

Likewise you are expected to meet the professor appointed by the Board for Doctorates who will chair the defence ceremony. He or she will inform you on the procedure during the defence and what is expected from you. But you can also address any point that is unclear or of special importance to you.

If you as the key stakeholder in your own success, together with all involved from the TU Delft, act professionally ac-cording to these formal and informal “rules of the game” you can be confi-dent to have a wonderful touchdown!

Hans Beunderman

Prof. ir. Hans Beunderman is Vice Rector of the TU Delft with a focus on PhD policy and implementation, and a special interest in the TUDelft Graduate School project. His previous positions in TU Delft were: Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Director of Strategy.

Your ultimate Ph”D-DAY” at the TU Delft

[email protected]

12 het proefschrift

PhD PolicyPhD Policy at the TU Delft

Candidate submits manuscript to supervisor approval

PhD Duration: 4 years

1st Year 3rd Year 4th Year2nd Year

STEP 1 & 2: Research and Thesis Writing (~ 3 years 7 months)

PROM 1

PROM 2

1st Semestre 2nd Semestre 1st Semestre 2nd Semestre 1st Semestre 2nd Semestre 1st Semestre 2nd Semestre

STEP 3: Supervisor appraisalof manuscript (60 days)

Minimal time schedule11 weeks to graduation

PROM 3 – Supervisory approval of manuscript

PROM 4 – Composition of Doctoral Committee

Supervisor Approves the Manuscript

PROM 5 – Addresses of Doctoral Committee

Supervisor fills in PROM 3Supervisor sets Examination Committee with aid of PROM 4 & 5

PROM 1 – Application for Registration as a Candidate for a Doctorate

PROM 2 – Consent to Appointment as Supervisor

Supervisor Approves the Manuscript

PROM6: Approval of Thesis and its propositions

4th Year

Minimal Time Schedule: Duration 11 weeks

Weeks to Graduation12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 34 2 1

STEP 4

STEP 5

STEP 6

STEP 7

STEP 8

Supervisor receives suggestions by the Examination Committee for changes/additions to the manuscriptBeadle has received answers from all members of Examination Committee for proceeding to public defense

The Beadle arranges an annoucement of the graduation ceremonyCandidate defends the thesis for one hour against comments and objection raised by Examination Committee

Candidate has the thesis and propositions reproduced

13fall 2010

© Charts: Rodrigo Teixeira Pinto

PhD PolicyPhD Policy at the TU Delft

“I love deadlines. Especially the whooshing sound they make as they pass by”. There is some debate about the author of this fantastically witty quota-tion – often attributed to English writer Douglas Adams – though I personally believe there is very little dispute to the fact that humans beings all love to procrastinate.

Procrastination, for those not acquainted, is the art of avoiding doing something that eventually, soon-er or later, will have to be done. It is absolutely nor-mal to occasionally procrastinate and I find fascinat-ing how, sometimes, the only way to get something done is by doing something else first.

The most important is distinguishing what is really vital and cannot be procrastinated. Getting a PhD defense date and finishing your PhD are two of those vital activities. To successfully finish your PhD you will need to handle the Beadle six forms, the so-called “PROMs”. Of course, somewhere in between you will also have to do your research and write a dissertation, which is one of the prerequisites for PROM03: Supervisory Approval of Manuscript.

If you have no idea about all this and you’re in your first year, it’s not the end of the world. If you’re in your second year and still clueless, stop procrasti-nating and go read the Doctoral Regulations now!

However, if you’re already in your third year (fourth year?!) and yet you’re not aware of all this, please immediately go pay a visit to the Beadle in the Aula Congress Centre, preferably with a well prepared plea begging for forgiveness. Jokes aside, every PhD should go to the Beadle’s Office whenever there are any doubts about the legal framework needed for the completion of our doctorates.

To increase awareness in the PhD community on how to get a PhD defense date, PromooD decided to come up with charts to help you better visual-ize the whole process. Please bear in mind that the graphics were not meant to be used without read-ing the original document first.

So stop procrastinating and go get your copy at the TU Delft website!

Procrastination and your PhD Defense Date

PhD PolicyPhD Policy at the TU Delft

14 het proefschrift

Rodrigo Teixeira [email protected]

15fall 2010

© Charts: Rodrigo Teixeira Pinto

PhD PolicyPhD Policy at the TU Delft

16 het proefschrift

© Photo: Sónia da Silva Vieira

One of the best feelings a person can have is to work in a place that makes you feel proud of. The Faculty of Indus-trial Design Engineering has the char-acteristics that create the necessary ambience to transmit this feeling to people. These characteristics are em-bodied in the faculty’s entrance hall, for the significance of its scale, the vis-ibility of different levels, the complex-ity that comes forward from the inte-gration of several and very distinctive functions and the freedom to follow several paths. In addition, the visual impact of some structuring elements, such as the zebra in the floor, the con-tinuous blue balcony in the first floor, the vertical metal columns, the two curve levelled areas, together with the permanent exhibition of collections and experimental areas such as the working tables constitute the features of a dynamic atmosphere that makes people feel interest and motivation.

More to the point, a proper natural light coming from the roof structure gives the spot to a lively scenario for a play happening in a very industrial de-sign way.

Being an employee, a guest or a tourist makes you an actor in this stimulating environment. Inevitably, you become part of it.

A visitor arriving for the first time at IDE Faculty’s entrance hall feels invited to pleasantly discover the space. Beyond the great hall, throughout the five lev-els of the building, other interesting spaces can be found.

In the basement a labyrinth structure gives order to a group of spaces for the so-called dirty work functions and a group of studios surrounding the ver-tical connections to the upper floors. On the ground floor the big reception hall conveys basic functions for social interaction and exchange, the lectur-ing hall and some technical areas. On

the first floor the core experimental and educational activities take place in a line of studios along the balcony and in the drawing room. Research groups on mobility and sustainability also take place. Further research on different fields of interaction in design happens on the second floor in the particularly designed studios of the Studio Lab. On the third and forth floor interesting spaces can be found where the design engineering and the prod-uct innovation management depart-ment are located. The curved walls of the departments’ corridors open small areas for group discussion, meetings and knowledge exchange. A proper illumination and some transparency give a pleasant atmosphere to these large corridors connecting other areas where experimental labs and the fac-ulty direction can also be found.

Travelling through these research departments and spaces is a source of inspiration. Research posters and drawings on the walls, exhibitions, events and the experimental char-acter of some circumstances make people come across with ideas and concepts providing insight for their own research. Research issues such as creativity, innovation, sustainability, methodology, teams, management, aesthetics, experience, interaction, consumer and marketing research, have been addressed in the design field. A collective effort is being done to contribute to the body of knowl-

edge in design at IDE and the faculty is renown for that.

Research in design is not so young anymore. It has the age of a mature person. In the last five decades, design research – covering a broad range of topics - has been done (Bayazit, 2004, Design Issues) in research depart-ments in places all over the world. IDE Faculty exists now since more than 40 years (the 8th of January 1969); during these years the faculty got world-wide known for its forward looking educa-tion with a progressive bachelor cur-riculum and a high reputation of the three master programs. But also the research program has received interna-tional recognition. As one of the largest design research based faculties in the world close to 100 PhD students do all kinds of different research. The mission of the faculty “towards sustainable well being” addresses the needs of society today and the future of designers to-morrow.

The faculty of industrial design engi-neering has the appropriate environ-ment to contribute to the expansion of research through design.

For that, IDE Faculty is worth a visit just to see and perhaps be inspired and eventually become a character in the atmosphere of this place.

17fall 2010

Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering

Inside TUfaculties and research centers at TU Delft

Travelling through the IDE Faculty

Sónia da Silva [email protected]

Sónia da Silva Vieira (Porto, Portugal) is a PhD researcher in the department of Product Innovation Management in the IDE Faculty at TU Delft.

© Conference Compass

18 het proefschrift

Heroes of everyday lifereflections about the life of a phd

An important part of doing research is to present your work to other research-ers in the field. One way of presenting is by writing scientific papers for journals. Another way is much more exciting and comes with an important benefit: traveling to remote places. Scientific conferences are an excellent place to get immediate feedback on your work, whether it is by oral or poster presen-tation, but also allows you to meet in-teresting people. It’s also a great place for celebrity watching: the big names drink the same coffee as you do and al-most seem like normal people.

We have both been PhD students at the same group, Delft Center for Sys-tems and Control, but on widely dif-ferent subjects. Jelmer studied and developed algorithms based on the swarming principles of ant colonies, and applied this within a learning con-trol framework. Mathieu, on the other hand, works on global chassis control of vehicles. By combining new actua-tors he strives to make future cars bet-ter controllable and safer. On the 14th of September, Jelmer successfully de-fended his thesis. Mathieu is well on

track to finish his thesis by the end of the year. While our work is so different, we can both be classified as systems and control scientists, explaining why we often have attended the same con-ferences. We share the same interest in experiencing different cultures and traveling around in countries far away.

Seoul, South Korea was one of these remote places where we sat together and found out that each of us was full of business ideas. In that country of Hangul and Kimchi, we laid the foun-dations of our cooperation. The next 6 months, we frequently discussed many ideas in search for the one that we could develop into a business, un-

til we realized that it was there all the time, at each conference we attended.

The biggest pain at large conferences is without a doubt the difficulty of find-ing out which presentations to see amongst the many choices. With often up to 20 sessions in parallel during up to five days, there is simply too much to see. As a young PhD student, begin-ning to understand the field, you are almost guaranteed to miss many inter-esting talks. But also as an established professor, new exciting work by these many young PhD students is easily overlooked. Aside from this, conferenc-es are the place to meet people work-ing on related subjects and to extend your network potentially leading to interesting collaborations, or laying the foundations for your future career. But how would you know whom to meet? For decades, the book of abstracts is the main tool for planning your way through the conference, but it’s a pain for everybody. Paging back and forth from the program to the abstracts, folding corners to bookmark interest-ing abstracts, scribbling notes in the margins of the pages, using different

ConferenceCompass

Jelmer van [email protected]

Mathieu [email protected]

© Conference Compass

19fall 2010

Mathieu Gerard (Delft, The Nether-lands) is a PhD researcher at Delft Center for Systems and Control, TU Delft. He now works part-time for Conference Compass.

markings to rank the potential inter-esting talks, and most of all: carrying around hundreds of irrelevant pages only to throw away it all together after the conferences, losing all your notes in the process.

But, hey, wait a second. Everyone has a phone, right? And these phones have become more powerful every year. Why not utilize this power for the sake of science and progress? This was ex-actly our business idea: to develop mobile applications that will replace the cumbersome book of abstracts and add interactivity, personalization, and many useful features that make the life of conference attendees much better. We labeled it: the Conference Compass. It turned out we had a win-ner. Only a month later, when we both attended a conference in the USA, we secretly used our first prototype. Some-thing very interesting caught our at-tention: after each coffee break, most of the people turned to their books of abstracts and tried to figure out which presentation to see, in which session, and where the heck this session was taking place. All we did though, was

to grab our phones, click on the high-lighted talk and found the location of the session pinpointed on the map.We proceeded quickly to improve the Conference Compass, making it suit-able for people not used to using their phones for other stuff that just call-ing and texting, as well as to make it compatible with many more types of phones. We used our colleagues to test our apps and they were very excit-ed that somebody was finally commit-ted to relieve them from the book of abstracts. Our product evolved quick-ly, as did our business plan, stimulated by Yes!Delft and the course “Writing a Business Plan”. It was a challenge to combine this with our full-time PhD job, but since the first of August of this year, we are enrolled in the Yes!Delft incubator, with our very own office in the new Yes!Delft building. Things are moving fast. We work hard to offer the Conference Compass at many conferences and to improve our product in many ways. Are you a programmer, or do you have software engineers as friends looking for an ex-iting project? We are ready to extend

our team! Are you tired of having the book of abstracts at conferences, or are you organizing a conference yourself? Contact us, so we can improve your conference experience! Traveling the world to scientific conferences is the ic-ing on the cake of doing PhD research. The Conference Compass makes the ic-ing even sweeter.

Jelmer van Ast (Den Haag, The Nether-lands) has finished his PhD research at Delft Center for Systems and Control, TU Delft. He now works full-time for Confer-ence Compass.

more info at:www.conference-compass.com

© Photo: All rights reserved

20 het proefschrift

Successful professional careers are of-ten shaped by the wisdom and gener-osity of a good mentor. I am fortunate to have found mine in Dr.Nikookar. As a supervisor, he is a patient listener, an empathetic guide, an inspirational and much liked mentor. As an academic, he is a popular teacher well respected by students and peers. As a top notch scientist, he is up-to date with the state-of-art in his field of research and well networked. On numerous his as-sociation has opened doors for me to collaborate with world-class organi-zations and researchers. As a diligent editor, he offers constructive criticism and promotes high quality technical journals. As an enthusiastic colleague, he constantly poses some very origi-nal and challenging research ques-tions and keeps me on my toes, all the time. As an individual, he is the nicest and most affable person one can come across. These are exceptional qualities, difficult to emulate in reality, and rarely seen in academia.

Open and honest, he is an excellent role model through his deeds and words. His doors are always open, both literally and metaphorically, for endless discussions. He always has an ear for my concerns – be it profession-al or private.

He not only dedicates enough time, but also shows the requisite care, empathy and consideration to under-stand my viewpoint. This is of utmost importance in an international organi-zation like TU Delft where many of us come from different countries and cul-

tural backgrounds. We often need such an engaging fatherly figure to shore us through difficult times.

With regard to his mentorship, his ap-proach is hands-off - he lends sugges-tions without dictating actions, offers support and yet encourages independ-ence; is flexible with expectations but firm on the quality of work.

I know that he only has the best of my interests in his mind!

It is an honour to be associated with such a thorough scientist and I hope that my PhD work and my scientific career will be a fair testimony to his ef-forts.

Madan Kumar Lakshmanan (Chen-nai, India) is a PhD researcher in the Department of Telecommunications at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, TU Delft.

Supervisor of the YearPromood Prize for the best nomination essay

Prof. Homayoun Nikookar

Promood Supervisor of the Year

Madan Kumar [email protected]

nomination essay by

21fall 2010

The Role of the Supervisor in a Successful PhD

Program

It is my real pleasure and honor to re-ceive the university-wide recognition award of ‘The Supervisor of the Year’. I would like to thank my PhD student (Mr. M.K. Lakshmanan) for his gener-ous nomination and the Promood for its kind appraisal. Basically, the PhD program is different from the bachelor and master programs in many ways. In the bachelor program the fundamen-tal knowledge, which is required for students to proceed in their field, is taught. The program is rigid and there is not much freedom, in particular in the core courses. In the MSc program, however, there is more freedom in the courses especially when it comes to the specialization and elective courses. Furthermore, Msc students have more freedom in the selection of their master theses. The PhD program, on the other hand, is entirely different. PhD students carry out a profound research and have freedom in picking up the courses that they may need, as well as in their dis-sertations topics, and generally in their PhD process.

Because of this level of freedom the role of supervisor becomes more sali-ent in the successful termination of a PhD program. In a PhD program the supervisor is not the drive of the PhD project but rather is a leader that gives direction and motivates PhD students. The PhD advisor should constantly monitor the candidate’s progress and warn him/her if he/she diverts from the PhD track. (S)He has to guide candi-date for publication of his/her research results in proper venues, and assist stu-dents to present their results at pres-tigious conferences, symposiums and in high quality journals. A PhD advisor has to help PhD students with struc-tural thinking and should give prompt feedback, emphasize time on task, and communicate high expectations.

Furthermore, as a large group of PhD students are multi-cultural students the PhD supervisor has to respect di-verse backgrounds, talents and differ-ent ways of learning of PhD students. (S)He should consider this character-istic of the PhD program as a positive feature and should treat diverse PhD students as a mix of talents.

Usually, in different phases of PhD programs, students should carry out measurements, perform calibration, select measurements sites, purchase components and equipment, etc. These efforts need a lot of team work with other MSc and PhD students as well as with technicians and support-ing staff and demands numerous lo-gistics and related arrangements. For a successful PhD program the supervi-sor should enhance the teaming skills of PhD students. This in turn increases students’ experience in collaboration with each other, in group working and in the public relations with the outer world. This capability is earnestly needed when PhD students finish the program and find a job in industry or research environments afterwards.

One final point is besides being knowl-edgeable and having a strong vision-ary leadership, a successful teacher in general, and a PhD supervisor, in particular, should love his/her profes-sion and should devote him/herself to his/her job. (S)He should spend time to every student. For a fruitful PhD

program the supervisor should not be rigid. (S)He must be able to adjust to changing circumstances. Furthermore, while serious, a good supervisor should make the research atmosphere relaxed providing an environment pleasant for investigation and learning.

Prof. Homayoun Nikookar

His master’s voicecontribution from the professors

[email protected]

Homayoun Nikookar received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), The Netherlands, in 1995. From 1995 to 1998 he was a post doctoral research fellow at the International Research Centre for Telecommunications and Radar (IRCTR) of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) of TUDelft, and since 1999 serves as a faculty member of the Tele-communications Department of EEMCS of TUDelft where he is currently an Associate Professor. Dr. Nikookar is also the leader of the Radio Advanced Tech-nologies and Systems (RATS) program of IRCTR, leading a team of researchers carrying out cutting-edge research in the field of wireless radio transmission. He has conducted active research in many areas of wireless communications, including wireless channel modeling, Ultra Wideband, MIMO, multicarrier transmission, Wavelet-based OFDM and Cognitive Radio. He has published over 100 papers, in refereed international conferences and journals. He is also the recipient of several paper awards of IEEE journals and International Conferences and Symposiums. In 2007 Dr Nikookar served as the Chair of the 14th IEEE Symposium on Communications and Vehicular Technology (SCVT) in Benelux and in 2008 was the Chairman of the Eu-ropean Wireless Technology Conference (EuWiT) in Amsterdam. He has been technical program committee member of several international conferences and has served as a Guest Editor of several international journals. He is a senior member of the IEEE and the coauthor of the book, Introduction to Ultra Wide-band for Wireless Communications, Springer, 2009.

the supervisor should not be rigid. (S)He must be able to adjust to chang-ing circumstances

Born in Almelo, The Netherlands, on 28 March 1946, but he considers Groningen to be his hometown. Physicist, Full professor of Aerospace at Delft University of Technology, chair “ASSET”, Aerospace Sus-tainable Engineering and Technology.Completed University in physics and mathematics on the basis of experimental work at the Nuclear Physics Accelerator Institute (K.V.I) in Groningen in 1973. Received a doctorate degree in physics and mathematics at the University of Groningen in 1978. Astronaut training and graduation, NASA, Johnson Space Centre, Houston 1980-1981. Dr. Ockels made his first Flight in space as European crew member during the Spacelab D-1 mission in 1985. Since 1986 until 1996 Professor Ockels was stationed at ESTEC supporting the ESA activities for future manned space flights. Since 1994, partici-pated in preparatory studies for a European Moon programme. From 1998 till September 2003 Dr. Ockels has been Head of Office for ESA’s new Office for Educational Projects Outreach Activities. From 1 September 2003 onward has received a full professorship in TU Delft with a new chair called “ASSET” (Aerospace for Sustainable Engineering and Technology). Within this Chair Prof. Ockels continued the activities around solar racing winning the last three editions of the World Solar Challenge (2001, 2003 and 2005). In 2004 Dr. Ockels was also appointed as part time professor at the University of Gronin-gen, Centre for Energy and Environmental Studies (IVEM). Furthermore, Dr. Ockels assists in setting up several sustainable activities such as the Frisian Solar Challenge (solar boat race) which was very successful in 2006 and 2008.

Wubbo Ockels

22 het proefschrift

Prof. Wubbo Ockels

Nelson Mota

Nelson Mota (N): The theme of this is-sue of HP is “Travelling as Research”. You’ve made one of the most ex-clusive trips a human can imagine: You’ve travelled to space. 4 million kms in one week as an extraterres-trial. To what extent has this trip in-fluenced your research interests?

Wubbo Ockels (W): I think that from a purely practical point of view we’ve done a lot of experiments during the flight, and since I’ve been fighting for a more scientific approach the space flight and Man’s space flight in particular is hin-dered by the fact that almost every ex-periment is a one-off. Whereas the kind of experimentation which we did like material research, biological research, medical research is normally a kind of re-search where you need lots of iterations, lots of tests, and that is the reason why I think that the space research has not re-ally kept very high levels in terms of Man’s space flight. I fought for that, I have injected the initiative of what we call “Space Mail”, which was a study where I proposed to have a small capsule such that you can at a space station – which

I saw as a laboratory – on a very regular basis, say maybe each week, send down small probes. They will be studied on the ground, and then you can adjust your experiment, you can make iterations. In the proposal I investigated a little bit a typical research in material sciences and biology and you’re talking about 100 to 200 iterations! So, I was basically disap-pointed by Man’s space flight from a re-search point of view. After I have done a lot of work on how to improve the space station in this respect, like the Space Mail, but also with other things like hav-ing a laptop on board – I was the first to propose that – I also proposed that you should have young people, PhD’s on board because those are the best to do

new research. But the problem is that it contradicts with the way the Man’s space flight has developed. It has developed in a very much controlled, managed, bureau-cratic environment in which you do not have the space – acting space – to find really innovative things. Furthermore, I think that it has stimulated me very strongly to think about what is it that we do next. And so I’ve worked for quite a while on a European moon program. In my vision it was so that we should start using the moon as our 8th continent. The moon is an ideal launching place. If you go to Mars from the moon it takes only 5% of the energy than if you go from the Earth. The idea was that the colony on the moon would be a robot-colony. I still don’t believe that we, as humans, like to go to other places. Our body is made for the nature of the Earth. Only if we can find the same nature somewhere else we’ll feel at home. But for the same rea-son we’ll not going to live in the bottom of the ocean, we will not going to live on the moon. You could have (both in the bottom of the ocean or on the moon) a robotic activity where maybe sometimes a human goes to repair something, but that’s a professional incursion, that’s not the normal living. So that was my vision.

Around that time I started to become more interested in education. I became professor here (in TU delft) and then – I don’t know exactly why – I went back to the sustainability issue.

From the other sidea view on research from another perpspective

interviewed by

N.J.A. [email protected]

© Photo: Marcel Antonisse

I was basically disappointed by

Man’s space flight from a research point of view.

23fall 2010

you should do those things that you’re

good in, better! And don’t worry

too much about the other things you are

not so good in.

Sustainability was already in my mind back in 1972 when I read the “Limits of Growth” but it came back and I start as-sociating that with my own experience.

N: Sustainability, which has become a “buzzword”. However, a lot of peo-ple still think that sustainability is-sues are something that will only affect the “others”. Is your interest in sustainability somehow related with your experience looking at the earth from outside, as a whole?

W: What has happened to my own ca-reer – maybe also what happened to the whole society – is that I basically mirrored myself and went to look at the Earth and became concerned with it. I think that if you talk about the limits of growth, the limits will be the physical – amount of space, amount of pollution you can handle, amount of food and drinking water you can have. All physi-cal limitations. But I’m afraid we’re going to hit another limitation which is much more fundamental. And that’s the hu-man limitations. The humans belong to the Earth. We are stuck on the Earth. We have to accept that. And, yes, maybe a few can go with some breathing means of help somewhere else. But, just in the same way as a living parasite is stuck on a whale we are stuck on the Earth. And that’s even more fundamental. It means that the space exploration drive fails. We went to various places because of people who had the drive to search for some-thing new. But the fundamental bases was that where you go you would have a value as yourself, in as much that you can use whatever is there. Now, why is that everywhere you go on Earth you some-how, probably with your intelligence, can survive? Because we are a product of the Darwinist evolutionary process on the Earth. But if you go to the space, if you go to the moon or if you go to Mars, no way… There is nothing!

I had a drive to work with sustainability, I had a view of the Earth in perspective which I explain this way: the Earth is a spaceship; it sails through space, which is dangerous for life – you can’t live in space, and the hull of spaceship Earth is the atmosphere, which protects us. The only thing we need to learn is to act as a crew of spaceship Earth.

N: Do you agree that a good re-searcher needs to develop its world-view, through a continuous search for the unknown? Or do you think that a lonely office researcher can also deliver good and innovative research?

W: I was somebody who travelled a lot. I’m tired of travelling! I just really avoid travelling. But I know that travelling is important to meet other people. I think you have to go to congresses, to sym-posia. You have to expose your ideas to other people and to listen to other people’s ideas. You have to drink to-gether, eat together. It is a very impor-tant stimulus, while at the same time is a very important check to yourself, or to what are you doing. In particular, when you are working in a field where there are more people working. For in-stance, thinking about my ideas about time, [W. Ockels argues that “Time is a creation of life in response to gravity”]. There, where should I go? There’s no other person working on it. So here I’m a loner. It’s a pity. Basically I have one professor in Groningen, one professor in Slovakia and one friend in Amsterdam with whom I really discuss this issue. And that’s it. I would love to have gone to a congress where people talked about these things, but it doesn’t exist. And next to that I’m busy with other things. The bottom line is that travelling is not the essential. The essential is the interac-tion with other people. That I consider very important.

N: You’ve graduated and finished your PhD in the same University, in

Groningen. There are some people who claim that a continuous educa-tion in the same institution results in a very endogamous experience, and thus it isn’t the best way to enlarge your research perspectives. What do you think about that?

At the time when I was studying that was the normal thing to do. If at that time the normal thing was to have your bachelor here and your master there and the PhD at a third place, I would have done that. There was no particular reason. However, I must say that I’m happy that I’ve stayed in the University of Groningen. I still have a professorship there and I notated a clear difference, for instance between the University of Groningen and here, the TU Delft. Here everybody is extremely busy, and works so hard that have no time for nothing. In Groningen at the Institute where I am we take the 10 ‘o clock coffee break. And the question whether we are academic is never raised. Here is always raised. So, this maybe laid-back but more deep type of Physics is something which I’ve really enjoyed in Groningen.

N: After your experience as supervi-sor, would you advise your students to travel as much as they can? For you, which is the role that travelling can have as a formative experience?

W: I advocate normally that you should do those things that you’re good in, bet-ter! And don’t worry too much about the other things you are not so good in. So if you’re good in contacts and communica-tion and you like to organize travels, do it! But there are other people who enjoy much more doing things at their own place and make it organized. It depends very much on the subject. For instance, if someone really wants to work out very nicely the statistics of particular meas-urements of nuclear physics, then you better stay at home and do your home-work correctly and concentrate yourself. If you want to be involved in new experi-mental approaches to some kind of re-search, travel and get inspiration.

24 het proefschrift

Meet Mira Pasveer: Marketing and

Communications at your service

Mira Pasveer started work at TU Delft on 1 January 2008 as Marketing Man-ager for BSc and MSc students. Gradu-ally she took on more and more work for PhD students as well. She now spends all of her time on PhD students.

As Marketing Manager, student recruit-ment is part of her job. Mira has visited Boston for recruitment and will visit Beijing and India later this year. Defi-nitely a perk, according to Mira. “I love travelling; my favourite countries are Costa Rica and South Africa. Of course it’s nice to be able to go abroad on business. Though the emphasis is then on meeting colleagues and prospec-tive students, and you may not get to see much more than the airport and the campus”. Mira has also developed a brand new full-colour brochure for PhD recruitment purposes.

Community building

Just as important as recruitment is the building of a PhD community. “PhD students are a special group within the TU Delft community. Their needs differ from those of students or employees, and spread out across the university they are hard to target as a group. No wonder they sometimes feel left out. Doing a PhD is a lonely business at the best of times, so this is certainly an is-sue we have to address.”

Mira has been instrumental in improv-

ing communication with and for PhD students. She launched the dedicat-ed website www.phdinfo.tudelft.nl where PhD students can find all kinds of information useful to them. She also founded the TU Delft PhD group on LinkedIn. Here, PhD students and alumni can exchange tips, tricks, in-formation and experiences. It also fea-tures relevant news items and events. “The LinkedIn group clearly supplies a need; in just a few months we regis-tered over a thousand members”, en-thuses Mira.

She is also a facilitator for the PhD Start UP, a three-day introduction course for new PhD students. The extensive course programme covers items from presentation techniques to the TU Delft code of conduct. “It is also a good opportunity to meet fellow students and to start developing your own net-work. The next one will be held at the

end of October”, says Mira.

Service and support

TU Delft aims to improve the quality of its PhD programmes and the success rate of PhD students. Increasing the sense of wellbeing of PhD students is part of that. Many of Mira’s activities are geared to do just that. “Market-ing and Communications is a support service, not a goal in itself. And I enjoy delivering the right kind of service and support to our PhD community”, ex-plains Mira. She gets a lot in return as well: “PhD students are an interesting group to work for. They are very dedi-cated to what they do, very busy, but most of them are always willing to help me. For example at a recruitment fair, or for a testimonial. And I find it nice that I meet them everywhere: in the Aula during lunch, at JongDelft meet-ings, but also at brainstorm sessions in a professional environment”.

To further professionalise the PhD process, TU Delft is founding a special Graduate School. Mira is part of this project as well. She will act as project manager for the Marketing & Commu-nications working group, so watch this space.

Upcoming event

Mira is currently busy organising the annual PhD event which will be held on 18 November 2010. This year’s motto is “Destination: Doctorate”. Doing a PhD can be a lonely, uphill journey. How to avoid bumps in the road and deal with unexpected delays? How to arrive on time with your luggage intact? Find out during workshops and master classes from TU Delft and outside experts. And get to meet your fellow PhD students, PhD supervisors and Mira Pasveer! For more information and/or registration visit http://phdevent.tudelft.nl.

Mira Pasveer-Aarts

linksuseful things to know about

Mira Pasveer is the Marketing Manager for PhD students within the TU Delft. Before TU Delft she had different market-ing jobs at ANWB, Alex Investmentbank and Achmea.

[email protected]

© Photo: Danielle Brinkhuis

25fall 2010

The International Neighbour Group

Feeling at Home in Delft

Just arrived in Delft? Well prepared for your new working life, and that of your partner? Let the International Neighbour Group (ING) help you get in touch with fellow internationals liv-ing in Delft. With a Meeting Point and various activities our ‘hands-on’ experts will do all they can to make your stay more pleasant. As our members often say: “You really make it easier for me to be so far from home”

The goal of our organization is to make it easier for foreign TU employees and especially their partners to find their way in Delft. The employee meets peo-ple at work, for the partner it is much harder to build up a social life. The ING offers them both a place to meet.

Every Wednesday morning there is a Meeting Point; Coffee and tea are served; Women (and their children) from all over the world share their ex-periences in Holland; They get help with their questions from our host-esses. Meanwhile there is the possibil-ity to join the Handicrafts Group. A lot of dear friendships have started there. Besides the Meeting Point and Handi-craft Group there are language class-es for Dutch and English during day and evening time; We have a cooking group; Once a month there is a special activity in or around Delft, like a visit to a museum; And the most favourite events are the Sinterklaas Party, the

Christmas Dinner and our Potluck Par-ty at the end of the season.

The ING is an organization of volun-teers. It was established by a group of women who had themselves, tem-porarily, lived abroad with their fam-ily. They had realized how important it was to find practical help and build up social contacts in a new country. So back in Holland they set up the Inter-national Neighbour Group.

This was 44 years ago. At that time the visiting guests from abroad really needed practical help. Not only with housing and administration, but also with shopping, and getting around. Nowadays it is so much easier to be well prepared before leaving home to live and study abroad for some time. Foreign visitors at the TU Delft are no exception anymore and the English language is commonly spoken. There-fore the ING nowadays focuses on of-

fering you the opportunity to meet with people from all over the world, to learn from each other’s culture and at the same time to make you feel at home in the Netherlands.

Although most of the TU visitors seem to be so well prepared starting off in the Netherlands, they still need a place to meet others, to get a social life here. The ING can be a big help! Have we made you curious? Feel free to come by! Membership is free for TU employ-ees and their family.

For more information go to www.tudelft.nl , English version and search for International Neighbour Group.

Annelies Mooij

The International Neighbour Group Delft is run by volunteers. Annelies Mooij is the chairman, Patty van Woer-den is the secretary of the ING.

linksuseful things to know about

Patty van [email protected]

26 het proefschrift

Upcoming Eventsstay tuned with Promood

www.promood.tudelft.nl

Promood gets new chair(wo)man!

Thanks to a dedicated chairman and involved board members, the past year was very successful and full of remark-able events.

We organized several social activities that gathered PhDs from various ho-rizons with different interests. For the coming year, we want to increase the frequency of our social events to be more regular and possibly a monthly one. The social activities organized last year will remain, such as meeting the Promood Sinterklaas, beer/wine tast-ing, Promood BBQ, beach volleyball ... New activities will be proposed, so keep up-to-date and check our web-site!

One of the highlights of the past year was the career event. Many PhD can-didates attended this event, where networking with the working environ-ment was the main target. It was the first time we organized such an event, and it resulted in positive reactions that clearly demonstrate a demand in career orientation from PhD candi-dates in TU Delft. As this event was a great success, we intend to renew it this year. Workshops and small lectures from experts will be on the program.

Promood is an active organization and is the official representative body for all PhD’s at the Delft University of Tech-nology. As such, we also deal with PhD process related issues. The past year we have been involved in the establish-ment of the Graduate School system as part of the PhD process. It is still “under construction”, and thanks to our input,

the system is being adapted to the needs of PhD candidates of TU Delft. We are also working on difficulties encountered during the PhD process, such as reducing the PhD thesis de-fense time or clarifying the PhD regu-lations.

Although I started my PhD at TU Delft in March 2007, I became aware of Pro-mood only in 2009. I directly became a board member and focused on the PhD policy improvements. A year has gone ... and Promood gets a new chair(wo)man: me. I decided to take

this responsibility, mainly for the great interest I have in communication in the PhD’s world and its improvement. The communication as I understand it com-prises two sides.

The first aspect is the horizontal com-munication. The socialization of the PhD candidate with “others of its kind” is lacking at the moment. Being a PhD is a unique experience, where we are working during four years for being the expert in our field. It is an isolating task, where often communication is absent: communication with colleagues with-in a section, intra-faculties, and even more inter-faculties.

The second aspect of my view of com-munication is vertical: the information from/to the administration. Promood is the entity that represents PhD’s at TU Delft and it will play an important role in decisions made on future PhD proc-ess changes at the TU Delft.

Thanks to Promood, PhD candidates will have a better means of communi-cation, both with other PhD candidates and with the university administration. The past year we were proud to count 710 members in Promood. We are however more than 2000 PhD candi-dates within the university. We hope to count even more members this year in our community, as a result of our new regular activities, our improved com-munication and our valuable contribu-tion to your PhD!

Sylvie [email protected]

27fall 2010

Meet the Boardmembers of PromooD board 2009/2010

PresidentRajen Akalu(Bristol, UK) is a PhD candidate at the Department of Economics of Infrastructures, TBM Faculty

Social Activities and EventsAlberto González(Valladolid, Spain) is a PhD candi-date at the Department of Sofware Technology, EWI Faculty

Secretary and WebmasterMarko Mihailovic(Belgrade, Serbia) is a PhD candi-date at Dimes (Delft Institute of Microsystems and Nanoelectron-ics), EWI Faculty

TreasurerYue Chen

(Zibo, China) is a PhD candidate at the Department of

Microelectronics, EWI Faculty

TreasurerAnne Lorene Vernay

(Bourg St Maurice, France) is a PhD candidate at the department of

Technology Dynamics and Sustain-able Development, TBM Faculty

Public RelationsIrem Erbas

(Izmir, Turkey) is a PhD candidate at the Department of Building

Technology, BK Faculty

Internal Affairs / PhD PolicySylvie Soudarissanane(Orleans, France) is a PhD candi-date at the Department of Math-ematical Geodesy Positioning, LR Faculty

Legal AffairsEmiel kerpershoek

(Leiden, The Netherlands) is a PhD candidate at the Department of

Policy, Organization, Law & Gam-ing, TBM Faculty

Career DevelopmentNishant S. Lawand (Satara, India) is a PhD student in the Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory (EI Lab), EWI Faculty

MarketingMarcelo Gutierrez-Alcaraz (La Paz, Bolivia), is a PhD candidate

at the Department of Electrical Sustainable Energy, EWI Faculty

Career DevelopmentDevendiran Subbaiyan (Tamil Nadu , India) is a PhD researcher in the department of Micro-electronics and Computer Engineering , EWI Faculty

MarketingRodrigo Teixeira Pinto(São Paulo, Brazil) is a PhD candi-date at the Department of Electri-cal Systainable Energy, EWI Faculty.

Editor “Het Proefschrift”Nelson Mota

(Mesão-Frio, Portugal) is a PhD researcher at the Department of

Architecture, BK Faculty