Cover story: Inventions of the mind; innovations from the heart

UUP inventors win patents but also remember their roots, life experiences

As a little boy, Huw Davies made a permanent stain in his mother’s kitchen while experimenting with his first chemistry set. The teenaged Deborah Chung was so enthralled by watching the first Apollo moonwalk on television in 1969 that she vowed to become an aerospace engineer.

And, as a young man caught up in the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, Rong Lin wondered if he would ever resume his mathematics career as he labored in a freezing field in northern China.

Today, all three are SUNY faculty members, UUPers and acclaimed inventors and patent holders. They are part of a group of SUNY professors and researchers who have helped SUNY gain a national reputation for the number of patents it has received.

In 2001, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the American Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) ranked SUNY ninth of all U.S. institutions for patents issued each year. The value of university licensing that year exceeded $1 billion, according to AUTM; in the past three years, SUNY earned more licensing income than Harvard or Johns Hopkins.

“Every one of these inventions has a social value, and a real value to the community of New York and the community of the United States,” said UUP President William Scheuerman. “And this is why people need to understand that money spent on SUNY is money spent for the greater good. When you put money into SUNY, you get a lot more back.”

Some SUNY inventions have become part of our daily lexicon, such as the magnetic resonance imaging scanner, developed by Raymond Damadian, a former UUPer at the Downstate Medical Center in the late 1970s. Many other SUNY inventions have become part of everyday work and recreation. Among the SUNY patents: technology that has helped improve breathing gear for scuba divers; medicines that have helped former smokers get through nicotine withdrawal; and innovations that have made buildings more resistant to earthquakes.

“The fact that so many of these patented inventions span such an incredible range of uses is proof of the diversity of skills among SUNY’s faculty,” said statewide UUP Vice President for Academics Phillip Smith. “And that’s one more reason that we will press to make SUNY the best work environment possible, so that we can continue to attract and keep such gifted educators and researchers.”

Many of the SUNY inventors are multiple patent holders who have been honored by the University and by peer review in professional and technical journals. Yet many of these UUPers still include undergraduate students on their research teams, teach introductory courses and display a modest attitude about their achievements.

Get them talking about why they love what they do, though, and you’ll hear fireworks in their voices as they make their complex topics come alive.

UUPer Davies, a native of Wales and the Larkin professor of organic chemistry at SUNY Buffalo, calls chemistry “my playing field for creativity.”

Davies nearly went to medical school but, a week before starting, decided it was chemistry that really got him excited.

He now holds 10 drug-related patents and heads a research group that has helped develop medications used for cocaine addiction.

“I still like to have about three undergraduates working in the lab,” said Davies, who calls the carefully chosen college students for his research team “just spectacular.”

Chung, a native of Hong Kong and another SUNY Buffalo UUPer, said her campus has allowed her to branch out beyond her field of materials science. A professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Chung received a patent in 1998 for her invention of vibration-sensitive “smart concrete,” which, she pointed out, was really more in the realm of civil engineering (see related story, page 8).

Patents for inventions by SUNY faculty are awarded to the University’s Research Foundation, which commercializes the new technologies. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded 48 patents to the state university in 2002.

Researchers say that seeking a patent becomes almost a matter of course if they ever want their inventions to be commercially viable. The patent is not the goal of the research; it’s the byproduct. Still, receiving a first patent can be a career landmark.

Lin, chair of the computer science department at SUNY Geneseo, received his first patent in 1999 for his work in high-speed computer circuit design. The patent was one of the first awarded to a SUNY Geneseo faculty member.

Lin has also received three grants from the prestigious National Science Foundation.

Lin followed an arduous path to these professional accolades. A native of China, he was a graduate of Peking University in Beijing — the Chinese equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — when he was forced to do a year of peasant labor as part of the Cultural Revolution’s re-education of intellectuals. Lin glosses over that time, saying simply that he hoped he could resume his career.

He did, working first in China’s budding semiconductor industry, and then coming to the United States on a full scholarship for his Ph.D. work in artificial intelligence. In 1989, he joined the Geneseo faculty.

Says Lin of the campus where he has found a professional home: “It’s a good place to use my knowledge.”

— Darryl McGrath