2017 MATC Scholars Program: Dr. Larry Rilett
Larissa Sazama
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11/07/2017
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Dr. Larry Rilett, Keith W. Klaasmeyer Chair in Engineering and Technology Distinguished Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, gives a welcome and an introduction to the Mid-America Transportation Center. For more information, please visit http://matc.unl.edu/education/scholars-program2017.php.
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- [00:00:00.151]Good morning.
- [00:00:01.402]Good morning. Good morning, sir.
- [00:00:02.600]Good morning.
- [00:00:03.433]Welcome to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- [00:00:06.060]and to the scholars program.
- [00:00:07.078]We're very happy to have you here.
- [00:00:09.719]My name's Larry Rilett, I'm the director of the center.
- [00:00:12.797]And we've been running the program since about 2010.
- [00:00:16.700]You guys are obviously a huge part of the success of that
- [00:00:19.628]and the continuing success of the program.
- [00:00:21.800]You did your pre-test this morning,
- [00:00:23.869]at the end you're gonna do a post test.
- [00:00:25.917]Very interested in your thoughts on the program,
- [00:00:28.188]what can be improved, what you liked.
- [00:00:30.719]And we continue to iterate through when we do these.
- [00:00:34.705]What you're gonna experience over
- [00:00:35.714]the next few days have been
- [00:00:39.589]tested out, improved over the years.
- [00:00:42.880]The goal really is
- [00:00:44.970]to introduce you to grad school.
- [00:00:48.839]Introduce you how, why you should go to grad school,
- [00:00:53.879]how to be successful in grad school.
- [00:00:55.982]Does it mean you have to go to grad school?
- [00:00:57.138]No.
- [00:00:58.590]We'd love you to go to grad school, but
- [00:01:00.999]it's really to let you know, so you can make a choice.
- [00:01:04.907]And here at the University of Nebraska,
- [00:01:06.540]we're gonna be selling very hard,
- [00:01:07.730]"Hey you should come to the University of Nebraska."
- [00:01:09.219](students laugh)
- [00:01:10.876]Do you need to come to Nebraska?
- [00:01:11.846]No.
- [00:01:12.679]Anywhere.
- [00:01:13.647]There's lot of opportunity,
- [00:01:14.690]that's what you're gonna find over the next few days,
- [00:01:16.908]there's lots of opportunity for graduate school.
- [00:01:20.039]I'm in civil engineering you think, "Oh,
- [00:01:21.558]"you want me to go into civil engineering,
- [00:01:22.577]"and I'm not a civil engineer."
- [00:01:23.863]No.
- [00:01:25.047]If it's transportation,
- [00:01:26.936]there's a lot different mechanical engineering.
- [00:01:28.916]We work with cognitive psychologists,
- [00:01:30.846]we work with medical school.
- [00:01:32.567]There's lots of opportunity.
- [00:01:34.718]You say, "I don't want to go there,
- [00:01:35.551]"I want to go do something else."
- [00:01:37.054]Great.
- [00:01:38.737]It's really as a way to get information to you.
- [00:01:44.457]So by way of
- [00:01:46.736]background I want to talk about the center
- [00:01:48.155]just really briefly.
- [00:01:50.362]'Cause you get to hearing these terms
- [00:01:51.585]over the next few days,
- [00:01:53.368]you're being hosted by a center.
- [00:01:55.707]And many of you may be familiar with centers.
- [00:01:59.155]When I was a student, I had no idea what these things were.
- [00:02:03.166]Okay, I was familiar with departments,
- [00:02:05.227]'cause I was in the department of civil engineering.
- [00:02:08.078]And I was getting a degree in civil engineering.
- [00:02:10.606]So we're the Nebraska Transportation Center.
- [00:02:13.737]And it's a North American perspective,
- [00:02:15.676]it's researched focused.
- [00:02:17.826]It's not degree related, so you don't get a,
- [00:02:19.685]we don't give degrees in transportation.
- [00:02:22.295]We'll give a degree to a student in civil engineering
- [00:02:24.492]or mechanical engineering or psychology, or law.
- [00:02:29.986]And we actually have a student in philosophy now
- [00:02:33.012]working for us.
- [00:02:36.074]But it's research focused and the other thing
- [00:02:37.936]is it's multi-disciplinary, everything,
- [00:02:39.396]engineering, business, arts and science.
- [00:02:44.586]And what these centers are,
- [00:02:46.617]and you'll see these when you're looking around
- [00:02:48.111]the difficult universities and you hear them
- [00:02:49.482]over the next few days,
- [00:02:51.384]these are soft money.
- [00:02:53.355]What that means is we don't get money from tuition,
- [00:02:56.056]we don't get money from the state.
- [00:02:58.448]We go out and compete for grants, research grants.
- [00:03:01.894]And what we do depends on the funding that we get.
- [00:03:06.226]Okay, so we're transportation,
- [00:03:07.138]we focus on transportation research.
- [00:03:09.747]We go and compete with other universities,
- [00:03:11.657]other entities,
- [00:03:13.315]and that allows us to do things.
- [00:03:16.957]So for us, we're at the Nebraskan Transportation Center,
- [00:03:19.953]it's basically all the transportation research
- [00:03:22.017]at the University of Nebraska.
- [00:03:24.196]We want to increase research, we want to increase funding
- [00:03:26.345]we want to increase the number of students.
- [00:03:29.194]At the end of the day we want a safer,
- [00:03:30.634]more efficient transportation system.
- [00:03:32.334]So you'll be seeing this through the next few days
- [00:03:35.226]as you go.
- [00:03:37.138]By the numbers we have about 91 faculty affiliates.
- [00:03:40.017]Probably 20 faculty work with us at any time
- [00:03:42.249]from these different groups.
- [00:03:44.548]We have 64 current research projects.
- [00:03:47.976]Over the last five years we've done
- [00:03:49.517]40 million dollars in funding.
- [00:03:52.487]Right now we have about 20 million dollars in funding
- [00:03:54.489]and 30 projects ongoing.
- [00:03:57.258]Expenditures about six million a year.
- [00:03:59.307]You think, "Oh, that's great."
- [00:04:00.709]What does that really mean?
- [00:04:01.734]What I always looked at is what does it mean?
- [00:04:04.267]Well it allows us to hire students.
- [00:04:05.788]And right now in our center we have
- [00:04:07.115]about 47 graduate students.
- [00:04:09.657]And one of the things you're gonna find
- [00:04:10.986]over the next few days is, these are funded students.
- [00:04:14.556]And by funded I mean we pay tuition,
- [00:04:17.288]we pay a stipend, we pay healthcare.
- [00:04:19.938]So they're funded to do research in our center.
- [00:04:22.829]So this is where you say, "Where would I come in here?"
- [00:04:25.627]Right, we hire the undergrads right now,
- [00:04:27.786]we also have graduate students.
- [00:04:30.227]Okay and this is not an atypical center,
- [00:04:33.168]there's a lot of these types of centers.
- [00:04:34.868]There's energy centers, there's environmental centers.
- [00:04:37.928]We happen to be a transportation center.
- [00:04:41.847]But this sort of the focus behind it.
- [00:04:44.551]We really do need you US students
- [00:04:47.855]for a variety of reasons,
- [00:04:49.278]one to help us with our research,
- [00:04:51.488]two to go out and have better technical skills
- [00:04:54.983]to help solve some of the transportation problems
- [00:04:56.897]that we're facing in our country.
- [00:04:59.997]So we do a lot of recruitment and this program's
- [00:05:03.689]also to help us recruit, not only for
- [00:05:06.374]University of Nebraska, but across the country.
- [00:05:11.303]Core facilities you're gonna see some of this.
- [00:05:13.744]You're gonna be seeing our ITS Lab
- [00:05:15.344]when we get over to Whittier,
- [00:05:16.997]where you have a traffic lab.
- [00:05:17.889]We also, I talked to some of the mechanical engineers,
- [00:05:20.818]about crafts testing.
- [00:05:22.212]We have a crafts testing site out at Lincoln Airport.
- [00:05:25.259]At the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility.
- [00:05:28.050]So we do a lot of online
- [00:05:30.544]data collection, a lot of testing,
- [00:05:32.154]those types of things.
- [00:05:35.698]So that's the Nebraska Transportation Center.
- [00:05:39.026]We're at the University of Nebraska,
- [00:05:40.378]we go out and get funding and compete for funding.
- [00:05:44.566]The other name you saw on your handouts
- [00:05:47.075]in the title of this conference
- [00:05:48.929]is the Mid-America Transportation Center.
- [00:05:52.016]And its slightly different.
- [00:05:55.536]It's a federally funded center.
- [00:05:58.188]United States Department of Transportation.
- [00:06:01.246]And what they do is they provide funding
- [00:06:03.757]to consortiums of University.
- [00:06:06.268]So groups of universities to conduct research.
- [00:06:10.812]What we conduct research on
- [00:06:13.817]are
- [00:06:15.457]hazardous goods, freight movements,
- [00:06:18.148]and extreme events, such as flooding.
- [00:06:20.238]Which is a big problem in our area.
- [00:06:22.069]In fact it's a big problem almost anywhere
- [00:06:23.599]in the United States right now.
- [00:06:25.924]So we're looking at that.
- [00:06:26.879]You can see our partners are Iowa, Kansas,
- [00:06:28.589]Missouri S&T,
- [00:06:30.518]Nebraska Community College, Lincoln University,
- [00:06:34.144]is one of our partners,
- [00:06:36.207]as well as the medical center in Omaha.
- [00:06:38.695]So it's a little bit different,
- [00:06:39.766]we're a group of universities.
- [00:06:41.606]We competed for this center.
- [00:06:43.515]We receive funding and it allows us to do research
- [00:06:47.418]on these types of issues.
- [00:06:52.008]The other thing about these USDOT centers,
- [00:06:54.638]MATC is not the only do they want us to do research,
- [00:06:57.567]they want us to do outreach and education.
- [00:06:59.819]So we have a lot of things.
- [00:07:00.935]We have an after school program.
- [00:07:02.759]We're in 10 middle schools right now
- [00:07:04.898]in our region.
- [00:07:07.197]We have an intern program, where we identify students
- [00:07:11.856]and get them jobs for the summer.
- [00:07:13.807]And some of the students that have participated
- [00:07:15.730]in our scholars program have actually participated
- [00:07:18.047]in our intern program, as well.
- [00:07:20.447]And you'll be hearing about these opportunities
- [00:07:22.077]over the next few days.
- [00:07:23.918]And of course,
- [00:07:25.508]we have our scholars program which you
- [00:07:27.677]are getting to,
- [00:07:29.398]you're here now, so you understand that one very well.
- [00:07:31.398]So what we're trying to do is get students
- [00:07:33.598]at all levels interested
- [00:07:35.729]in furthering their education.
- [00:07:37.927]For our after school program our goal is really
- [00:07:39.845]to get the students,
- [00:07:42.268]'cause we target middle schools,
- [00:07:45.127]to get them to continue on in math and science.
- [00:07:47.366]'Cause that's when they start making decisions
- [00:07:49.094]not to take math and science.
- [00:07:50.940]So we really want to expose them
- [00:07:52.992]to careers in math and science.
- [00:07:55.839]And of course with the scholars program,
- [00:07:58.451]we want to take undergraduate students
- [00:08:00.651]and you're all very successful or you wouldn't be here.
- [00:08:04.602]And trying to convince you to go to grad school.
- [00:08:07.100]And if you would have told me when I was in your position,
- [00:08:08.911]you say, "Hey you want to go to grad school?"
- [00:08:10.211]You know what I'd say?
- [00:08:12.890]I'd say, "I want a job."
- [00:08:14.510]I went to school to get a job.
- [00:08:16.890]I'm going to work, I have a job offer.
- [00:08:22.851]And then I was talking to my professors
- [00:08:24.836]would not let me go and they started saying,
- [00:08:26.345]"You know and you get paid."
- [00:08:27.306]I'm like, "You get paid to go to school?
- [00:08:29.207]"I don't have to pay tuition?"
- [00:08:30.127]I didn't understand that.
- [00:08:31.809](students chuckle)
- [00:08:32.985]And then they explained how much more
- [00:08:35.185]beneficial it would be for me
- [00:08:36.956]and I went and did my masters.
- [00:08:38.445]And it was a very good decision.
- [00:08:41.225]So I believe deeply in these programs.
- [00:08:43.936]'Cause I was the person who had the job offer
- [00:08:45.991]and was going to go work.
- [00:08:48.926]And I'm very glad that I had the mentorship
- [00:08:52.473]to at least give me the information to make a choice.
- [00:08:54.391]And that's really what this is is to give you
- [00:08:56.475]the information to make a choice.
- [00:08:59.966]So lessons learned from this intro.
- [00:09:02.216]Well we're multi-university,
- [00:09:03.406]multi-faceted, multi-college.
- [00:09:05.696]We have lots of private and public sector opportunities.
- [00:09:09.736]I hope you get a lot out of this
- [00:09:12.267]the next two days.
- [00:09:14.884]The other really only other thing I'll leave you with
- [00:09:19.084]is that everyone you're meeting today,
- [00:09:21.317]all the instructors, the professors,
- [00:09:24.986]myself, are here to help you.
- [00:09:27.726]So it's not only helping you over the next two days,
- [00:09:30.199]if you have a question four months from now,
- [00:09:32.271]you have a question six months from now,
- [00:09:35.378]I'm volunteering everyone, but I know they'll all agree,
- [00:09:37.739]feel free to contact us.
- [00:09:38.831](students laugh)
- [00:09:40.700]Well be happy, if you just say it was at the scholar,
- [00:09:42.716]had a question on this.
- [00:09:45.000]And I think what you're gonna find is knowing people
- [00:09:46.825]that have been through the system before
- [00:09:49.371]can be very helpful.
- [00:09:50.921]So it's an open invitation to stay in contact with us.
- [00:09:54.798]If you have questions, feel free to ask us.
- [00:09:58.331]And with that I'll go ahead and turn this over
- [00:09:59.808]to Dr. Perkins.
- [00:10:01.123](students applaud)
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- Tags:
- ntc
- matc
- nebraska transportation center
- mid-america transportation center
- matc scholars program
- scholars program
- graduate school
- engineering
- civil engineering
- transportation
- transportation engineering
- larry rilett
- laurence rilett
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