Some lessons for graduate students

(First of two parts)

In September 2008, Denny Ng successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in chemical engineering at the University of Nottingham’s new campus in Malaysia, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. He was recruited straight out of the undergraduate program of one of Malaysia’s public universities in mid-2006, and he went on to complete his doctoral studies at a blistering pace that, after just two years, culminated in a massive, 400-page dissertation (in my estimation, enough to earn a Ph.D. degree two or three times over) and eight years published in some of the leading journals in chemical and energy engineering (plus at least half a dozen other papers that were not a direct part of his studies). Dr. Ng has since joined the University of Nottingham as an assistant professor, where he is no doubt considered one of the bright young stars of the Faculty of Engineering. In addition to extending his doctoral research work on industrial resource conservation, he has also started work on thermochemical conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals. Evidently, much of his early success can be attributed to talent, intellectual curiosity and hard work; nevertheless, it may be possible to draw some useful lessons from his experiences and share these with local graduate students intent on earning a Ph.D., or even a master’s degree. Although he is a Malaysian-Chinese who completed his graduate studies in the British educational system, Denny’s case offers some revealing insights for us Filipinos.

First, it is worth noting that Denny was a full-time student throughout his two years as a doctoral researcher at Nottingham, funded by the research grants of his adviser, Dr. Dominic Foo. The full-time arrangement essentially meant that in his typical day, his attention was largely focused on his research. This is in stark contrast to the cases of many engineering Ph.D. students in the Philippines, who due to various financial or logistical considerations, work toward their degrees on a part-time basis. While such an arrangement is by no means infeasible, speaking from my own experience (I was a part-time Ph.D. student myself a decade ago), it makes the already challenging task of doing research that much more difficult. My colleague and former adviser, Alvin Culaba, recently commented as well that too many part-time students successfully make it through coursework, but get lost once they get to the business end of their Ph.D. studies. A full-time arrangement allows for more time to do laborious literature review and creative theorizing, and it removes extraneous distractions by making research the student’s primary duty. The good news is that the Philippine government now offers more attractive scholarship packages to support full-time Ph.D. students. For instance, the DOST has a number of programs to fund graduate students in engineering and the physical sciences at both masteral and doctoral levels. CHED also offers various forms of support for graduate students who are also faculty members of local educational institutions. In addition, some universities, such as La Salle, have in-house scholarship programs for full-time graduate studies that include a reasonable stipend. What the Philippines needs are more candidates who are willing to make the sacrifice of doing full-time Ph.D. studies for three or four years, rather than attempting to do the work on a piecemeal basis over a much longer period. 

The second key lesson is that of the role played by his young, energetic and ambitious Ph.D. supervisor, Dominic Foo, who is himself an internationally renowned researcher in the field of pinch analysis and process integration. From day one, his adviser pushed him to aspire for truly world-class research by aiming to present work in the most important conferences in the field, and publish in the most important and widely read journals. He was also very often a much more exacting critic of his student’s work than some of the referees who reviewed their manuscripts. Furthermore, Dr. Foo used his connections to create opportunities for research internships with industrial partners and overseas collaborators. In the case of Denny, these consisted of a three-month visit to Texas A&M University in late 2006 under the supervision of Mahmoud El-Halwagi (one of the world’s leading authorities in process integration), a one-month stint at De La Salle University in 2007 under my supervision, and a much shorter trip to National Taiwan University in 2008 under Cheng-Liang Chen (arguably Taiwan’s leading researcher in process systems engineering). Although every one of these trips required significant infusions of money from Dominic Foo’s research grants, they would ultimately prove to be wise investments, since they each led to the publication of several journal papers, and of course served to hone Denny’s research mind to a sharp edge. Note that the emphasis for the use of research funding lay in the research activities with the ultimate goal of creating new knowledge; on the other hand, I suspect that the emphasis here at home lies much more on acquiring hardware for research. In other words, the role of a credible Ph.D. mentor with an adequate research pedigree cannot be underestimated.   

(To be concluded)

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Dr. Raymond R. Tan is full professor of chemical engineering and university fellow at De La Salle University, Manila. His research interests include pinch analysis, life cycle assessment and process systems engineering. He is a recipient of multiple awards from the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP), and currently has over 40 published or forthcoming articles in ISI-indexed journals in chemical, environmental and energy engineering. He is also a member of the editorial board of Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy. He can be contacted via e-mail ([email protected]).