Interview with Dr. Jason Vaughn Clark

Featured Engineer

Dr. Jason Vaughn Clark

Dr. Jason Vaughn Clark - Assistant Professor of ECE and ME at Purdue University

How did you get into electronics/ engineering and when did you start?

I’ve always asked why, wondered how, expressed my creativity, thought about ways to improve things and solve problems. I took apart my first toy at age 4. After figuring out how all of my toys worked, I started making my own toys with paper, scissors, and tape at age 6. Around that time my mom asked what I wanted to be when I grow up, I said “Inventor.” She said “Jace, they are called engineers.” She has always supported me with that. Like she’d punish me for not cleaning up, but she’d never punish me for taking things apart in the house, even if the things didn’t work afterwards. She tried to help by getting me a geology kit. But that didn’t go well when she was called home to a yard full of her furniture being aired out due to an extremely large volcano spewing out smoke on her dining room table. Next she got me a chemistry set but would only let me play outside with it. But that didn’t go well when some concoction I mixed together flamed up and caught a large field on fire. Next she bought me an encyclopedia set, which came with extra book called “Science Year.” That book became the most visibly worn of the set. I was also pretty good artist. I first started drawing things I saw, then I started drawing cross sectional views of how I imaged things might work inside. Then I started drawing things that didn’t exist yet, still drawing the inside mechanisms. By the end of high school I had drawn several hundreds of inventions, several 3-ring binders worth. The funny thing was, I somehow didn’t connect school with what I wanted to become! I did well in science and math classes (only). I’d study ahead because those subjects were fun and challenging, but those classes seemed to be more like puzzle games instead of a required skill set. From my naïve perspective, school seemed to be a total waste of my time. School was just not teaching me what I wanted to know to build my inventions!!! So after high school I didn’t go to straight to college. I got married, had a son, and worked here and there. While working at a drug store I’d spend a lot of time in the magazine isle, reading science magazines, reading about new technical things that they just came out with, most were simplified versions of things that I had thought of years before as a kid. The key difference was, the people who created them had their degrees and I did not. Light bulb! Eventually this took its toll. I’ll never forget my wife’s face when I came home and told her that we should get rid of the expensive car, cancel our apartment lease agreement, and move in with my parents so I can go to college! To make an even longer story short, I went to college and never left.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

Besides the computer of course, tools that can precisely measure capacitance are my favorite. Capacitance is really an amazing concept that we use to measure geometry, force, displacement, and other things at the microscale.

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

My most favorite software tools are the ones created in my research group. Design, modeling, and simulation are some of our research areas. We develop and use computer aided design and engineering tools as virtual laboratories to explore new ideas before we commit to manufacture.

What is on your bookshelf?

Lots of engineering books. Analytical System Dynamics by Fabien is my favorite at the moment. I don’t have any other kinds of books on my shelf. Oh, I do have a time-management book that I just can’t seem to find the time to read :)

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?

To solve big problems I usually go off into a peaceful meditative state and use my imagination. Sometimes the thought process gets so long or intense that I later dream about it.

What has been your favorite project?

My most favorite projects are those that someone has said cannot be done or those that others have not been able to solve. Because that usually means time well spent! It makes me feel useful. I.e. if I solve something that another person is about to solve, then that may not be the best use of time, and vice versa.

Do you have any note-worthy engineering experiences?

There are so many. I remember my first such experience. During my first year in grad school I took a micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) class and the instructor told us to build a structure out of a single sheet of 11×8.5-inch paper, and 10cm of tape, to support a penny as high off the ground as possible. Because MEMS uses thin film material, it’s sort of like working with paper. We were allowed to make cuts in the paper, but the sheet of paper had to remain continuous. Other grad students that took the class before said that nothing over 3 feet could be created. I created a paper structure that stood 7 feet 5 inches off the ground using a single sheet of regular paper, and it was strong enough to support the weight of a penny. No one has beaten my record since.

What are you currently working on?

Here are brief descriptions of a couple dozen pioneering efforts:
1. Electro Micro Metrology (EMM) – A technology for extracting mechanical properties in terms of electronic measurands.
2. Traceable force-displacement micro sensors and actuators – Accurate and precise transducers.
3. Dynamically calibratable micro gyroscopes – Gyros that can calibrate while in motion
4. High definition infrared sensors – A technology that measures and images IR radiation.
5. Atomic force microscope (AFM) calibrator – A technology that measures the AFM cantilever stiffness and displacement.
6. Self-calibratable absolute temperature sensor – A technology that allows MEMS to measure their own temperature without an external reference.
7. Stiffness on Demand – A technology that allows MEMS to change their stiffness.
8. Microgravimeter – A MEMS that can measure gravity.
9. Sugar – A SPICE for MEMS.
10. SugarCube – For novices to explore performance of ready-made parameterized MEMS / GDSII layout / Optimization.
11. SugarX – A tool that bridges the gap between simulation and experiment using EMM.
12. iSugar – Integration of Sugar with Simulink, COMSOL, SPICE, GDSII.
13. PSugar – For modeling complex engineered systems using differential algebraic equations.
14. SugarAid – A cyberlearning / education engineering tool.
15. A dialysis shunt for long-term use.
16. A linear transduction pressure sensor.
17. Monolithic comb drive – A two degree of freedom comb drive.
18. AFM on a chip – A self-calibratable MEMS version of the AFM.
19. NIST on a chip – A MEMS chip that is able to measure its own geometric and material properties.
20. EMM true north finder – A MEMS that is able to measure the direction and magnitude of the angular frequency vector of the earth.
21. Measuring the Casimir force in MEMS.
22. Measuring the van der Waals force in MEMS.
23. EMM Electric and magnetic field sensors.
24. Reducing thermally-induced noise in MEMS.
25. Microids – Microrobots with insect-like dexterity.

What direction do you see MEMS heading in the next few years?

Self-calibration, high accuracy, and high precision.

What challenges do you foresee in our profession?

There are lots of good researchers with even more great ideas, and plenty of students. However, funding the work is the usual problem. The world would be a much better place if researchers didn’t have such tight funding constraints.

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