ASU explores collaborations with the world's next economic powerhouse
By Jeff Holeman

Teenage Chinese girls cried “Dr. Phil! Dr. Phil!” in high-pitch unison at the sight of ASU Professor Phil Christensen during the May 2005 China Science and Technology Week celebration in Beijing. The throng of fans clamored to get close to Christensen as he displayed the most recent images and data returned from Mars.

Deep in explanation of thermal emission spectrometry theory, the ASU scientist didn’t notice his adoring fan base. But Christensen’s ASU grad students and colleagues chuckled at the scene. Their mentor and co-worker had a new nickname.

ASU’s “Dr. Phil,” a professor of planetary geology, is a star no matter what country he is in. Christensen’s ASU team is responsible for understanding much of what we know today about Mars, including many of the scientific breakthroughs that NASA has made on the current rover missions.

While he may not be used to sharing a moniker with a boisterous therapist, Christensen’s fan base in China might make television’s Dr. Phil take note. Crowds of visitors listened to Christensen’s every word during the Mars exhibition and hundreds of students and scientists took in one of his lectures during a two-week stint in May.

“We were very, very appreciative of Phil coming to China and answering questions from youngsters to older folks directly, in person,” said Liu Dingding of the Beijing Association of Science and Technology, an organizer of Science and Technology Week. “Phil set a great example for his fellow scientists from China. Usually our scientists in China, they concentrate on their research. They do not care much about telling the public what they are doing, and usually their approach is not as direct and effective as that of Phil and (his team).”

ASU’s success in the space sciences arena is in part why the Beijing government invited ASU to be part of China Science and Technology Week, that nation’s annual national celebration of science and technology. Getting access to the event is a coup of unprecedented proportions. No institution outside China participated in the event before this year; ASU was the first American university to be invited, according to Professor Jennie Si, director of China Initiatives for the ASU Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Affairs. Si spearheaded ASU’s participation in the event and was responsible, in large part, for ASU being allowed to participate.

And the entry point that the scientific conference provided may benefit ASU in ways far beyond the sharing of research. China is the world’s fastest growing economy, having dramatically re-oriented its state and privately owned enterprises to compete in the world’s markets. Shedding its historic barriers, whether those of the physical blockade of the Great Wall or more modern government ideologies, China is a budding business powerhouse, and the rest of the world is taking notice.

Americans recently received an intense dose of education about the country. In May, Newsweek devoted most of an entire issue to what it called “China Century,” posing the question of whether the 21st century will belong to China. CNN broadcast month-long specials on China, leading up to a global economic summit in Beijing. Time magazine followed up with a special issue devoted to China’s “New Revolution” in June.

“ They’ve had the most radical transformation of an economy in history,” said Jonathan Fink, vice president for research and economic affairs, who led ASU’s delegation to Beijing. “No one knows what China’s role is going to be in the future so nobody knows what ASU’s role will be in China exactly. A lot of dealing with China is relationship building. That’s a slow and repetitive process.

“ Building collaborations in space science research is a long-term investment on ASU’s part. It will require the politics to change a lot on both sides to fully develop,” he said. “If and when things open up, we’ll be as well positioned as any university to take advantage of it.”

Thanks to the reputation of “Dr. Phil” and China’s new-found fascination with technology, tens of thousands of Chinese citizens visited the exhibition or related lectures on space sciences. Chinese media proclaimed “Americans bring Mars to China” and ran extended coverage on the exhibit for weeks, from prior to the opening through the extravagantly staged closing ceremony of Science and Technology Week.

“ For ASU, the PR around ‘Welcome to Mars’ is worth more than a million dollars,” said Fink. “If they were not aware of us before, they definitely are now.”

And awareness is crucial, if ASU is to have success collaborating with China on its aggressive science, technology and higher education agenda. In higher education alone, the Chinese government is channeling hundreds of millions of dollars to 100 universities to build them into world-class research and teaching institutions. It is a massive and possibly unparalleled undertaking; by contrast, only a handful of new research universities have been started in the United States in the past three decades.

ASU is leveraging its resources and expertise to assist the Chinese with the task of designing 21st century universities. The Beijing exhibition was followed in early June by an ASU-led China-U.S. Forum on University Design in Chengdu. This roundtable of public university leaders focused on the changing role of higher education. The forum featured ASU President Michael Crow, other U.S. and Chinese university presidents, and Vice Minister Wu Qidi of the Chinese Ministry of Education. A proposed Institute of University Design — to be based at ASU — resulted from the meeting and is envisioned as a research clearinghouse for universities around the world.

Efforts to build relations with China and other nations are an integral part of what Crow has laid out over the past three years in his blueprint for transforming ASU into a new kind of American university.

“ Global engagement is critical to the advancement of Arizona State University as well as metropolitan Phoenix and the rest of the state,” Crow said in his “New American University” white paper. “Just as our cultures and societies are increasingly intertwined, so too are the economies of the world. In order to enhance global engagement, we must seek to understand it, and become increasingly aware of issues and developments around the world. We must develop tools to facilitate learning, and engage in dialogue to discern the myriad complexities of global engagement.”

In China, that dialogue may propel potential collaboration in the areas of education, space sciences, sustainability and other environmental research. The Mars exhibition and the connections made during meetings with Chinese government, industry and scientific officials are expected to go a long way toward establishing solid programs in space sciences. Sustainability, a growing hallmark of ASU’s interdisciplinary teaching and research efforts, will take more time, Fink said. Yet there is growing momentum in the area — particularly using remote sensing technology to assist China with rapid urbanization.

Such assistance is sorely needed, as urgent environmental issues are emerging as the country’s urban centers continue to bulge with new arrivals from the rural areas. A gray smog hangs over Beijing many days of the year. To the casual eye, it looks like a rainy, cloudy day. To the trained scientific observer, however, it’s apparent that the air in Beijing is filled with unhealthy particulates Ð the result of decades of the city’s 15 million residents burning coal fires to heat their homes and cook their meals and the growing automobile dependence in China. Massive dust storms from the nearby Gobi Desert add to the mix. ASU Research Scientist Jim Anderson and his colleague Xin Hua have been working with scientific, university and government officials in China for years, focusing on fluid dynamics and air quality.

While researchers like Anderson, Hua and their colleagues in China have helped convince Beijing to get serious about reducing air pollution — most residents no longer use coal to cook food or heat their homes, and factories have closed or been relocated to remote locations Ð the continuing poor air quality still has potential serious health consequences. The air in Beijing, Anderson said, has the equivalent of a common fertilizer in it from the carbon molecules bonding with moisture. Chinese citizens breathe a form of fertilizer into their lungs every day, potentially limiting their life spans, he said.

That same air makes its way out over the Pacific Ocean every day in massive plumes of polluted clouds. Anderson said he and his colleagues have recorded pollution from China in locations as far away as Washington and Oregon on the U.S. mainland. Understanding the fluid dynamics behind this pollution trail not only has the potential to help the Chinese, but also the Western United States.

“ We need to understand cities as systems and examine how transportation connects with pollution, which connects with housing,” Fink said. “We have to look at the whole system and get people to talk among the Chinese ministries and education institutions.”

Mariko Silver, special assistant to ASU’s president, sees the research of Christensen, Anderson, Hua and many others at ASU as the peaceful way to build bridges with China. Silver heads up ASU’s China Council, which brings together multiple disciplines at ASU to broaden the university’s China strategy. Her group is a catalytic program and idea generator that in turn helps improve cultural understanding between U.S. and Chinese institutions, and in a way helps further beneficial collaborations between the world’s two global economic giants.

“ We need to have exchanges early and often in the lifetime of people and institutions,” she said. “To the extent that universities can exchange, engage and work together, (there is a) much higher probability that those engagements will be peaceful, productive and mutually beneficial.

“ If we are going to make a difference in areas like sustainability, we must build the research partnerships necessary to understand, for example, Arizona’s challenges in a global perspective, and we must equip our students to do so as well.”

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ASU's exhibit during China Science and Technology Week marked the first time a non-Chinese institution participated in the annual showcase of scientific advancements.

ASU President Michael Crow meets with Chinese dignitaries at a conference on university design held in Chengdu in early June.

A 60-foot high banner sported the ASU logo and the message "Welcome to Mars!"

Chinese youngsters peer through a plexiglass bubble at Martian asteroids and a model of the Mars rover.

Exhibit-goers (above and below photo) examine some of the asteroids from ASU's extensive collection.

Science and technology are integrated into education for Chinese children at an early age. A father brings his toddler to ASU's "Welcome to Mars!"

Photos: Wu Hong
Mars: NASA/JPL/MSSS

Photos: Jeff Holeman

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