Workshop: Building a sustainable combustion research community: Ensuring the field doesn’t burn out
Creators: name: Niemeyer, Kyle
name: Labbe, Nicole
name: Blanquart, Guillaume
name: Burke, Michael
name: Goldsmith, Franklin
name: Northrop, William
name: O’Connor, Jacqueline
name: West, Richard
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: 90201 Automotive Combustion and Fuel Engineering (incl. Alternative/Renewable Fuels)
subject: FOS: Environmental engineering
subject: FOS: Environmental engineering
subject: 90405 Non-automotive Combustion and Fuel Engineering (incl. Alternative/Renewable Fuels)
subject: 30703 Reaction Kinetics and Dynamics
subject: FOS: Chemical sciences
subject: FOS: Chemical sciences
subject: Mechanical Engineering
subject: FOS: Mechanical engineering
subject: FOS: Mechanical engineering
subject: 90499 Chemical Engineering not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Chemical engineering
subject: FOS: Chemical engineering

description: <b>Project Summary</b>While combustion is responsible for nearly 70% of energy consumption in the U.S., and inevitably will remain a large component for decades to come, the future of the combustion research community is less certain. Due to ineffective direct communication from the scientific community, the public and policymakers are unaware of the often exciting and important research topics and ongoing breakthroughs in the field. This starkly contrasts other research communities such as nuclear engineering and astronomy that have thrived since adapting to modern, open research practices and have diversified through cross- pollination with connected fields. The combustion community has resisted both changes. Finally, the field faces a population crisis in attracting and retaining a more diverse community of researchers, with talented researchers at all experience levels leaving the field due to lacking a sense of community.<br>We propose a two-day workshop for junior faculty working in combustion and fire research, with the goal of learning about and discussing future challenges in the field from the perspective of early-career researchers. Primary objectives include identifying challenges, educating the early-career participants about such challenges, and discussing possible solutions. Discussions will be split into two thrusts, roughly corresponding to the two workshop days: cultural issues and technical issues facing the field. Participants will be limited to junior faculty researchers (i.e., untenured or recently tenured) to keep discussions focused on the issues facing the future of the research field.<br><b>Intellectual Merit:</b>Discussion around technical issues will include brainstorming of novel, possibly cross-disciplinary research areas for future work. The workshop will be limited to junior researchers, who may be more open-minded to alternative research directions, and also may possess different skill sets compared with established, senior researchers. In addition, important technical topics for discussion include how to encourage better practices in computational science, including ensuring reproducibility of results.<br><b>Broader Impacts:</b>Goals include attracting and retaining more diverse community of researchers in combustion and related fields, in terms of both demographics and background. In addition, this workshop seeks to discuss and recommend how researchers can engage more with the public, to help people outside the field better understand this exciting and important research area.