Eugene Fitzgerald pursues new models for innovation in electronics as part of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology.
The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) has entered its eighth year of investigating new technologies that could serve Singapore and other future-looking cities. At the same time, this collaboration between MIT and the National Research Foundation of Singapore (NRF) is exploring new concepts in the process of R&D itself. SMART is not only better funded than most R&D projects; it's also distinct in its interdisciplinary and iterative approach to innovation.
MIT may push interdisciplinary collaboration more than most universities, but SMART takes the concept to a whole new level. "SMART uses a different model than anything in the U.S.," says Eugene A. Fitzgerald, the Merton C. Flemings-SMA Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT who heads up the SMART Low Energy Electronic Systems (LEES) group. "We bring together faculty with expertise in different areas to collaborate closely from start to finish. In larger, multi-investigator programs, we typically simulate that sort of interdisciplinary approach, but we end up dividing the programs into different disciplines."
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