Michael Golombok

He has been affiliated with TU/e’s Department of Mechanical Engineering for 16 years now as a parttime professor, while being full time employed by Shell. Even after all these years, physical chemist Michael Golombok still cherishes his outsider’s view when it comes to this university and its ways.

'It remains an odd thing for me to observe how academics tend to focus on one topic and stay working on it for decades,’ Golombok states. One quick glance at his personal page on the TU/e website demonstrates that he himself prefers to do the exact opposite. Over the past sixteen years he has been working on a wide variety of energy related topics, ranging from centrifugal gas separation, reservoir fracking and pipeline acoustics, to converting lignin biomass into fuel and metal fuels. In addition, during that same period Golombok also worked on things like geothermal energy and steam cracking for ethylene production at Shell.

When asked about his extensive portfolio, Golombok swiftly explains: ‘In the Netherlands, or at least from what I have observed here in Eindhoven, academic training is very focused. During my own studies in Glasgow and Toronto, besides my chemistry courses I was forced to also take up courses from entirely different fields, such as 19^th century music and psychology. And at Shell, I am required to switch topics every few years – driven by changes in  commercial interests  over time. I think such a regular change of focus is a good thing, as it is often on the interfaces between your current research area and some new field where the interesting ideas arise that are most relevant for industry and society.’

Importance of presentation
Such relevance should be key when it comes to defining research topics at a technical university, Golombok thinks. ‘In my view, technical universities should be primarily aimed at providing leads for industry. Pure, fundamental science is not something we should be doing here.’ In addition, to be able to truly create impact with their research, technical scientists should improve their presentation skills, he says. ‘At the beginning of my own career, I used to give rubbish presentations. I used text-heavy slides, went in too deep on the scientific rigor, and did not provide the information my audience was waiting for. That changed when some 33 years ago I received training from someone who had been the personal communications trainer  for Mrs. Thatcher.’ Now, Golombok is glad to share his expertise on presentation skills with his students and his colleagues. ‘Let me be clear, as far as I am concerned, industry could be  more generous in supplying funds for scientific research. But, scientists who want to attract funding from industry for their projects need to do a lot more.  A company does not want to know all the ins and outs of the scientific how, what and when. They want to have a clear idea of what the challenge is, what your proposed solution is, and how that will benefit their company. And preferably all of that in 45 seconds.’

In his work, Golombok thoroughly enjoys supervising young people. His nearly 100 year old father always said that he emotionally felt he was 17, and Golombok has inherited this. ‘I make sure that my students get extensive supervision and support from me. One of the first things I teach them is to be willing  to disagree with me, and to tell me why I am wrong,’ he smiles. ‘I obtained my PhD in Canada, where I got used to a very informal way of supervision. I adopted that with my own students. And if needed, I make sure to catch up with a student four times a week. Why? Simply because I want them to succeed. Recently, I helped one of my students to write up his resume. Eventually, he got four different good job offers in one week. That makes my day. People can do so much better when given the right support and guidance.’

Palette of projects
Even though officially Golombok is assigned to TU/e for just one day a week, he is involved in a myriad of running projects, primarily focused on renewables. ‘I am part of the Power & Flow group at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, where I am of course also involved in the metal fuels research. In  that project,  a lot of attention traditionally has gone into the combustion part, whereas I am more focused on the reduction part which is necessary to make the process cyclical and sustainable.  So we do analytical work to assess the reduction quality, XRD measurements for surface analysis, studies on pore symmetry etc., partly at TU/e and partly at Shell.’ Being a representative of Shell, he is also involved in two projects financed by the Shell UD Associate program. ‘This program is meant to stimulate young researchers to look beyond their own research topic. TU/e researchers Dongsheng Yang and Toni Forner Cuenca have received funding from this program. Dongsheng is looking at DC power charging for electric vehicles. For electric cars to become truly competitive, the charging times need to be drastically reduced, and we need many more high power charging stations. Dongsheng looks into solutions to for example reduce the cost of the required DC-DC converters. For me, this entire power electronics field is new, so I have been reading multiple books to get up to speed with that field.’ The other SUDA-project is led by Toni Forner-Cuenca, who will look into the possibilities to upscale electrodes for the electrochemical production of ethylene, which is a basic building block for the chemical industry that is now almost exclusively made out crude oil. ‘There, many interesting questions are at play, such as how to introduce the carbon dioxide gas to the liquid electrolyte, how gaseous bubbles are formed at the electrodes, and what porosity gradient is needed for optimal ethylene production.’

From his own broad background, Golombok thinks there is a clear niche for EIRES to jump into. ‘The Eindhoven research should focus on taking the systems perspective when it comes to the energy transition. We should develop novel, dense energy carriers, tackle the problem of intermittency, and design innovative electrical networks and power conversion systems from a holistic view. To enable this, people must leave their silos. And that is why I am rather in favor for less academic exclusiveness and more eclecticism. People in EIRES should have  more genuine interest and involvement in the work of  departments outside their own. Conversely of course, these departments should be open to involving other colleagues from outside. If you ask me, it is in stimulating interdisciplinary initiatives where EIRES could and should make the real difference.’

(Mike’s views expressed in this article, are solely in his capacity as a professor at TU Eindhoven.)