innovate arkansas

Walker is finishing up work at the National Institute of Standards & Technology outside Washington, D.C., and is due to arrive in Little Rock the first week of June.

His official title is vice provost for innovation and commercialization and director of the Nanotechnology Center, pieces of which are already being put in place on campus.

David Belcher, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs and Walker’s boss, said the process of establishing the center has been evolving for more than a year.

The last regular session of the General Assembly appropriated $5.9 million to get the program started. “Legislators saw [the Nanotechnology Center] as a major building block for the state,” Belcher said.

Although he hasn’t moved to Little Rock yet, Walker has already worked at forming three potential joint ventures with companies involved in nanotechnology, he said.

Both Walker and Belcher view the new Nanotechnology Center as a major step forward for the state — and one that will make UALR a world-class university.

Walker said the United States has lost its leadership in the production of goods but is still innovative in fields such as software development, semiconductors and processors, defense, agriculture, and chemical and pharmaceuticals.

“We continue to innovate, and we have the best universities in the world,” he said. “Universities are more important than ever to businesses” as products are being developed by scientists and researchers at the schools.

The next step is connecting those products to the market, he said, which will serve and attract business and industry.

Nanotechnology research is already under way at UALR, headed by Alex Biris, a research assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of Technology. Pieces of custom-made equipment are already being assembled on the bottom floor of the College of Information Science & Systems Engineering building on campus. Walker is looking to have it up and running by November.

Nanotechnology explores the science of structures one-billionth of a meter in size that can be used to alter the properties of other substances at the molecular level.

Working with private corporations and other universities and research institutes to develop commercial applications of nanotechnology, Walker said nanotechnology has the potential to change the way we manufacture products, making them cheaper and better.

Mary Good, dean of the College of Information Science & Systems Engineering,

suggested the search team contact Walker, with whom she had had contact in Washington.

Walker has an extensive background in commercializing new technologies and building ties between industry and academia dating back to the 1980s. He said he was attracted to UALR by its “tremendous attitude and desire to make an impact on many fronts. The school has attracted top talent in recent years.”

He also said he was very impressed by the “enthusiasm and dedication” he sees in the business community in Little Rock.

“I am very impressed,” Walker said of Little Rock. “It feels like Austin 25 years ago. I see a lot of concentrated talent in the business community.”

The next step is to translate that talent and the research at the Nanotechnology Center into an economic development engine.