September 1996
~ C o n t e n t s ~
~ F e a t u r e s ~
"I was the first and frequently the only woman in the class.
There's no reason why half the population should not be represented in every
field."
Dr. Susan Allen, vice president for research
Plugged into the latest technology:
~ D e p a r t m e n t s ~
~ S p o r t s ~
An advocate for
research and its rewards
Dr. Allen Checks out the laser laboratory at FSU
By Cindy Mooy
Assistant Director, FSU Communications Group
The last time Florida State University appointed a new head of research,
America had nearly a half million troops in Vietnam. It was the year of
Tet and the MLK and RFK assassinations; it was the year before Woodstock
and the first walk on the moon, and two years before Ronald Reagan won
re-election
- as governor of California. It was before Kent State, Nixon and Watergate.
In 1968, John Champion was president of FSU, there were 16,300 students
enrolled and the university's research budget was about $13 million. And
a woman probably would not have been considered a candidate to lead the
university's research efforts - '68 was, after all, 13 years before the
first woman and a quarter century before a second woman were appointed to
the U.S. Supreme Court, and 16 years before a woman would be nominated for
vice president of the United States. But, the times they have a'changed.
Today - nearly three decades after Dr. Robert Johnson became FSU's dean
of graduate studies and research, and only nine years since Johnson was
named the university's first vice president for research - FSU has almost
twice as many students as in '68, its research grant funding has grown about
eightfold and it has been led by four presidents since Champion.
And, this July, following a nationwide search, FSU President Talbot
"Sandy"
D'Alemberte appointed Susan Davis Allen as vice president for research.
Allen is only the second vice president for research and only the second
woman to hold the title of vice president at FSU.
Previously a professor, researcher and administrator at the University of
Iowa and Tulane University, Allen has taken on a still relatively young
research program that is near $100 million in contracts and grants.
One of five vice presidents, Allen is FSU's senior administrative officer
responsible for research policy and the administration of sponsored research,
commanding an operating budget of $11 million and a staff of 47.
Units reporting to her include the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory,
FSU Marine Laboratory, Laboratory Animal Resources, and Institute of Science
and Public Affairs.
Allen, who was vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School
at Tulane for four years, said she sees FSU as an institution "with
the potential for significant increases in support for research, scholarship
and creative activity."
"The resources of FSU are formidable," she said, "not only
in the sciences and engineering with various research centers and the joint
Florida A&M University/FSU College of Engineering, but also in the social
sciences, humanities and arts."
With federal research dollars decreasing and competition for grants increasing,
she sees herself playing a leading role as a "public advocate"
for research and its educational rewards.
"The current national disenchantment with higher education, in general,
and with research and creative activity, in particular, will eventually
swing in the other direction," she said, "but we must find means
to hasten the process by better explaining to the public what research
universities
bring to the state and national economies and quality of life."
Allen was just what the doctor ordered, said the search committee chairman,
Dean of Graduate Studies Alan Mabe. She "fully exemplifies what the
committee was seeking: someone with university-based funded research, experience
in research administration, national experience and prominence, and strong
communication skills."
Allen is a laboratory "heavy-hitter" in her own right: her laser
research in the area of microfab-ricating electronic and optical devices
- creating very thin, pure layers of metal on surfaces for minute electronic
devices - has won her two patents and a license to develop the laser
"dust-buster,"
or laser cleaning of semiconductor wafers.
She holds joint appointments in FSU's chemistry and electrical engineering
departments.
Chemistry department Chairman John Dorsey said Allen "will add an expertise
that we do not currently have on our faculty, and useful collaborations
with several of our existing faculty. And, we are especially delighted to
have an additional female role model for our graduate and undergraduate
students."
That may prove to be another strong point for a woman who has a couple of
academic "firsts" in her career: Allen was the first female professor
of chemistry at Iowa and was the first faculty member hired for Iowa's then-new
Center for Laser Science and Engineering.
With firsthand knowledge of the pressures on and low numbers of women in
the sciences and engineering, Allen organized a network of science faculty
at Iowa and Tulane to encourage women and minorities in science and
engineering.
She started her career as an undergraduate at Duke University (which she
considers her alma mater), completing her B.S. in chemistry at Colorado
College in Colorado Springs in 1966, following her husband's career west.
As she told her hometown paper, Jacksonville's Florida Times-Union: "I
was the first and frequently the only woman in the class.
"There's no reason why half the population should not be represented
in every field."
She went on to the University of Southern California for a Ph.D. in chemical
physics in 1971 and two years of postdoctoral research. From 1973 to 1977,
she was on the technical staff at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu,
Calif.
Allen returned to USC in 1977 as a research scientist in the Center for
Laser Studies, and was named a senior research scientist there in 1983,
and associate director in 1984. She began as an assistant professor in
electrical
engineering at USC in 1981, and advanced to associate professor in 1984.
Three years later, she transferred to Iowa, where she directed the Laser
Microfabrication Facility and was a chemistry and electrical/computer
engineering
professor.
She is no stranger to Florida, however. She was born in Jacksonville, where
her parents, James E. and Eleanor Davis, still reside, and her family tree
has roots deep in the Sunshine State's limestone.
There have been James Earl Davises in Jacksonville since the Spanish land-grant
days, she says. A great-grandfather, born in England, was a state legislator
and senator in the 1880s and a chaplain for the St. Johns River Colony;
another worked for the railroad in Central Florida; and others homesteaded
in Florida from Georgia, Texas and Washington, D.C. And there are uncles,
aunts and cousins scattered around the state, as well as a sister in Tampa
and a brother in Tallahassee.
Her husband, Charles C. Allen, is an attorney and CEO of the Doody Group,
a company that designs and remodels funeral homes. They have two children,
son Harold Davis Allen, a New York attorney who studied at the London School
of Economics, and daughter Eleanor Kathleen, a 15-year-old who now attends
Tallahassee's Maclay School and has joined the Tallahassee Ballet.
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September 1996