Interview with a Professor: Khalid Kader

An interview by Crystal Panages

CP: Where are you from originally?
KK: Minneapolis

CP: Where did you do your undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. work?
KK: I went to Augsburg University in Minneapolis for my undergrad. I got my Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. It was a program that allowed me to skip over my masters and get right to my Ph.D.

CP: What did you major in as an undergraduate?
KK: Chemistry

CP: What made you interested in engineering?
KK: I always had an interest in engineering. I wen tin as a chemical engineering major and thought I wanted to be an MD, but then changed my mind when I saw what doctors did, too boring for me.

CP: What would you be doing now if you were not involved in engineering?
KK: I would be an MD or in politics.

CP: Did you always know you wanted to teach?
KK: No, like I said, I first wanted to be an MD. As a graduate student I had eight undergraduates under me. I found that I liked teaching more and more as time went by.

CP: What type of research do you do?
KK: I deal in cardiovascular tissue engineering, particularly small diameter vascular grafts. We have three projects currently being worked on 1.) Recreating the basal lamina on a synthetic surface. 2.) Model the vascular wall tissue in terms of what kinds of proteins and what concentrations of proteins make up the wall. It is mostly modeling dealing with disease effects on the vascular wall, mainly diabetes. 3.) The third project looks at the genetic engineering aspect of diabetes and how it effects endothelial cells.

CP: Why did you decide to come to Iowa?
KK: The main reason is that the research environment is great. The faculty made me feel more and more comfortable each time I came for an interview. It is also a Big Ten school and I have always liked that. And home is only four hours away, which is nice.

CP: What do you like best about Iowa?
KK: I liked the research collaborations and the undergraduate student quality.

CP: What common characteristic do you see in students that you interact with?
KK: The students here seem very laid back and intelligent. At Case I had students who were intelligent but not laid back. They were definitely over achievers.

CP: What kind of students do you think the college attracts?
KK: It attracts people from Iowa, but even more from Illinois now. The college here is a good and small engineering school for people who want quality with comfort and coziness.

CP: What are you teaching philosophies?
KK: I am very laid back. I like to interact heavily with students one on one.

CP: Do you have any advice for students taking your classes?
KK: Do no worry about the small things, think about the big picture. And remember that I am not always right. On my tests the design problems are open-ended and don't necessarily have a right or wrong answer. Students usually don't like that too much.

CP: What do you think about group assignments and projects?
KK: Well in my class I assign various group projects. I think for a person with a BS degree teamwork is very important. For Ph.d's in industry, teamwork is not as important as team leadership. Which I guess makes sense for Ph.d's. Interdisciplinary teams actually become a lot of fun. Everyone just starts to feed off of each other.

CP: Where do you see yourself in five years?
KK: Hopefully here.

CP: If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
KK: I went to Southern Spain to look at architecture and then to Madrid to see priceless art at the Prada. I would like to go to Australia, Alaska, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kenya and Tanzania to see the wildlife.

CP: Do you have a role model, if so who is it and why?
KK: Well there are four people who I model myself after. My office is run like that of my undergraduate advisor. My research and lab are run like that of three different advisors I had at Case. I guess I take things from everything and everyone around me, taking what works and leaving what doesn't.

CP: What do you think the future for Biomedical Engineering is?
KK: It will always be around. The field is so varied that everything will play a role in the future.

CP: Are there any interesting stories about your college days that you would like to share?
KK: While I was writing my dissertation (I was pretty bored), one of my students at Case became really angry about the safety shower. Safety was supposed to come over and check it, but they hadn't yet. But he kept getting written up for an unchecked safety shower. So he wanted me to come help him test it. We thought it would just dump30 gallons of water and then shut off. But it didn't. The water just kept coming. We couldn't get it to shut off. The student who was with me at the time was kind of a shorter guy and he could not reach the lever that was up by the ceiling to shut it off. By the time we got it to shut off, 500 gallons of water had been dumped. It leaked through the floor to the floor below and made just a huge mess. What is really interesting about it is that my advisor never found out about it.

CP: Why is that?
KK: I don't really know. There was three other faculty members standing there laughing when it happened but my advisor never found out.

CP: What advice would you give to students that have had enough of studying and just want to quit?
KK: Well this time of year is hard on the students, and what many people don't realize is that it is hard on the faculty too. The days are getting shorter, darker, and colder...It is just something you have to get through. Take the weekend off, do something fun, not science orientated. Studying in groups helps too. We used to start studying around six and go to about two. Then all of us would go grab something to eat, but by then the only place that was open was Dennys. All that studying and bad food to end it all.