Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
Professor Lancashire leafs through literature and diagrams, part of the book he's looking to write.
Today, we continue to highlight persons who have been nominated to receive the 2008 Gleaner Honour Award early next month at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston. In the category of science and technology, the nominee is Professor Robert John Lancashire.
Professor Robert John Lancashire - Fostering the computer age at UWI
Have you ever heard tertiary students complaining about a lack of computers?
Well, Professor Robert Lancashire would probably smile at that because he can remember when there was only one at the University of the West Indies' (UWI) Mona campus.
During the early 1980s at Mona, he was able to purchase some of the first personal computers on campus, but that's only part of the story. The Gleaner Honour Award recipient for Science and Technology for 2008, has had an interesting journey from his Melbourne, Australia, home to our shores.
Lancashire received his Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree and PhD in chemistry from Monash University in Australia. He moved to the University of Wales, Cardiff, as a Postdoctoral Fellow. While there, a colleague asked him if he would be interested in UWI.
"Come on out and help us with some teaching," the colleague said. He jokes that he came over on a real banana boat.
"The arrangement was if you flew up, and sent your car by boat, it was more expensive. If you came by boat, the car would essentially travel free," he recalls. He arrivedduring the hurricane season. There were two hurricanes, one a day behind them, the other a day ahead. By the way, the captain never made the trip so it was sort of a guess as to whether they were going in the right direction. He got to Montego Bay but found he would have to drive to Kingston.
Undaunted, he made the trip via Junction main road, no less, to get to Mona as a lecturer in chemistry in 1979.
"The whole scene of campus those days ... it really has progressed. We tried to set up equipment and 'tief' whatever we could find from all over the place," he said.
COMPUTER GENIUS
Back in 1976, Monash University had recently purchased a Tektronix graphics terminal (a machine that can be used as a video terminal for text information) for its mainframe computer. It was one of his first attempts at linking chemistry and computing, replacing the old computer card deck system used as part of his research.
"We were able to run the spectra, collect the data and then call up the model to work out angles," he said. Without the computer, the process was very tedious. In the early days, persons had to type in data via a card deck, and come back 24 hours later for a paper printout of the results.
"If I do the same calculations on the laptop today, it would take about five seconds."
So, when he got to UWI, he set about getting the department to that level. The university got funding to purchase an IBM computer. The first machine the department got was a TRS-80.
"One of the things that students have great difficulty with is seeing things in three dimensions. What we can do is to have these things (elements) show up on screen, rotate them, look at them from various angles and then try to show how you can relate them. For me, the graphics have been very important," he explained.
COMPUTERS TAKE OVER
With computers, the chemistry department started to gain a reputation as one of the most highly computer literate sections. Both staff and students were introduced to the use of computers in chemistry for teaching and research. The rest of UWI has followed.
"Before long, students were asking other members of staff, 'If he's doing it, why aren't you?' Now, every member of staff has an on-line presence. It's now been put into the regulations. We have seen substantial changes in that regard."
By the early 1990s, Professor Lancashire had almost entirely changed the focus of his research from classical inorganic chemistry to the application of computers in chemistry.
He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1986 and to Professor of Computational Chemistry in October 2002. He held the position of Sub-Dean, Technology in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences from 1998 to 2004 and was Deputy Dean for the 2007/2008 academic year.
WEBSITE
In 1994, he created the first web site in the Caribbean (http://wwwchem.uwimona.edu.jm) and began producing his now extensive online chemical education resources. The idea came from a visit to the University of Leeds during an open day.
"They connected to a site somewhere in Hawaii. There were no graphics, just text. But I looked at this thing and said what the hell is this?" His friend though assured him that this was the way of the future. The campus email system was linked to the University of Puerto Rico from a computer in the principal's office. Once or twice a day, a phone call was put through to exchange email between the sites.
In the mornings, there would be a queue of people, each one waiting to access the computer to check mail that had come in the day before and to set up mail to be sent out.
The creation of the fibre optic backbone around campus eventually meant that staff and students could do this from their offices or the library. The introduction of wireless access points now means that even sitting outside the lecture theatres or at the eating spots across campus, it is possible to be connected to the Internet. The chemistry department gets about 3000 hits a day.
CURRENT WORK
His current research is aimed at applying modern computer methods, using personal computers and the Internet, to assist in the delivery of chemical information. For nearly 10 years, he collaborated with MDL Information Systems, in producing a convenient display plug-in called CHIME for Internet browsers that provided the first widely used, public means of freely displaying chemical data.
In 2006, MDL estimated there had been over two million downloads of CHIME worldwide. In March 2006, after the completion of the contract with MDL, he released the Java software project JSpecView as Open Source. This has now been incorporated into the chemistry search engine, ChemSpider, which boasts a database of over 20 million chemicals that is freely available for searching on-line.
Professor Lancashire has given service on several national and international committees. He serves on the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Committee on Printed and Electronic Publications (CPEP) as well as on its subcommittee for electronics data (SEDS).
This subcommittee develops protocols to store spectral data and is used by all instrument manufacturers, one standard language for all. Before, it was specific to the country in which the computer was manufactured.
He is a past president and member of the Jamaican Society of Scientists and Technologists and is currently the secretary of the Caribbean Academy of Science. He is a member of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the American Chemical Society and the Royal Australian Chemistry Institute. He is also an editor of the Jamaica Journal of Science and Technology.
He is also writing a book on the history of the chemistry department and he's also a shutterbug, showing off some of his work which includes plants and insects. He also collects artwork. He is married to a Jamaican.
MADE HIS MARK
Many of the staff who came to Jamaica like he did, only stayed for two years but he stuck around because he thought he could make a difference.
"You feel you can make a difference if you get 150 kids in a class here that have come through horrendous circumstances. You figure if you can get some of them to get a little further on, then there is really some benefits to come out of this thing," he said. Even his father and older brother are into computers, the latter using Facebook daily.
He has two years left on his present contract, which calls for him to retire at 60, but he plans to stay on. With him around, who knows where computers will take us.
