Anyone know......
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Anyone know......
.... of a Dr Askin Isikveren? He has apparently been employed in senior design positions in the past by Saab, Embraer and Airbus. He was most recently employed here at Bristol Uni as the lecturer for AVDASI (Aerospace vehicle Design And Systems Integration) but decided, without telling any of us the students, or indeed too many of the rest of the staff it seems, to naff off to a new job overseas during the Christmas holidays. This has left a certain amount of bitterness and resentment amongst some, as can be imagined - especially the lecturer that was thrust in to covering some aspects of the course Askin agreed to teach this year whilst knowing full well he wouldn't be here to do so.
Now, I have since been intrigued by a rumour that he was only at Bristol in the first place because he lost his previous company millions on on a failed design and needed a quick exit. Despite a bit of googling I havent been able to find any details and was wondering if any designers/engineers on here could shed any more light on an issue which this year's Aero course contingent would find most interesting
Now, I have since been intrigued by a rumour that he was only at Bristol in the first place because he lost his previous company millions on on a failed design and needed a quick exit. Despite a bit of googling I havent been able to find any details and was wondering if any designers/engineers on here could shed any more light on an issue which this year's Aero course contingent would find most interesting
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Why don't you email him and ask him? Simple google search found
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Sounds like a smart cookie to me, blabbing about a possible new job to all the students and his colleagues is only likely to cause him problems, especially if he didn't actually get the new job.
I'm guessing he worked his notice as required and left for the new position as any normal person would do? It would be nice and fluffy of him to stay to the end of term but by then the new job could have gone to someone else.
As above, email him and ask.
I'm guessing he worked his notice as required and left for the new position as any normal person would do? It would be nice and fluffy of him to stay to the end of term but by then the new job could have gone to someone else.
As above, email him and ask.
I'm sure that this chap (who I don't know) will have given the university his due notice: depending on the contract he had, it'll have been either 1 or 3 months, and given the lack of workload control in most university engineering departments, he was probably owed 3+ weeks of leave at any time. The result is an apparently very short notice departure.
In an ideal world, the academic staff would all cross-brief their material and learning objectives - in practice this very rarely happens, and in particular because the academics work such long hours, nobody is going to start sitting in on colleagues lectures to ensure that they know each others material. Also teaching material is (c) the individual academics, not the university.
Additionally, high quality aerospace academics are incredibly hard to recruit - particularly anybody with significant engineering industry experience, because universities (who tend to be very centrally managed and look at the world with blinkered academic eyes) are much more interested in research publication and grant experience, than they are in subject knowledge and teaching ability, which tends to come from industry not another university.
Students will always suffer when academics leave at short notice, and if you have somebody particularly critical to their course material, you've got a particular problem.
Is there a solution? No, there isn't. Is there any point in blaming the individual?- not really, he was probably given little choice by circumstance. The students trying to make sense of the course, and the academics trying to pick up the pieces, just need to make the best of it for the year or more it'll probably take to replace the chap.
I sympathise, the system is poor and does you few favours - but there's little point in blaming the man who was presumably doing the best he could whilst employed but has made a career move, which anybody is entitled to do.
G
In an ideal world, the academic staff would all cross-brief their material and learning objectives - in practice this very rarely happens, and in particular because the academics work such long hours, nobody is going to start sitting in on colleagues lectures to ensure that they know each others material. Also teaching material is (c) the individual academics, not the university.
Additionally, high quality aerospace academics are incredibly hard to recruit - particularly anybody with significant engineering industry experience, because universities (who tend to be very centrally managed and look at the world with blinkered academic eyes) are much more interested in research publication and grant experience, than they are in subject knowledge and teaching ability, which tends to come from industry not another university.
Students will always suffer when academics leave at short notice, and if you have somebody particularly critical to their course material, you've got a particular problem.
Is there a solution? No, there isn't. Is there any point in blaming the individual?- not really, he was probably given little choice by circumstance. The students trying to make sense of the course, and the academics trying to pick up the pieces, just need to make the best of it for the year or more it'll probably take to replace the chap.
I sympathise, the system is poor and does you few favours - but there's little point in blaming the man who was presumably doing the best he could whilst employed but has made a career move, which anybody is entitled to do.
G
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Thanks for the replies guys. However it's not why he left or where he went that we are interested in finding out, it's the details of this supposed failed project he was working on before coming to bristol... And as such I dint think he'd take too kindly to an email on the subject!
Looking at Dr Isikveren's LinkedIn profile he shows:
- education at Swedish Royal Insitute of Technology 1998-2002
- Bristol University, 2005-2010
- Bauhaus Luftfart 2010-present
Whatever he was doing 2003/4 it seems unlikely that he was particularly senior - I'd guess he was a fixed term postdoc somewhere, which would be a fairly standard bit of career progression for a university academic. Whatever the project is, it may well have failed -I have no idea, but I doubt very much that he was senior enough to have been responsible given it was probably his first job after finishing his PhD.
Looking at his publications about the start of his period at Bristol, they seem to have been on adaptive wings on UAVS - so the odds are he was working in the missing two years on some form of military UAV project, which would probably explain why he's not being very open about it.
Frankly, I think that you students are conjecting too wildly and almost certainly seeing something that's not there. Hard luck on losing him if he was a good lecturer - but I somehow doubt there's a big skeleton in his closet.
G
- education at Swedish Royal Insitute of Technology 1998-2002
- Bristol University, 2005-2010
- Bauhaus Luftfart 2010-present
Whatever he was doing 2003/4 it seems unlikely that he was particularly senior - I'd guess he was a fixed term postdoc somewhere, which would be a fairly standard bit of career progression for a university academic. Whatever the project is, it may well have failed -I have no idea, but I doubt very much that he was senior enough to have been responsible given it was probably his first job after finishing his PhD.
Looking at his publications about the start of his period at Bristol, they seem to have been on adaptive wings on UAVS - so the odds are he was working in the missing two years on some form of military UAV project, which would probably explain why he's not being very open about it.
Frankly, I think that you students are conjecting too wildly and almost certainly seeing something that's not there. Hard luck on losing him if he was a good lecturer - but I somehow doubt there's a big skeleton in his closet.
G
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Student rumour network.. love it. Case of Chinese whispers on the failed project i'm afraid, if you don't screw up the odd conceptual design you're not pushing the envelope hard enough.
Admittedly leaving part way though a year isn't ideal, however the staff did know in good time, it would have been up to him what he wanted to say to the undergrad students.
The provisioning of a replacement was a bit of a challenge (as i'm sure you know Dr. Isikveren had a unique lecturing style) but as far as I know everything did get covered and suitable account of any disruption will no doubt be taken.
Admittedly leaving part way though a year isn't ideal, however the staff did know in good time, it would have been up to him what he wanted to say to the undergrad students.
The provisioning of a replacement was a bit of a challenge (as i'm sure you know Dr. Isikveren had a unique lecturing style) but as far as I know everything did get covered and suitable account of any disruption will no doubt be taken.
