JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The University of North Florida’s School of Engineering received another boost from a major company in Jacksonville. The expanding partnership continues a years-long relationship between Johnson & Johnson and UNF.
Dr. Paul Eason joins us on the This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition podcast. Eason is the UNF vice president of strategy and innovation.
CATCH UP ON THE LATEST: What’s going on with the Laura Street Trio?
“Johnson and Johnson has been a key partner for UNF for well over a decade,” Eason says. “They’ve helped sponsor our engineering capstone design courses for years, which I used to teach back when I was a full-time professor. And as that relationship grew, we realized there were some needs that that our programs weren’t necessarily meeting with the traditional mechanical, electrical or civil engineering.”
As part of the collaboration announced this month, UNF will hire a new full-time, tenure-track professor in engineering to perform manufacturing research and development in a lab outfitted with Johnson & Johnson MedTech-sponsored research activities and equipment.
I have a basic understanding of traditional engineering sections, but I want to know more about “advanced manufacturing engineering.”
“If you think about aviation and the advanced materials that go into aviation and the new composite aircraft and things like that, these items require manufacturing far beyond the traditional methods. You can’t just cast it apart and use it. There are all these post-processing and advanced materials components required in that. And so the degree broadens. You have to be able to train people in the additional areas to be able to work in a manufacturing environment that produces high-tech products.”
Watch more of the episode on News4JAX+ where we also dive into Johnson and Johnson as “more than just contacts,” and the way the company has invested with the 3-D Printing Center of Excellence that adds to the “senior design” project for students.