David Coit Reflects on Jean d’Alembert Research Fellow at Université Paris-Saclay
ISE Professor David Coit completed a prestigious two-year Jean d’Alembert Research Fellowship at CentraleSupelec Université Paris-Saclay that focused on collaborative research in reliability, resilience, and risk optimization with French professors and students at the campus located just south of Paris, France.
“Professionally, it is rewarding to be recognized as a leader and expert in risk and reliability. The fellowship is highly competitive, so to have been selected is a great honor,” Coit says.
Coit describes his collaboration as developing “innovative new mathematical models that integrate operations research, machine learning, and traditional probabilistic maintenance models to become worldwide leaders in dynamic predictive maintenance – the most advanced and modern method to maintain critical systems operative capabilities while minimizing downtime caused by reliability issues.”
The researchers have achieved a lot, according to Coit, including two published papers in top journals and one other under review. “We also organized a successful mini symposium to share our ideas about predictive maintenance and learn from other world recognized researchers,” he recalls. “We had speakers from seven different countries, 50 in-person attendees and more than 100 online attendees.”
Coit especially enjoyed learning from and interacting with French students and professors, as well as his exposure to the cultural and educational differences between France and the US. “The French students are interesting and outstanding in so many ways and often view engineering concepts in more holistic and philosophical ways,” he reports.
He did not speak any French before his first visit to the Université Paris-Saclay., he lived in France for months during a sabbatical and split time between Rutgers and the French university the rest of the time, even serving on three PhD committees in France.“Despite taking classes and visiting Parisian bakeries and cafés every day, my abilities remain very limited. However, I will keep trying and learning to speak French,” he insists.
