Active: 1986 - 2022; Recalled 2022 - Present

Professor Frank Talke joined UC San Diego in 1986 as one of the founding chairs of CMRR, the Center for Magnetic Recording Research (now Center for Memory and Recording Research). Prior to coming to UCSD, Dr. Talke was a research staff member and manager of the device mechanics group at IBM Research in San Jose for seventeen years, working on the mechanics and design of hard disk drives and tape files used for information storage. Frank’s interest and expertise was in the area of the head-disk and head-tape interface, where a magnetic read-write head must be designed to fly over the magnetic medium at the smallest spacing possible, without causing wear and damage to the interface. In present day hard disk drives, this spacing is on the order of one nanometer, while in the 1960’s, the spacing was much larger, on the order of several micrometers.  In order to reduce the flying height, and increase the storage density, an improved understanding of the phenomena at the interface between the magnetic head and the magnetic medium is needed, requiring an understanding of mechanics and tribology (friction, wear, and lubrication) in addition to the understanding of magnetics, magnetic materials, and signal processing. The Center for Magnetic Recording Research (CMRR) at UCSD was ideal for this type of interdisciplinary research, and the founders of CMRR approached Dr. Talke and asked if he would consider coming to UCSD. He first was very hesitant to leave the Bay Area and IBM, but later-on changed his mind and has been with UCSD for more than 36 years. 

Of those 36 years, nearly three years he served as the Department Chair of AMES, now re-named to Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. While Professor Talke was department chair, the new department of Bioengineering was split out from AMES, and the new department of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) was formed. Later on, Structural Engineering and Nanoengineering were also created out of the Mechanical Engineering department. When reflecting upon his time as a department chair, Dr. Talke remembers that it was a great experience and a privilege to serve his colleagues in the department. It was time-consuming, however, to do both jobs, being a professor responsible for his own students and postdocs and being a department chair responsible for a large number of faculty and staff, and having a young family. Professor Talke remembers that the responsibilities of being department chair reduced the time available for his own research activities. “Research is why I came to UCSD, so having a three-year term for being department chair is a good arrangement.” When he took over as chair, at one of his first faculty meetings, he suggested to use e-mail rather than hard copies to announce future department meetings. Thirty years ago, email was not common in the workplace and some people were even hesitant to make this transition. So much has changed in 30 years!  

In terms of his research at CMRR, Dr. Talke worked mainly on magnetic recording tribology during his first years at CMRR, including head wear, surface characterization of media, flying height control, lubrication of hard disks, and wear of the head disk and head tape interface.  He had very strong contacts with industry, and together with his friend and colleague Prof. Bogy from UC Berkeley, they organized many tribology classes and workshops for researchers and engineers in the computer industry.

At IBM, Professor Talke had also worked on IBM’s first drop-on-demand color ink jet printer, and several projects at CMRR dealt over the years with some aspects of this technology.  More recently, in the last 10 years, he has gotten interested in medical devices, including ophthalmic instruments, biofilm retardant coatings, a so-called esophagus deflection device, vaginal stenosis, and computer navigated surgery for pain management. He is happy he branched out into the area of medical devices, since it is a rewarding feeling for an engineer to work on devices that contribute to better health for all humans.  

Some of the most influential colleagues at UCSD with whom he interacted or collaborated were Juan Lasheras, Shu Chien, David Miller, Sol Penner, Paul Libby, Joanna McKittrick, Jim Lemke, Sia Nemat Nasser, and Vlado Lubarda. Juan Lasheras was his great friend who got Professor Talke interested in his ophthalmic eye studies. Dr. Lasheras said he had a meeting with an ophthalmologist, so he asked Professor Talke and Shu Chien to join him in this meeting. They talked about eye diseases, including glaucoma, which causes irrevocable blindness, and the ophthalmologist said that measurement of the intraocular pressure was one of the challenges left in ophthalmology. This is how Dr. Talke got involved in studying and building an implantable miniaturized pressure sensor based on interferometry to measure the intraocular pressure in the eye. 

For Professor Talke, UCSD has been a very enjoyable environment with wonderful colleagues and great opportunities. Unfortunately, most of his colleagues from the early days are no longer here. That is, Sol Penner, Paul Libby, Joanna McKittrick, Jim Lemke, Sia Nemat Nasser, and Juan Lasheras. So, when he goes to a faculty meeting or a zoom department meeting, most faculty members are new to MAE, and it takes time to get to know them. He is excited, however, that the departments has hired very talented and promising young people who will do great things in the future. 

One of the most memorable experiences while teaching was when he invited visitors to speak to his students. Once he invited a researcher he knew from IBM, who had left IBM about the same time Professor Talke did. This former IBM researcher had formed a company and gave a lecture about what it is like to start a company. He told the students how there were only four people when he started that company and how they worked day and night to get the company off the ground. He shared how hard it was and how important it is to know the fundamentals, and work in a successful team. Professor Talke believes students should learn everything they get exposed to, without prejudice, because they never know when they will get into a situation where they may need that information. For example, when his lab developed the intraocular pressure sensor for measuring the pressure in the eye, they used monochromatic light interferometry, the same technique that had been used by Dr. Talke to measure the spacing between a slider and a disk, 40 years earlier. So, experience and an open mind can come in handy in different areas of engineering since one would never have thought 40 years earlier, while working on hard disk drives, that interferometry could be used in a totally different field in a completely new and pioneering way, to measure the intraocular pressure. So, what students learn today could and may be useful for them in the future, even if it does not seem to be like that at the time. This is what he tries to teach his students.

Professor Talke considers his most important contribution while at UC San Diego is inspiring students. Some of his students work or have worked at Seagate, Western Digital, Tesla, Apple, or IBM, and at various other companies. All of them are doing very well.  Occasionally, he receives an email from a student thanking him for a class he has taught or advice he has given. He had one former student who wrote to him, ‘If I hadn’t taken your class and learned about disk drive technology, I wouldn't have gotten my current job and I wouldn’t have my family, my house, or my new car’. Professor Talke said, "You only need one letter like that every few years or so to keep you motivated." Adding on, "most students are aware that school is a wonderful time in their life. They understand they are lucky to be here and be able to learn all these new things. Most students are motivated, they work hard, and push the boundaries of knowledge forward."

When asked what advice he can offer to current faculty, he refrained from giving any particular advice, stating his experience from 30, 20 or 10 years ago may not be applicable to current faculty. However, he adds that “if you put your heart and soul into your work and like it - that’s the main point - if you like what you are doing it doesn’t feel like work.” That is where he can say he was fortunate. He never had a day where he said he didn't want to go to work. At the university, if you find a way to fund the research that you want to do, what you are interested in doing, then you can do it! One takeaway from his professional experience he emphasizes is to get deeply involved in your research and never give up. Having a group of bright students and dedicated colleagues working with you on exploring the limits of science and engineering - this is wonderful!