Tuesday, July 9, 2002Volume 2, Issue 11
Director's Message
On July 15th, MRI will participate in another WUN Advanced Materials Group on-line research seminar. The Worldwide University Network (WUN) is a global research alliance of Universities consisting of PSU, WA, CA-San Diego, WI, and IL in the States, and Sheffield, Southampton, Leeds, Bristol, York and Manchester in the UK. These on-line seminars are interactive, and provide you the opportunity to become familiar with research activities and faculty at the various WUN sites. The faculty and students in attendance at each site are offered the chance to ask questions or make comments after each seminar. It is anticipated that these seminars will facilitate scientific discussion, additional student exchanges, and later, collaborative research projects between the WUN sites.
Date: Monday, July 15, 2002
Time: 12:00 Noon
Location: 108 Wartik Laboratory
Speakers: Professor R A L Jones and Professor A J Ryan, The University of Sheffield
Title: Soft Nanotechnology
The seminar is open to everyone; bring your lunch; drinks and dessert provided.
Also, to view a pdf of the new NSF materials brochure go to:
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/publicat/nsf0050/pdf/materials.pdf
Regards,
Carlo Pantano
MRI Faculty Spotlight
Professor Mike Pishko recently joined Penn State University and is a faculty member in the Chemical Engineering Department. His research interests include biomedical sensors, chemical sensors, high-throughput drug screening, biomaterials, and drug delivery. Mike's laboratory is located in Fenske Laboratory, which has a wide array of material synthesis and characterization equipment. His group begins with synthesis of host materials, such as poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels that can sustain living cells. Mammalian cells are encapsulated in the gel matrix and exposed to different drugs and chemical reagents. Viewing their fluorescent signatures by a microscope monitors the health of the cells.
For the full story go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/articles/MikePishko/
Useful Stats: Federal Funds for R&D for Fiscal Years 2000-2002
The National Science Foundation has released a new set of statistical tables that show research and development (R&D) funding levels, reported by 31 federal agencies for the last three fiscal years.
Federal Funds for Research and Development: Fiscal Years 2000, 2001, and 2002 offers R&D totals in terms of both outlays and obligations. The R&D obligation data are categorized according to character of work (basic research, applied research, and development), performer, field of science or engineering (for research but not for development), and federal R&D funding by state. The report also shows obligations for research performance at colleges and universities by fields of science or engineering, and additional data is given for R&D plant.
SSTI has prepared a table comparing FY 2000 state rankings for federal obligations for R&D and R&D plant. The rankings reveal that California, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts and New York, respectively, had the most in total federal obligations.
Federal Funds for Research and Development: Fiscal Years 2000, 2001, and 2002 is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf02321/htmstart.htm
Faculty Contracts & Grants
Materials research accounted for more than $7 million in contracts and grants for the month of June! The largest of these contracts and grant (those greater than $200K) are listed below, along with a link to the complete list of contracts and grants. These data are provided by OSPs Strategic Information Management System.
Eden, Timothy; Marine Depots Sustainment Technology Development, U.S. Department of the Navy
Schlom, Darrell; Quantum Information Processing with Ferroelectrically Coupled Quantum Dots, Pittsburgh, University of
Varadan, Vijay; Developing High Performance Specialty e.m. and Acoustic Materials and Devices through MOA w/DRDO, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO)
Wang, Chao-Yang; Self-Activated Micro Directed-Methanol Fuel Cell (uDMFC) at Near Room Temperature, University of California at Los Angeles
Funding Opportunities
Research funding agencies in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and the United States of America are working together to enhance opportunities for collaborative activities in materials research. NSF will consider proposals in two categories:
A. Proposals that aim to support international collaboration in materials research among individual investigators, groups of investigators, or centers from the U.S. and one or more of the other six participating countries.
B. Proposals that aim to support international activities that are at the initial (pre-research) stages of international collaborative research projects and programs, and that can cover the costs associated with organizing workshops, seminars, conferences or symposia, and travel related to the project.
For more information go to: http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf02141
