Thursday, October 21, 2004Volume 4, Issue 8
Director's Message
MRI Staff Awards
The Materials Research Institute is now seeking nominations for the MRI Staff Awards. This is an excellent opportunity to recognize individuals who have provided the Penn State materials community with exemplary service. I also encourage you to discuss potential candidates for this award with students and other researchers who interact with the MRI staff. Eligible candidates include all staff that support materials research initiatives at Penn State. Examples are: the MRI Technical and Clerical Staff in the Materials Characterization Lab, Nanofabrication Facility, and the MRI and MRL Bldgs, as well as other staff in similar roles for departments and centers. Please note that three support letters are needed in addition to the attached nomination form. The deadline to return your nomination form is November 19th. Please take the time to nominate a colleague for one of these special awards. If you have questions regarding the criteria please feel free to contact Donna Lucas.
The nomination form can be found at:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/ematerials/v04i08/awards.pdf
MRI Faculty Meeting
Don't forget next week's University-wide MRI Faculty Meeting. The only one of the semester! Tuesday, October 26th, 3:30p at the Penn Stater.
See you there,
Carlo
Faculty Spotlight
Jong-in Hahm, assistant professor and Pearce Development Professor of chemical engineering, studies new materials, particularly molecular structures on the nanometer scale, for use as molecular tools in engineering and investigating biologically important molecules. Ultimately her goal is to develop materials that can be applied to functions as diverse as molecular probes, improved genotyping methods and systems for screening small molecules.
Hahm's current research centers on the synthesis of materials such as nanotubes and nanowires with interesting structures. She is working to develop methods for the controllable synthesis of these one-dimensional structures on various catalysts in order to produce nanomaterials with a geometry that reflects biological neural networks, the geometries needed to build complex switches and simulators for nanoscale applications. Her group is using a variety of polymers and biomaterials to grow the nanomaterials at defined sites and with a defined geometry and orientation. While it is difficult to manipulate individual nanomaterials, this method will allow them to be fabricated in large amounts in an array format by using novel templates.
For the full story go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/articles/Jong-inHahm/
NSF, NIH Commit Combined $213M toward Nanotech
While the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have voiced caution and funded efforts to understand the potential societal and environmental implications of nanotechnology deployment, both agencies announced much larger funding commitments - totaling $213 million - to expedite commercial applications for the explosive field.
Contracts and Grants
Materials research accounted for more than $4.6 million in contracts and grants for the month of September! The largest of these contracts and grants (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.
Brantley, Susan L; Supplement: IGERT: Penn State Biogeochemical Research Initiative for Education, National Science Foundation
Deb Roy, Tarasankar; A Transport Phenomena Based Smart Bi-directional Model of Fusion Welding, U.S. Department of Energy
Donnellan, Thomas M; Kuo, Kenneth K; Understanding Explosive Effects on Rock Mass and Other Energetic Materials, U.S. Department of Defense
Hedden, Ronald C; Materials Sources of Line-Width Roughness in Advanced Photoresists for sub-50 nm Nanofabrication, U.S. Department of Commerce
Wang, Chao-Yang; Mench, Matthew M; Sharp, Kendra V; Advanced Diagnostics and Simulation of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells, Industry
For a complete list of the contracts and grants for September go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/awards.asp?awardperiod=0409
Funding Opportunities
- EPA - Nanotechnology Research Grants Investigating Environmental and Human Health Effects of Manufactured Nanomaterials - joint solicitation with NSF, NIOSH - Deadline: 1/5/2005
Materials Seminars
Thursday, October 21, 2004
11:15 AM - 135 Reber Building
"Polymer Processing, Surface Coating and Cleaning with Liquid and Supercritical Carbon Dioxide"
James B. McClain, Ph.D, President and CTO of Micell Technologies
Series - Materials Science
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
12:30 PM - 102 Chemistry Building
"Redox and Photoactive Nanometric Building Blocks for Molecular Devices"
Héctor Abruéa, Cornell University
Series - Analytical Chemistry Seminar
3:35 PM - 114 EES Bldg
"Ferroelectric Single-Crystal Materials in Optoelectronics and Microwave Photonics Applications"
Ruyan Guo, Penn State
Series - Engineering Science & Mechanics
Thursday, October 28, 2004
11:15 AM - 135 Reber Building
"Bioactive Glasses: Novel Therapies in Regenerative Medicine"
David Greenspan, NovaMin Technology, Inc.
Series - MatSE 590 Colloquium
For a complete list of upcoming materials-related seminars go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/seminars.asp
