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Focus On Materials

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eMaterials Newsletters

 

Thursday, June 5, 2008Volume 8, Issue 2

 

Materials Day 2008 Explores Materials for Energy Technologies

 

Materials Day 2008 began with well-attended workshops offered by faculty experts that covered a range of subjects of interest to the materials community, including energy storage, materials characterization, nanofabrication, metamaterials, polymer actuators, fuel cells, and flexible electronics.  Industry attendees were offered tours of the Materials Characterization Laboratory, NNIN Nanofabrication Laboratory, and the Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization lab facilities, all located in the Materials Research Institute Building.


In the opening day’s Keynote address, Tom Richard, Penn State professor and director of the Institutes of Energy and the Environment, outlined the challenges of declining natural resources and increasing pollution. He also offered an optimistic assessment of our ability to find solutions, based in large part through advances in materials research.

 

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To view a photo gallery from Materials Day 2008 go to: http://www.mri.psu.edu/eMaterials/v08i02/Photo_Gallery.asp

 

Pioneers of Materials

Pioneers of Materials is a new, occasional feature spotlighting an MRI researcher with a long and distinguished history of contributions to materials research. 


For most faculty in academic departments, it would be quite unusual to spend an entire distinguished career in a field without ever having taken a single course in that field.  Not so for Jerry Johnson, who taught computer science at Penn State for more than 30 years. Trained as a materials scientist at a time when there were no computer science courses available, Johnson learned by reading manuals and hands-on practice, and thereby helped to advance two fields - scientific computing and X-ray diffraction.  In the process, he passed his knowledge along to other faculty in a series of courses he taught around the world, and to more than 25,000 students in computer science courses at Penn State.     

 

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MRI Staff Excellence Award 2008 

Rick Bailey, database specialist


Rick Bailey, winner of MRI’s 2008 staff excellence award, is part of the IT team at MRI, a group whose responsibilities are constantly expanding as computers and information technology become more interwoven into the way we communicate and conduct business.  MRI’s databases support our user facilities, MCL and the Nanofab, our financial and personnel records, and our connections to the rest of the University data systems, including IBIS.  Most of MRI’s administrative staff count on Rick at some point to give them the information they need to do their job.

 

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Grants and Contracts


Materials research accounted for more than $13.7 million in contracts and grants for the months February through April! 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 OSP's Strategic Information Management System.

 

 

 

For a complete list of the contracts and grants for February through April go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/awards.asp?awardperiod=0804