The National Science Foundation (NSF) has established two new Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs) at Yale University and the University of Washington, with a combined NSF investment of up to $14 million over the next six years. The centers will also receive substantial support from the participating academic institutions, state governments and industry.
The Center for Research on Interface Structure and Phenomena will investigate the electronic, magnetic and chemical properties of complex oxide materials and their interfaces, with potential applications to magnetic storage, spintronics, and chemical sensing. The Center is a partnership between Yale University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Southern Connecticut State University. The Genetically Engineered Materials Science and Engineering Center at the University of Washington will support innovative research and education that integrates modern biology with state-of-the-art chemical synthesis to construct hybrid materials that cannot be achieved through traditional biology or Chemistry.
Each award is initially for six years; renewed NSF support is possible through competitive review in the fifth year of the award.
In addition to the two new centers, another eleven existing MRSECs successfully renewed support in open competition in FY 2005. (A total of 29 Centers are currently supported by the MRSEC program with annual NSF support of $52.5 million.) Each Center has made a substantial commitment to effectively integrate its educational activities with its scientific research program, and to fully develop its human resource potential. The educational outreach activities can range from the elementary school to the postgraduate level. Additionally, the MRSECs constitute a national network of Centers that seeks increased impact on materials science and education beyond what is expected from any one Center.
"Advanced materials are the hidden 'stuff' that enables the modern world to function," said Lance Haworth, Executive Officer for DMR's Division of Materials Research. "Fundamental research on materials is essential to the nation's health, prosperity and welfare. New materials are key to a whole range of rapidly changing technologies such as energy, computers and communications, transportation and increasingly health- and medicine-related technologies as well. These two new awards join a vigorous network of NSF-funded interdisciplinary Centers that are doing exciting work at the frontiers of materials research and preparing the next generation of materials researchers."
Source: NSF
Related stories:
Researchers develop new technique for fabricating nanowire circuits
Scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), collaborating collaborating with researchers from the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen, have developed a new technique for fabricating nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits that may one day be suitable for high-volume commercial production.
Wireless sensor networks offer high-tech assurance for a world wary of earthquakes
An earthquake strikes a large city, wrecking roads and bridges, stranding rush-hour commuters, trapping office workers inside high-rise buildings. As director of the city's transportation authority, you have minutes to make a momentous decision. What is the safest, fastest route that rescue teams can take to travel to hard-hit areas of the city? Which bridges, even if damaged, can still support traffic loads?
Understanding Earthquakes
Rensselaer campus regulars may not be aware of it, but earthquakes frequently surge through the basement of the Jonsson Engineering Center, the seemingly placid engineering building overlooking the school’s football field. Producing a powerful shaking, these seismic events have taken a considerable toll, leaving behind a litany of broken pipes, damaged pilings, and other serious structural problems.
Scientists to assess societal implications of nanotechnology
How will rapid technological change influence democracy, affect our privacy, and even change human identity itself? The National Science Foundation has awarded $6.2 million to explore such questions at the new Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University. Center researchers will work side by side with scientists who are making nanotechnology a reality to anticipate and understand the societal consequences of this new area of innovation.
Synthetic biology: Researchers mass produce genes on a chip
Imagine that the bricks used to build a house cost $1,000 each—building a home would be cost prohibitive. Similarly, the bricks to build living organisms—genes and genetic assemblies—can cost thousands of dollars to make in the lab, which is also cost prohibitive.
But now, scientists have developed a way to make the materials for genes on a microchip in mass quantities, for a fraction of the current cost.
New Stanford center probes nanoscale material
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $7.5 million over five years to establish
the Center for Probing the Nanoscale (CPN) at Stanford. Kathryn Moler, associate professor of applied physics and of physics, and David Goldhaber-Gordon, assistant professor of physics, will be co-directors. The CPN is one of six new centers that the NSF is funding to support
science and
engineering at the scale of the
nanometer - one billionth of a meter, roughly the size of atoms and molecules. Through nanoscale advances in manufacturing, biotechnology, electronics, medicine and more,
nanotechnology may account for a $1 trillion annual market and employ 2 million people within 10 to 15 years, according to an NSF report.
NSF funds first nanoscale center for learning and teaching
With a five-year, $15,000,000 grant to Northwestern University, the National Science Foundation is funding the nation's first Center for Learning and Teaching in Nanoscale Science and Engineering (NCLT). The center, under the direction of Northwestern professor of materials science and engineering, Robert P.H. Chang, will develop scientist-educators who can introduce nanoscience and nanoengineering concepts into schools and undergraduate classrooms. Additionally, it will play the key role in a national network of researchers and educators committed to ensuring that all Americans are academically prepared to participate in the new opportunities
nanotechnology will offer.
NSF Announces Six New Centers for Nanoscale Research
The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced
awards of $69 million over five years to fund six major centers in nanoscale science and engineering. These awards complement eight existing centers established since 2001. The awards are part of a series of NSF grants totaling $250 million for nanoscale research in multiple disciplines in fiscal year 2004.