- Email: [email protected]
Agarwal joins Penn
PEOPLE & PLACES UPDATE
Richard Smalley dies Richard Smalley of Rice University, Houston has died at the age of 62 after a long battle with cancer. Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Robert Curl, also of Rice, and Sir Harry Kroto of Sussex University for the discovery of the C60 buckyball molecule. Smalley earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan in 1965 and a PhD at Princeton University in 1973. In 1976 he joined Rice, where he became chair of the chemistry department in 1982, founded its Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and directed its Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory. In 1999, Smalley testified to the US House of Representatives in support of the federal National Nanotechnology Initiative, launched in 2000 and now a $1 billion a year program. Smalley also cofounded Carbon Nanotechnologies, which develops carbon nanotube manufacturing, and was a scientific adviser to startup C Sixty, which develops biopharmaceutical applications of fullerenes.
New head for Cornell MRSEC Melissa Hines has succeeded Frank DiSalvo as director of the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR), one of the US National Science Foundation’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs). The CCMR focuses on new ways to synthesize, characterize, and understand interfaces and surfaces at the atomic and molecular scales. As professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, Hines focuses on chemical processes used in nanofabrication. She is also coleader of an interdisciplinary research group studying the behavior of nanomechanical devices.
ACS award for UOP’s Wilson The American Chemical Society’s (ACS) 2006 Award in the Chemistry of Materials is to be presented at its national meeting in March to Stephen T. Wilson for the discovery of aluminophosphate-based molecular sieve materials and the commercial development of SAPO-34 for the methanol-to-olefins process. Wilson is senior research associate at UOP, Des Plaines, Illinois and chairman of the International Zeolite Association Synthesis Commission. He has also been involved with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in establishing zeolite reference materials.
IOP medal for Stoneham
Golden anniversary
The UK Institute of Physics (IOP) has awarded its 2006 Guthrie Medal to Marshall Stoneham of University College London for his theoretical work on defects in solids, in particular the consequences for the electronic properties of materials such as diamond and Si.
The first materials science and engineering department, at Northwestern University, has celebrated its 50th anniversary with a two-day symposium involving original departmental chair Morris E. Fine and alumni Stephen Sass of Cornell University and Teruaki Aoki, senior executive vice president and executive officer of Sony.
Stoneham aims to build a viable desktop quantum computer by 2010. Quantum computers promise to crack complex codes and solve age-old mathematical puzzles, but prototype quantum computers must be cooled to near absolute zero. Stoneham’s work, which tries to marry Si chips and quantum computers, has allowed him to design a quantum computer that can be built with existing tools and should perform useful calculations, perhaps even at room temperature.
APS awards The American Physical Society (APS) has announced its awards for 2006. The David Adler Lectureship Award goes to James Chelikowsky of University of Texas for “creative and outstanding research in computational materials physics” and “effectiveness in communicating research results through lectures and publications”. The Aneesur Rahman Prize goes to David Vanderbilt of Rutgers University for “conceptual breakthroughs in the development of the ultrasoft pseudopotential and the modern theory of polarization, and their impact on first-principles investigations of the properties of materials”. The Polymer Prize has been won by Ludwik Leibler of Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles, Paris, France for “outstanding theoretical contributions to the fundamental understanding of self-assembly of diblock copolymers and gels, and wetting”. Finally, the James C. McGroddy Prize goes to Hongjie Dai of Stanford University and Alex Zettl of the University of California, Berkeley for “developing novel synthesis pathways for preparing carbon and boron nitride nanotubes” and “pioneering applications for sensing, electronics, and nanomechanics”.
Rapp wins Palladium Medal At its Fall Meeting, the US Electrochemical Society awarded the biennial Olin Palladium Medal for “distinguished contributions to electrochemical or corrosion science”, over a span of 45 years, to Robert Rapp of The Ohio State University. Rapp is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of ASM International, TMS-AIME, and honorary fellow of the French Society of Metallurgy and Materials and the British Institute of Corrosion.
Please send details of new appointments, honors, and awards to [email protected]
64
DECEMBER 2005 | VOLUME 8 | NUMBER 12
Biomaterials society Joost D. de Bruijn has stepped down from the council of the European Society for Biomaterials after eight years (the last four as secretary). de Bruijn is succeeded as secretary by Elizabeth Tanner. Both are professors of biomaterials at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Agarwal joins Penn Ritesh Agarwal has been made assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Materials Science and Engineering Department. The focus of his research is the development of functional nanostructured materials for nanophotonic devices. Agarwal gained a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley under Graham Fleming. His postdoctoral work at Harvard University was with Charles Lieber.
Magnetic lab attracts The Applied Superconductivity Center is moving from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, its home for more than two decades, to Tallahassee’s Innovation Park, near the Florida A&M University-Florida State University (FSU) College of Engineering, where it will become a materials research division of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. The center will build on research at FSU’s Center for Materials Research and Technology to develop new materials for next-generation superconducting magnets.
Erratum In the People and Places section of the November issue of Materials Today, we said that Subra Suresh was to receive the 2006 Acta Materialia Gold Medal at the Materials Research Society’s 2005 Fall Meeting. In fact, the award will be presented at the 2006 Fall Meeting.
Richard Smalley dies Richard Smalley of Rice University, Houston has died at the age of 62 after a long battle with cancer. Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Robert Curl, also of Rice, and Sir Harry Kroto of Sussex University for the discovery of the C60 buckyball molecule. Smalley earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan in 1965 and a PhD at Princeton University in 1973. In 1976 he joined Rice, where he became chair of the chemistry department in 1982, founded its Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and directed its Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory. In 1999, Smalley testified to the US House of Representatives in support of the federal National Nanotechnology Initiative, launched in 2000 and now a $1 billion a year program. Smalley also cofounded Carbon Nanotechnologies, which develops carbon nanotube manufacturing, and was a scientific adviser to startup C Sixty, which develops biopharmaceutical applications of fullerenes.
New head for Cornell MRSEC Melissa Hines has succeeded Frank DiSalvo as director of the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR), one of the US National Science Foundation’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs). The CCMR focuses on new ways to synthesize, characterize, and understand interfaces and surfaces at the atomic and molecular scales. As professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, Hines focuses on chemical processes used in nanofabrication. She is also coleader of an interdisciplinary research group studying the behavior of nanomechanical devices.
ACS award for UOP’s Wilson The American Chemical Society’s (ACS) 2006 Award in the Chemistry of Materials is to be presented at its national meeting in March to Stephen T. Wilson for the discovery of aluminophosphate-based molecular sieve materials and the commercial development of SAPO-34 for the methanol-to-olefins process. Wilson is senior research associate at UOP, Des Plaines, Illinois and chairman of the International Zeolite Association Synthesis Commission. He has also been involved with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in establishing zeolite reference materials.
IOP medal for Stoneham
Golden anniversary
The UK Institute of Physics (IOP) has awarded its 2006 Guthrie Medal to Marshall Stoneham of University College London for his theoretical work on defects in solids, in particular the consequences for the electronic properties of materials such as diamond and Si.
The first materials science and engineering department, at Northwestern University, has celebrated its 50th anniversary with a two-day symposium involving original departmental chair Morris E. Fine and alumni Stephen Sass of Cornell University and Teruaki Aoki, senior executive vice president and executive officer of Sony.
Stoneham aims to build a viable desktop quantum computer by 2010. Quantum computers promise to crack complex codes and solve age-old mathematical puzzles, but prototype quantum computers must be cooled to near absolute zero. Stoneham’s work, which tries to marry Si chips and quantum computers, has allowed him to design a quantum computer that can be built with existing tools and should perform useful calculations, perhaps even at room temperature.
APS awards The American Physical Society (APS) has announced its awards for 2006. The David Adler Lectureship Award goes to James Chelikowsky of University of Texas for “creative and outstanding research in computational materials physics” and “effectiveness in communicating research results through lectures and publications”. The Aneesur Rahman Prize goes to David Vanderbilt of Rutgers University for “conceptual breakthroughs in the development of the ultrasoft pseudopotential and the modern theory of polarization, and their impact on first-principles investigations of the properties of materials”. The Polymer Prize has been won by Ludwik Leibler of Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles, Paris, France for “outstanding theoretical contributions to the fundamental understanding of self-assembly of diblock copolymers and gels, and wetting”. Finally, the James C. McGroddy Prize goes to Hongjie Dai of Stanford University and Alex Zettl of the University of California, Berkeley for “developing novel synthesis pathways for preparing carbon and boron nitride nanotubes” and “pioneering applications for sensing, electronics, and nanomechanics”.
Rapp wins Palladium Medal At its Fall Meeting, the US Electrochemical Society awarded the biennial Olin Palladium Medal for “distinguished contributions to electrochemical or corrosion science”, over a span of 45 years, to Robert Rapp of The Ohio State University. Rapp is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of ASM International, TMS-AIME, and honorary fellow of the French Society of Metallurgy and Materials and the British Institute of Corrosion.
Please send details of new appointments, honors, and awards to [email protected]
64
DECEMBER 2005 | VOLUME 8 | NUMBER 12
Biomaterials society Joost D. de Bruijn has stepped down from the council of the European Society for Biomaterials after eight years (the last four as secretary). de Bruijn is succeeded as secretary by Elizabeth Tanner. Both are professors of biomaterials at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Agarwal joins Penn Ritesh Agarwal has been made assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Materials Science and Engineering Department. The focus of his research is the development of functional nanostructured materials for nanophotonic devices. Agarwal gained a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley under Graham Fleming. His postdoctoral work at Harvard University was with Charles Lieber.
Magnetic lab attracts The Applied Superconductivity Center is moving from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, its home for more than two decades, to Tallahassee’s Innovation Park, near the Florida A&M University-Florida State University (FSU) College of Engineering, where it will become a materials research division of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. The center will build on research at FSU’s Center for Materials Research and Technology to develop new materials for next-generation superconducting magnets.
Erratum In the People and Places section of the November issue of Materials Today, we said that Subra Suresh was to receive the 2006 Acta Materialia Gold Medal at the Materials Research Society’s 2005 Fall Meeting. In fact, the award will be presented at the 2006 Fall Meeting.