- Email: [email protected]
CENAMPS names chief executive
PEOPLE & PLACES UPDATE
CENAMPS names chief executive The UK’s Centre of Excellence for Nanotechnology, Micro, and Photonic Systems (CENAMPS), founded in Newcastle in 2003 by regional development agency One NorthEast, has appointed Mike Pitkethly, cofounder and former commercial director of QinetiQ Nanomaterials, as chief executive. Pitkethly is a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and the Institute of Nanotechnology. NanoQuébec gets new director Robert Nault has been appointed director general of NanoQuébec, which was created in 2001 to foster nanotechnology development and commercialization in the region. Nault has been a board member since 2003 and president of Marketech, a consulting firm focused on the integration of new technologies into corporate plans. Directors for Advance Nanotech Advance Nanotech, a provider of financing and support services for nanotechnology entrepreneurs, scientists, and researchers, has added four new board directors. Bill Milne is director of the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics at the UK’s University of Cambridge. Peter Rugg is managing partner of Tatum Partners LLP and has experience in capital structure, financing, and public company reporting. Consultant and financial advisor Virgil Wenger is a former partner at Ernst & Young. Tony Goncalves is associate director at Purdue Pharma. He has expertise in evaluating markets, entities, and business opportunities. New CEO for Molecular Imprints Mark Melliar-Smith, chief operating officer of nanoimprint lithography tool maker Molecular Imprints of Austin, Texas since April 2004, has been appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of the company following the retirement of cofounder, president and CEO Norman Schumaker. A graduate of Southampton University, UK, Melliar-Smith has served as president and CEO of International SEMATECH, chief technical officer of Lucent Technologies Microelectronics, and a venture partner with Austin Ventures.
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 start-up 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 the chemical processes used in nanofabrication. She is also coleader of an interdisciplinary research group studying the behavior of nanomechanical devices.
IOP medal for Stoneham The UK Institute of Physics (IOP) has awarded its 2006 Guthrie Medal to Marshall Stoneham of University College London for theoretical work on defects in solids, in particular the consequences for the electronic properties of materials such as diamond and Si. Stoneham aims to build a viable desktop quantum computer by 2010.
APS announces awards for 2006 The American Physical Society (APS) has announced its awards for 2006. 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”. The Keithley Award goes to Frances Hellman of the University of California, Berkeley for “using emerging micromachining techniques to significantly extend the range of calorimetry into the realm of nanoscale science, by construction of Si-based microcalorimeters capable of operating in extreme environments with unprecedented sensitivity”.
Fall 2005 MRS awards The Materials Research Society’s (MRS) 2005 Fall Meeting saw presentations for the following awards. The Von Hippel Award goes to MIT chemical engineering professor Robert S. Langer for “pioneering accomplishments in the science and application of biomaterials in drug delivery and tissue engineering, particularly in inventing the use of materials for protein and DNA delivery”. Langer’s research is credited with generating new medical products, creating new fields of biomaterials science, and inspiring research programs throughout the world. The MRS Medal goes to Reshef Tenne, head of the Department of Materials and Interfaces at Israel’s Weizmann Institute, for “realizing that nanoclusters of layered compound materials (e.g. MoS2, WS2) can be made to fold into hollow cage structures [inorganic fullerenes], in analogy to graphitic carbon”. After gaining a PhD in chemistry and physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976, Tenne spent three years at the Battelle Institute in Switzerland before joining the Weizmann Institute in 1979.
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.
Please send details of new appointments, honors, and awards to [email protected]
December 2005
51
CENAMPS names chief executive The UK’s Centre of Excellence for Nanotechnology, Micro, and Photonic Systems (CENAMPS), founded in Newcastle in 2003 by regional development agency One NorthEast, has appointed Mike Pitkethly, cofounder and former commercial director of QinetiQ Nanomaterials, as chief executive. Pitkethly is a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and the Institute of Nanotechnology. NanoQuébec gets new director Robert Nault has been appointed director general of NanoQuébec, which was created in 2001 to foster nanotechnology development and commercialization in the region. Nault has been a board member since 2003 and president of Marketech, a consulting firm focused on the integration of new technologies into corporate plans. Directors for Advance Nanotech Advance Nanotech, a provider of financing and support services for nanotechnology entrepreneurs, scientists, and researchers, has added four new board directors. Bill Milne is director of the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics at the UK’s University of Cambridge. Peter Rugg is managing partner of Tatum Partners LLP and has experience in capital structure, financing, and public company reporting. Consultant and financial advisor Virgil Wenger is a former partner at Ernst & Young. Tony Goncalves is associate director at Purdue Pharma. He has expertise in evaluating markets, entities, and business opportunities. New CEO for Molecular Imprints Mark Melliar-Smith, chief operating officer of nanoimprint lithography tool maker Molecular Imprints of Austin, Texas since April 2004, has been appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of the company following the retirement of cofounder, president and CEO Norman Schumaker. A graduate of Southampton University, UK, Melliar-Smith has served as president and CEO of International SEMATECH, chief technical officer of Lucent Technologies Microelectronics, and a venture partner with Austin Ventures.
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 start-up 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 the chemical processes used in nanofabrication. She is also coleader of an interdisciplinary research group studying the behavior of nanomechanical devices.
IOP medal for Stoneham The UK Institute of Physics (IOP) has awarded its 2006 Guthrie Medal to Marshall Stoneham of University College London for theoretical work on defects in solids, in particular the consequences for the electronic properties of materials such as diamond and Si. Stoneham aims to build a viable desktop quantum computer by 2010.
APS announces awards for 2006 The American Physical Society (APS) has announced its awards for 2006. 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”. The Keithley Award goes to Frances Hellman of the University of California, Berkeley for “using emerging micromachining techniques to significantly extend the range of calorimetry into the realm of nanoscale science, by construction of Si-based microcalorimeters capable of operating in extreme environments with unprecedented sensitivity”.
Fall 2005 MRS awards The Materials Research Society’s (MRS) 2005 Fall Meeting saw presentations for the following awards. The Von Hippel Award goes to MIT chemical engineering professor Robert S. Langer for “pioneering accomplishments in the science and application of biomaterials in drug delivery and tissue engineering, particularly in inventing the use of materials for protein and DNA delivery”. Langer’s research is credited with generating new medical products, creating new fields of biomaterials science, and inspiring research programs throughout the world. The MRS Medal goes to Reshef Tenne, head of the Department of Materials and Interfaces at Israel’s Weizmann Institute, for “realizing that nanoclusters of layered compound materials (e.g. MoS2, WS2) can be made to fold into hollow cage structures [inorganic fullerenes], in analogy to graphitic carbon”. After gaining a PhD in chemistry and physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976, Tenne spent three years at the Battelle Institute in Switzerland before joining the Weizmann Institute in 1979.
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.
Please send details of new appointments, honors, and awards to [email protected]
December 2005
51