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Quantum leap in collaboration
PEOPLE & PLACES UPDATE
Italian recognition The highest award of the Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, the 2003 Losana Gold Medal, has been awarded to Thaddeus B. Massalski for his research on alloy phase diagrams and thermodynamics. Massalski is professor emeritus of materials science and engineering and physics at Carnegie Mellon University. A fellow of ASM International, The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, and the American Physical Society, he has also been coeditor of Progress in Materials Science since 1969. Election results The US National Academy of Engineering has elected 76 new members and 11 foreign associates. A number of industry leaders have been selected, including Young-Kai Chen, director of Bell Laboratories; Sunlin Chou, senior vice president of Intel; and Charles O. Holliday, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. John H. Perepezko, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Herbert Gleiter, Institute of Nanotechnology in Karlsruhe, Germany, are elected in recognition for their work on nanostructured materials. Manuel Elices of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain and Kenneth L. Reifsnider of the University of Connecticut are honored for their work on fracture mechanics and material systems lifetimes. Andrew J. Lovinger at the National Science Foundation and Ludwik Leibler of Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles, Paris are recognized for polymer research. Pake dies aged 79 George E. Pake, founder of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), has died after a prolonged illness. He led PARC from its inception in 1970 until 1978 and headed Xerox Corporate Research from 1978 to1986. Before joining Xerox, Pake held posts at Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis, where he became executive vice chancellor and provost. He served on the Science Advisory Committee during the Johnson and Nixon administrations and was awarded the National Medal of Science by Ronald Reagan.
Nanowires reap a reward
Chemistry winners announced
Peidong Yang of the University of California, Berkeley was presented with the Outstanding Young Investigator Award at the Material Research Society’s Spring Meeting in San Francisco. The honor recognizes Yang’s synthesis of nanowires with different compositions and properties, as well as the discovery of optically induced lasing in individual nanowires. In addition to controlled nanowire growth, Yang’s research group is developing methods of assembling nanowires into devices.
The 2004 American Chemical Society Awards were presented at the society’s Spring meeting in Anaheim. The Chemistry of Materials award went to Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University, while Mark A. Ratner of Northwestern University won the Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics. Photoresist and lithography pioneers C. Grant Willson of the University of Texas at Austin and Omkaram Nalamasu of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute also won prizes. Virgil Percec of the University of Pennsylvania received the Polymer Chemistry Award for developing synthesis methods for liquidcrystalline polymers and dendrimers.
Groundbreaking foundry Construction has officially begun on one of the centerpieces of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nanoscale research program. The Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will be one of five DOE research centers to be constructed over the next few years. The six-story, $85 million, 8779 m2 Molecular Foundry will house facilities for researchers from around the world to use. The focus of its work will be on the design, synthesis, and characterization of soft (biological and polymer) and hard (inorganic and microfabricated) materials and their integration into complex assemblies. The Molecular Foundry will add to Berkeley’s existing resources, including the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Advanced Light Source, and National Center for Electron Microscopy. “All will be instrumental in the revolution in science offered by the Molecular Foundry,” commented US Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham.
Cornell benefits from Kavli grant A new nanoscience institute is to be established at Cornell University with a $7.5 million grant from Fred Kavli and the Kavli Foundation. “This institute will give us the opportunity to engage multidisciplinary groups in exploration of emerging themes in nanoscale science and technology,” says Robert C. Richardson, vice provost for research and founding director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscale Science.
Funds for new research units The German Research Foundation (DFG) is to establish 14 new research units in various fields. The six-year programs will receive more than $24 million over the first three years. In the natural and engineering sciences, new units include one at the Walther-Meissner-Institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences on cuprate superconductors, research on the propagation of light in nonlinear optical media will be carried out at the University of Jena, and the University of Kaiserslautern will focus on economic and reliable bonding methods for composites.
Quantum leap in collaboration The UK has launched the Quantum Information Processing Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration under the direction of Andrew Briggs. Over the next five years, with $18 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and $0.9 million from the Ministry of Defence, the IRC will provide a focus for academic-industrial collaboration.
Star researchers join Rensselaer Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has appointed two new faculty members as part of its ‘Future Chips Constellation’. Shawn-Yu Lin and Christian M. Wetzel join the group of researchers focusing on optoelectronic and photonic systems. The ‘constellation’ is one of several faculty groupings being established in fields of strategic importance. Lin will move from Sandia National Laboratories in July, where he currently leads research efforts on photonic crystal devices for communication, energy, and defense applications. Wetzel, who has developed high-intensity green light-emitting diodes, joins Rensselaer from Uniroyal Optoelectronics.
Please send details of new appointments, honors, and awards to [email protected]
May 2004
59
Italian recognition The highest award of the Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, the 2003 Losana Gold Medal, has been awarded to Thaddeus B. Massalski for his research on alloy phase diagrams and thermodynamics. Massalski is professor emeritus of materials science and engineering and physics at Carnegie Mellon University. A fellow of ASM International, The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, and the American Physical Society, he has also been coeditor of Progress in Materials Science since 1969. Election results The US National Academy of Engineering has elected 76 new members and 11 foreign associates. A number of industry leaders have been selected, including Young-Kai Chen, director of Bell Laboratories; Sunlin Chou, senior vice president of Intel; and Charles O. Holliday, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. John H. Perepezko, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Herbert Gleiter, Institute of Nanotechnology in Karlsruhe, Germany, are elected in recognition for their work on nanostructured materials. Manuel Elices of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain and Kenneth L. Reifsnider of the University of Connecticut are honored for their work on fracture mechanics and material systems lifetimes. Andrew J. Lovinger at the National Science Foundation and Ludwik Leibler of Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles, Paris are recognized for polymer research. Pake dies aged 79 George E. Pake, founder of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), has died after a prolonged illness. He led PARC from its inception in 1970 until 1978 and headed Xerox Corporate Research from 1978 to1986. Before joining Xerox, Pake held posts at Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis, where he became executive vice chancellor and provost. He served on the Science Advisory Committee during the Johnson and Nixon administrations and was awarded the National Medal of Science by Ronald Reagan.
Nanowires reap a reward
Chemistry winners announced
Peidong Yang of the University of California, Berkeley was presented with the Outstanding Young Investigator Award at the Material Research Society’s Spring Meeting in San Francisco. The honor recognizes Yang’s synthesis of nanowires with different compositions and properties, as well as the discovery of optically induced lasing in individual nanowires. In addition to controlled nanowire growth, Yang’s research group is developing methods of assembling nanowires into devices.
The 2004 American Chemical Society Awards were presented at the society’s Spring meeting in Anaheim. The Chemistry of Materials award went to Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University, while Mark A. Ratner of Northwestern University won the Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics. Photoresist and lithography pioneers C. Grant Willson of the University of Texas at Austin and Omkaram Nalamasu of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute also won prizes. Virgil Percec of the University of Pennsylvania received the Polymer Chemistry Award for developing synthesis methods for liquidcrystalline polymers and dendrimers.
Groundbreaking foundry Construction has officially begun on one of the centerpieces of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nanoscale research program. The Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will be one of five DOE research centers to be constructed over the next few years. The six-story, $85 million, 8779 m2 Molecular Foundry will house facilities for researchers from around the world to use. The focus of its work will be on the design, synthesis, and characterization of soft (biological and polymer) and hard (inorganic and microfabricated) materials and their integration into complex assemblies. The Molecular Foundry will add to Berkeley’s existing resources, including the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Advanced Light Source, and National Center for Electron Microscopy. “All will be instrumental in the revolution in science offered by the Molecular Foundry,” commented US Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham.
Cornell benefits from Kavli grant A new nanoscience institute is to be established at Cornell University with a $7.5 million grant from Fred Kavli and the Kavli Foundation. “This institute will give us the opportunity to engage multidisciplinary groups in exploration of emerging themes in nanoscale science and technology,” says Robert C. Richardson, vice provost for research and founding director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscale Science.
Funds for new research units The German Research Foundation (DFG) is to establish 14 new research units in various fields. The six-year programs will receive more than $24 million over the first three years. In the natural and engineering sciences, new units include one at the Walther-Meissner-Institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences on cuprate superconductors, research on the propagation of light in nonlinear optical media will be carried out at the University of Jena, and the University of Kaiserslautern will focus on economic and reliable bonding methods for composites.
Quantum leap in collaboration The UK has launched the Quantum Information Processing Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration under the direction of Andrew Briggs. Over the next five years, with $18 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and $0.9 million from the Ministry of Defence, the IRC will provide a focus for academic-industrial collaboration.
Star researchers join Rensselaer Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has appointed two new faculty members as part of its ‘Future Chips Constellation’. Shawn-Yu Lin and Christian M. Wetzel join the group of researchers focusing on optoelectronic and photonic systems. The ‘constellation’ is one of several faculty groupings being established in fields of strategic importance. Lin will move from Sandia National Laboratories in July, where he currently leads research efforts on photonic crystal devices for communication, energy, and defense applications. Wetzel, who has developed high-intensity green light-emitting diodes, joins Rensselaer from Uniroyal Optoelectronics.
Please send details of new appointments, honors, and awards to [email protected]
May 2004
59