Government, University, Industry Investments Combine to Deliver World-Class Nano Research at UMass Amherst
April 24, 2006
| Contact: | Ed Blaguszewski 413/545-0444 |
BOSTON – Creation of the Center of Hierarchical Manufacturing (CHM) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst culminates a decade of investment and achievement in nanotechnology research at the state’s flagship public research university.
More than 50 faculty from eight departments at UMass Amherst work in nanotechnology, and including funding announced today they have secured $54 million in research funds from government and industry since 1997. The CHM proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) was supported by a $200,000 seed grant from the UMass president’s Science and Technology Initiatives Fund. An additional $2 million in state matching funds from the John Adams Innovation Institute played a key role in the success of the proposal, which yielded a $16 million NSF award and designation as one of only 16 Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers in the nation.
UMass Amherst Chancellor John Lombardi said, “UMass Amherst’s emergence as one of the nation’s top nanotechnology centers rests on the skills and imagination of a superb team of faculty, students and staff in Amherst, and it recognizes the significance of the investment of the state, the university, private citizens, business and others in this campus’ achievement of a major scientific milestone.”
Two UMass Amherst faculty will direct the new center: James Watkins, professor of polymer science and engineering, and Mark Tuominen, professor of physics.
James Watkins, Director
Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering
413/545-2569, Watkins@polysci.umass.edu
Watkins’ research into nanoscale materials has included using supercritical fluids to create nanowires and capacitors for use in next generation computer chips and using self-organized organic materials as templates for nanostructure devices. He has been co-director of the university’s MassNanoTech Institute since its launch in 2004 and is co-director of the IGERT Nanotechnology Device and Innovation Program, which allows graduate students to earn a Ph.D. with emphasis in nanotechnology while receiving practical experience in developing new technologies for possible commercial applications.
Watkins received his undergraduate degree and then a master’s in chemical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He received a doctoral degree in polymer science and engineering from UMass Amherst in 1997. He has won a number of awards, including a CAREER Award from the NSF in 1997, a Packard Fellowship in 1998 and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2000.
Mark Tuominen, Co-Director
Professor of Physics
413/545-1944, tuominen@physics.umass.edu
Tuominen’s research focuses on the fabrication and physics of nanoscale devices and materials, including techniques that utilize self-assembling “nano-templates.” These templates allow metal to be applied to tiny devices with extreme precision and have a number of applications from nanomagnetic data storage to nanoelectronics to nanoscale optics.
Tuominen did his undergraduate work in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota, receiving a doctoral degree in physics from the same university in 1990. He has been co-director of the MassNanoTech Institute since its launch in 2004 and also co-directs the IGERT Nanotechnology Device and Innovation Program. He has been involved in numerous symposia on nanotechnology, including serving as the academic organizer of the NSF’s annual Nanoscale Science and Engineering grantee conferences and the Nanomagnetism Symposium Organizer for the Materials Research Society. His awards include an NSF Young Investigator Award, a Research Corporation Cottrell Fellowship Award, and the UMass TEACHnology and Natural Sciences and Mathematics Teaching Awards.
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