University News
New Engineering Center to Transform Sensor Technology
The National Science Foundation has funded a multimillion-dollar engineering research center based at Princeton University that is expected to revolutionize sensor technology, yielding devices that have a unique ability to detect minute amounts of chemicals found in the atmosphere, emitted from factories or exhaled in human breath.
The goal of the research is to produce devices that are so low in cost and easy to use that they transform aspects of the way doctors care for patients, local agencies monitor air quality, governments guard against attack and scientists understand the evolution of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Core partner institutions with Princeton are the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Rice University, Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M University and the City College of New York. Funding for the center, which is expected to include industrial support in addition to the NSF funding, could exceed $40 million over 10 years. NSF funding started May 1 with $2.97 million for the first year.
The center — dubbed MIRTHE, for Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment — will combine the work of about 40 faculty members, 30 graduate students and 30 undergraduates from the six universities. The center also is collaborating with dozens of industrial partners to turn the technology into commercial products, and is working with several educational outreach partners, which will use MIRTHE's research as a vehicle for improving science and engineering education.
The work of the center will span from fundamental science to applied technology. At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, for example, Professor Terence Risby and colleagues are developing devices that allow doctors to diagnose and monitor kidney and liver disorders by measuring chemicals in a patient's breath. Other MIRTHE participants will explore sensors that monitor air quality or detect chemical weapons.
The center's deputy directors are Anthony Johnson, professor of physics and professor of computer science and electrical engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research at University of Maryland-Baltimore County, and Matthew Fraser, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.
A key technology enabling the center's work is the quantum cascade laser, which is named for the way the electrons "cascade" through thin layers of material stacked within the device. Gmachl, a member of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM), is a pioneer in creating quantum cascade lasers and is a recipient of a 2005 MacArthur "genius grant" in recognition of that work.
The major advantage of quantum cascade lasers is that they emit light in regions of the spectrum known as the mid-infrared. The ability to produce and detect these wavelengths allows scientists to "see" certain chemicals in the same way that sunlight and the human eye reveal everyday objects. "When viewed in the mid-infrared, the world is alive with chemicals like ammonia, carbon, methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and benzene," said Fraser. "The ability to detect or monitor these gases with a high degree of sensitivity provides important information about the processes that produced them."
An important aspect of MIRTHE is that it stresses both fundamental science and practical applications, said Alexey Belyanin, assistant professor of physics at Texas A&M University. "This center adopts a comprehensive, unifying approach that pushes forward each of the necessary ingredients for a sensor: infrared sources, detectors, circuits, interconnects — all while working in close collaboration with end users," he said.
A key mission of MIRTHE is to help ensure a competitive U.S. work force by educating students who carry forward the center's knowledge to industry, government and academia. The center seeks to make science attractive to a diverse population of students by demonstrating the direct relevance of technology in solving societal problems. MIRTHE will incorporate extensive efforts to engage college and K-12 students in hands-on science and engineering projects, with major outreach programs taking place at the City College of New York, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Princeton.
At the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, MIRTHE will partner with the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which is recognized nationally as a model for preparing high-achieving undergraduate students, particularly African Americans, for research careers in science and engineering.
The center builds on research connections that have existed for many years between the partner universities, each a recognized center of excellence in sensing and associated fields. "We are delighted to be partnering with Princeton and the other fine institutions in the engineering research center's critical work," said Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, which is contributing expertise in optical materials, mid-infrared sources and environmental science.
MIRTHE is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, one of several interdisciplinary centers located at universities across the United States. The centers are among the foundation's largest and most prestigious grants. The NSF has agreed to provide US$15 million in funding over five years, with the possibility of renewal for another five years. Through additional funding from corporate partners and other sources, the center is expected to conduct more than US$40 million in research and educational activities over 10 years.
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$10 Million Endows Gender Institute at Stanford
The Institute for Research on Women and Gender has been renamed the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research in recognition of a US$3 million gift from Graduate School of Business alumna Michelle R. Clayman. In addition to her gift, pledges of support from nine other members of the institute's national advisory panel have been matched with funds from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to establish a US$10 million endowment.
Clayman, who earned a master's degree in business administration at Stanford in 1979, is the founder and managing partner of New Amsterdam Partners, an institutional money management firm in New York City. In addition to serving as chair of the institute's national advisory panel, she is a member of the director's council for the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School and is a board director of Children of Bellevue, a nonprofit at the public Bellevue Hospital Center in New York.
Since Schiebinger, a professor of the history of science, came to Stanford in 2004 as the institute's director, the institute has focused on gender in the workplace, with an emphasis on issues related to science, technology and engineering. Schiebinger said she hopes that results of the institute's ongoing studies—which include examining why women leave technical jobs in Silicon Valley and the challenges facing dual-career academic couples—will help influence the way employers look at recruitment and retention issues and redefine the debate on work-life balance. The institute also is creating a website, aimed at women in the business community and their employers, to disseminate timely and credible research along relevant themes.
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UCLA School of Dentistry Receives $1 Million to Establish the Dr. Susumu Miyata Endowment for Educational and Cultural Exchange
The UCLA School of Dentistry has received a $1 million gift from Dr. Susumu Miyata, chairman of the board of trustees of Meikai University and Asahi University.
For the past 13 years, Miyata, a Japanese educational entrepreneur and philanthropist, has sponsored an educational exchange program for the students of the UCLA School of Dentistry and the dental schools at Meikai and Asahi Universities. This gift formally establishes the Dr. Susumu Miyata Endowment for Educational and Cultural Exchange, secures its future, and makes it possible to expand the program to include an exchange of faculty visits. The endowment will fund the travel and administrative costs of the UCLA School of Dentistry students and clinical and research faculty members who participate in the exchange.
Miyata's father, Dr. Keisaburo Miyata was a dentist, an inventor and the founder of Meikai and Asahi universities. The manager of his family's educational enterprises, and a social scientist by training, Susumu Miyata has been a lifelong advocate of the need to enhance international and intercultural understanding through "person-to-person diplomacy." The exchange program between UCLA and Meikai and Asahi universities was generated by the friendship of Dr. Henry Takei of the UCLA School of Dentistry, Dr. Hiroshi Kawazu of Meikai University and Miyata.
The first exchange of students took place in 1993, when five students each from the dental schools of Meikai and Asahi universities visited UCLA. One year later, five students and two faculty members from the UCLA School of Dentistry journeyed to Japan. Over time, the number of UCLA student participants has grown to 10 per year. To date, 199 students have participated in this exchange program, 128 from Meikai and Asahi universities and 71 from UCLA.
The first part of the annual exchange occurs over the course of 10 days in August when students from Meikai and Asahi universities visit UCLA. As a guest of part-time UCLA faculty member Dr. Takumi Kagawa, they have the opportunity to observe firsthand the challenges of running a private dental practice in Little Tokyo. The students also spend time with Dr. Ichiro Nishimura of the UCLA School of Dentistry's Weintraub Center for Reconstructive Biotechnology, who offers insights on the current state of dental research. Dr. Ronald Mito, associate dean of clinical dental sciences, provides the group with an overview of the U.S. dental education system. And, of course, the Japanese students take time for a Los Angeles Dodgers game and a visit to Disneyland.
The exchange is completed each academic year during spring break when a group of UCLA students and two members of the faculty travel to Japan to reunite with their Japanese counterparts. The students divide their time between Asahi University in Gifu and Meikai University in Tokyo, where they learn about the Japanese systems of health care and dental education. They also visit historical and cultural sites including Mt. Fuji and a Buddhist monastery as part of their immersion in Japanese culture.
In May 2005, Dean Park and a delegation of UCLA School of Dentistry faculty members traveled to Tokyo for a formal signing ceremony recognizing the establishment of the Dr. Susumu Miyata Endowment for Educational and Cultural Exchange.
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Department of Education Awards UTD's Jonsson School $506,000 for Graduate Student Fellowships
The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) has won a three-year, US$506,000 award from the United States Department of Education to fund graduate fellowships in computer science and software engineering.
The fellowships will provide need-based assistance for tuition and other expenses for four to six Ph.D. students over the period of the grant. The Jonsson School will provide matching funds as required by the Department of Education, which will assist another four Ph.D. students.
The federal funding comes from the Department of Education's Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program, whose objective is to increase the number of graduate students, researchers and faculty members in critical fields such as the sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering. The university's match of the GAANN funds was made possible by a major economic development project involving Texas Instruments, the State of Texas and The University of Texas System, through which UTD is to receive up to $300 million in public and private funds to expand and improve the Jonsson School.
"GAANN is a highly competitive program, which makes our selection for funding all the more gratifying," said Dr. Gopal Gupta, professor and associate head of computer science and one of six principal investigators, or grant recipients, for the award.
The other principal investigators, all of whom are in the Jonsson School, are Dr. D. T. Huynh, professor and head of computer science; Dr. Sook Kim, the school's assistant dean; Dr. Rym Mili, associate professor of computer science; Dr. Simeon Ntafos, professor of computer science; and Dr. Kang Zhang, professor of computer science.
According to Gupta, at least two members of the UTD computer science faculty were GAANN fellows during their graduate education – Dr. Jason Jue, associate professor, and Lawrence King, senior lecturer.
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Benzer Receives $500,000 Albany Medical Center Prize
Seymour Benzer, a California Institute of Technology neuroscientist, molecular biologist, and physicist who uncovered genetic links to behavior in fruit flies that today serve as the foundation for the study and treatment of human neurological diseases, has been named the recipient of the US$500,000 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.
In the 1960s, Benzer and his students demonstrated how mutations in single genes could have a radical effect on behavior in the fruit fly, Drosophila. The fly would later prove to be a model organism for the study of neurological disease, due to the remarkable degree of similarity between the fly and human genomes.
Benzer's seminal discoveries, which ran counter to the prevailing theory that environment was the primary factor in shaping human behavior, profoundly influenced a generation of scientists who, along with Benzer, identified the genetic basis for differences in circadian rhythm, courtship, learning, and memory in fruit flies. Heralded by the scientific community as the "father of neurogenetics," Benzer's pioneering work opened the field to exploration of models for specific neurodegenerative diseases of the human brain such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's chorea, Parkinson's, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).
Benzer is the James Griffin Boswell Professor of Neuroscience, Emeritus (Active), at Caltech. An octogenarian whose unconventional circadian rhythm has fueled all-night laboratory research sessions for more than half a century, Benzer is credited with founding the discipline of neurogenetics, defined broadly as the science of how genes control development and function of the nervous system and the brain, and influence behavior. Prior to pioneering this field, Benzer made his mark with monumental discoveries in molecular biology that bridged the gap between DNA and the fine structure of the gene, which helped to pave the way for the Human Genome Project, an effort to map and sequence every one of the three billion letters in the human genome.
In addition to honoring Benzer and his work, this year's prize ceremony paid tribute to Morris "Marty" Silverman, founder of the Albany Medical Center Prize, who died in January 2006 at the age of 93. Silverman founded the Albany Prize in November 2000 with a $50 million gift commitment to Albany Medical Center. A New York City businessman and philanthropist, born in Troy, N.Y., and educated in nearby Albany, Silverman succeeded in realizing his dream to have the prize widely recognized as " America's Nobel."
The Albany Medical Center Prize is the largest prize in medicine in the United States and worldwide is second only to the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. The annual prize—announced each spring—was created to encourage and recognize extraordinary and sustained contributions to improving health care and promoting biomedical research with translational benefits applied to improved patient care.
Benzer was selected for the Albany Medical Center Prize for his entire body of scientific work, which spans more than half a century and has incorporated the disciplines of solid-state physics, molecular biology, and neurogenetics. In the 1950s, using mutations in a virus that devours bacteria, Benzer made the seminal discovery that a single gene could be cut and dissected into many parts, which would help lay the groundwork for the explosion of genetic mapping and genetic engineering that now dominate biology.
Albany Medical Center is one of only 125 academic health sciences centers in the nation and the only such health care institution in northeastern New York.
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Lemelson-MIT Awards Prizes for Innovation
Representatives of The Lemelson-MIT Program announced that its $500,000 prize — the largest cash prize given in the United States for invention — will be presented to James Fergason, whose work with liquid crystals paved the way for multiple innovations, including digital watches and computer monitors.
The US$100,000 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award will go to Dr. Sidney Pestka, chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, for his seminal work on interferons.
In 1958, Fergason started his work at Westinghouse Research Laboratories, where he began experimenting with liquid crystals. Although he neither discovered liquid crystals nor was the first to experiment with them, he said he was "the first guy who saw what they were really good for."
Now Fergason holds more than 130 U.S. patents and more than 500 foreign patents. His work paved the way for digital watches, mood rings and computer monitors, among other things.
In 2001, Fergason founded Fergason Patent Properties. The company is currently developing three new liquid crystal display (LCD)-based technologies.
In addition to his impact on today's consumer electronics industry, Fergason also champions the interests of independent inventors.
The secretary of commerce appointed Fergason to the first Patent Public Advisory Committee in 2000. He advised the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on policy and operational issues, and he helped develop a quality improvement program that is still in effect today.
Meanwhile, Pestka's work led to groundbreaking treatments for chronic hepatitis B and C, multiple sclerosis and some cancers.
Dr. Harold L. Paz, former dean of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J., considers Pestka's work to be "a critical catalyst in the development of the biotechnology industry."
Both Fergason and Pestka will receive their awards today during a private ceremony at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
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John Powers Chosen to Lead Stanford Management Company
John F. Powers, a managing director and the director of research at Offit Hall Capital Management, has been named president and chief executive officer of the Stanford Management Company (SMC). Powers, who holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, will succeed Mike McCaffery, who announced at the end of last year he was leaving the post to form his own firm. Powers will begin his new duties on June 26.
Powers chairs the Offit Hall Investment Committee. Prior to his tenure at Offit Hall, he was director of institutional sales and research and served as a member of the executive committee at Robertson Stephens, a San Francisco investment bank.
Powers holds a bachelor's degree from Cornell University in addition to his Stanford MBA.
SMC was established in 1991 to manage Stanford's financial and real estate assets. SMC is a division of the university with oversight by a board of directors appointed by the university Board of Trustees. SMC oversees approximately $15 billion of endowment and trust assets, temporarily invested expendable funds and commercial real estate investments. SMC's work supports Stanford's research and teaching mission.
Offit Hall Capital Management LLC is an investment advisory firm that builds and manages portfolios comprised of independent outside managers for a wide range of investors: individuals, families and institutions. The firm manages and oversees diversified assets in excess of $19 billion from offices in San Francisco and New York City.
