Award

Tevis Jacobs, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and material science at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering, received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to observe and measure nanoscale contact inside of an electron microscope-enabling for the first time visualization of the atomic structure of the component materials while they are in contact. The team's project will measure surface roughness of tiny particles and characterize the fundamental relationship between adhesion and roughness at small sizes.

Benjamin Hunt, assistant professor of physics and member of the Quantum Electronics Group at Carnegie Mellon University was awarded a prestigious $750,000 Early Career Grant from the Department of Energy to study how layering different two-dimensional crystals (such as graphene and the magnetic insulator CrSiTe3) can lead to new, emergent properties in the composite layered structure.

National Science Foundation (NSF) has made a $4.8M award to the University of Pittsburgh under the Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) program. Sergey Frolov will be the Director of new PIRE.  Hrvoje Petek, Michael Hatridge and David Pekker are other PQI co-PIs for this project. The duration of the program is 5 years.

This PIRE will establish a multidisciplinary partnership between universities, research centers and corporations in the U.S. and France, led by the University of Pittsburgh. The aim of the partnership is the discovery and investigation of materials that hold exceptional promise for fundamental quantum physics and quantum device engineering. In particular, the focus will be on hybrid materials which combine disparate materials kinds, such as semiconductors and superconductors, in a single structure. 

The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, a supporting organization of The Pittsburgh Foundation, has awarded eight grants totaling $1.8 million to support research at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, The Pennsylvania State University, Swarthmore College and University of Pennsylvania.

The Kaufman Scientific Advisory Board received 229 letters of intent from 30 academic institutions seeking funding in two categories: New Investigators and New Initiatives.

Noa Marom won a New Investigators Award, i.e., a grant of $150,000 for two years ($75,000 per year), for research on “Singlet Fission: Deriving Fundamental Insights from Computation.”

Michael Hatridge and Roger Mong won a New Initiatives Award, i.e., a grant of $300,000 for two years ($150,000 per year) for research on “Protecting Quantum Wires for Quantum Computing.”

The Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) has announced the recipients of 2017-2018 MCSI seed grant funding. John Keith is one of the four awardees, for his proposal entitled "Toward machine learning blueprints for greener chelants".  

MCSI developed the research seed grant program to provide faculty with funding support to allow students to participate in high-quality research, teaching, outreach and creative endeavors. The goals of the grants are: (1) seed funding to develop ideas to the point where external funding can be obtained; (2) awards to support scholarship in areas where external funding is extremely limited; (3) resources to introduce curricular innovations into the classroom; or (4) tools or techniques to encourage community outreach and education. The annual seed grant program engages a core team of researchers who are passionate about sustainability. Seed grants support graduate student and post-doctoral fellows on one-year research projects.

Among the 2017 Carnegie Science Awards honorees are Kevin P. Chen, who is the winner in the Innovation in Energy category, and Peyman Givi, who received an honorable mention in the University/Post-Secondary Educator category. The Carnegie Science Center established the awards program in 1997 to recognize and promote outstanding science and technology achievements in western Pennsylvania, and the winners will be honored May 12 at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.

Daniel Lambrecht has been selected to receive a Research Corporation for Science Advancement 2017 Cottrell Scholar Award based on his proposal entitled "Bridging Quantum Chemistry and Chemical Intuition to Characterize, Understand and Design New Chemical Sensor Materials." 

Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) announces it has named two-dozen top early career academic scientists as 2017 Cottrell Scholars.The designation comes with a $100,000 award for each recipient for research and teaching, for a total of $2.4 million. “The Cottrell Scholar (CS) program champions the very best early career teacher-scholars in chemistry, physics and astronomy by providing these significant discretionary awards,” said RCSA Senior Program Director Silvia Ronco.

Read more about the award here.

Giannis Mpourmpakis' proposal "Designing synthesizable, ligand-protected bimetallic nanoparticles and modernizing engineering curriculum through computational nanoscience " was recently selected for an NSF CAREER award. 

Although scientists can chemically synthesize metal nanoparticles (NPs) of different shapes and sizes, understanding of NP growth mechanisms affecting their final morphology and associated properties is limited. With the potential for NPs to impact fields from energy to medicine and the environment, determining with computer simulations the NP growth mechanisms and morphologies that can be synthesized in the lab is critical to advance NP application. 
Because this is a relatively new field, traditional core courses in science and engineering lack examples from the nanotechnology arena. In addition to improving the research, the award will enable Giannis Mpourmpakis and his students to modernize the traditional course of Chemical Thermodynamics by introducing animation material based on cutting-edge nanotechnology examples, and developing a nanoscale-inspired interactive computer game.