*** 9615803 Warrington This grant provides funding to enable eight graduate students to attend and participate in the Engineering Foundation Workshop on the Commercialization of Microsystems `96. This workshop will focus on issues related to the commercialization of technologies emerging in the field of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The field has emerged over the past ten years, largely under NSF funding, and an industry totaling about $4 billion per year has grown based on the technology. But considerable additional growth is expected. The workshop discussions will focus on the barriers to continued commercialization of MEMS and to the lowering of these barriers. Students will be selected using a competitive process. This grant will enable graduate student participation in this workshop, thereby providing a broad exposure to commercialization issues in an area of emerging technology. This exposure should enable students to make greater contributions to the field and to the commercialization of the technology upon their graduation. The field is becoming a major employer of engineering graduates and should contribute very substantially to the creation of new jobs over the next 20 years. ***
