This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports interdisciplinary doctoral training in nanotechnology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The research and education activities span six science and engineering departments using a structure that ties advances in fundamental science to complementary coursework and practical experience in innovation and technology development. The program's intellectual merit and research emphasis is on the design, prototyping and market-oriented development of nanoscale devices through seamless integration of novel bottom-up processing schemes, including self-assembly, with conventional top-down approaches. Doctoral training is centered around three related research thrusts: nanoscale materials and processes; electronic applications; and biomedical and environmental applications. Specifically, IGERT students conduct research on the directed self-assembly of block copolymers, advanced lithography, novel deposition and metallization techniques, and their implementation in nanoelectronic devices, high-density data storage, biosensors and therapeutics. In addition to multidisciplinary technical, professional and product development training, the students team-train on annual Technical Challenge Projects that develop their ability to design and prototype technically and commercially feasible devices using nanotechnology. These projects include external research experiences at R&D facilities and fabrication centers located in the U.S. and abroad. Collaborators and advisors for the projects include TIAX and Lucent Technologies' Bell Laboratories. Additional activities focus on ethics, leadership and communication. The program's broader impacts include developing scientists and engineers that are comfortable working at disciplinary boundaries, possess a well-rounded mastery of nanoscience and engineering and have the ability to transform advances in basic science to functional materials and devices that can be commercialized to meet emerging technological and societal needs. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
provided twenty-seven outstanding graduate students with traineeship opportunities at the intersection of nanoscience research, nanofabrication technology and innovative product development from 2005 to 2011. The students’ cutting-edge interdisciplinary research projects involved mentoring and research guidance by twenty-one faculty members in five academic departments at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Their research resulted in more than seventy publications in prestigious journals including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ACS Nano, Advanced Materials, Nanoletters, Nature Chemistry and Nature Nanotechnology and in three U.S. patent filings. The trainees also disseminated the results of their work in nearly fifty presentations at technical meetings and conferences and participated in numerous outreach activities in local schools and in on-campus outreach activities for high school students. The interdisciplinary collaboration made possible by this IGERT program enabled new knowledge and discoveries related to the fabrication of nanoscale devices and devices layers via new process and materials developments. Technical areas of these research outcomes included nanopatterned and ultrahydrophobic surfaces for microfluidics, conformal metal and oxide coatings on nanostructured surfaces for microelectronic devices, quantum dot arrays for optoelectronics, and chemically functionalized nanoparticles for protein biosensors. The latter have been extended for use in detection schemes to discriminate benign vs. metastatic cancer. IGERT trainees also advanced the design of polymeric materials for alternative energy applications including solar cells. In collaborative projects at the intersection of physics and chemistry, IGERT trainees studied the shape and dynamics of lipid-bilayer vesicles in the presence of proteins that bind to the lipid membrane. The results provided insight into the structure of the membranes of living cells. These IGERT trainees and other students benefitted from courses offered by the IGERT program and the UMass Isenberg School of Management. Technology Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship addresses broad topics in innovation and entrepreneurship in the context of technical domains of mechanical, electrical, chemical, civil, and environmental engineering. The course attracts students from varied science, engineering, economics and business-focused disciplines and is open to upper-level undergraduate students within the Five Colleges, Inc. consortium (the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Amherst College and Hampshire College). Through varied course formats that include lectures, discussions, workshops, guest lecturers, and consultants from relevant fields, participants learn the basics of business concept development, business modeling, business plan structure and development, market analysis and strategy, intellectual property rights, sources of capital, cash flow management, financial modeling, technology innovation in society, the knowledge-driven economy, market research and marketing. Students in the IGERT program have also gained skills in communication, public speaking and team building. With this grounding in entrepreneurship, many of our trainees entered an annual business plan competition known as the Innovation Challenge. Teams involving IGERT trainees have consistently placed in the top three in the competition. In 2009, the IGERT student-led team won first place. In 2011, the IGERT students placed first in the first round competition. One of the IGERT teams was selected by the ASME NanoVentures Competition to compete in a national competition in Honolulu, Hawaii. A weekly seminar course, Nanotechnology: From Lab to Product, was developed specifically for our IGERT program but was offered to a wide spectrum of students. This interdisciplinary graduate seminar series explored how nanostructured materials and particles are transformed and integrated into functioning nanoscale devices for product-level systems and how they may serve in modern society and daily life toward human and economic development and improvement. Invited seminar guest speakers came from academia, companies of all sizes and stages of the life cycle, national laboratories, NSF-funded research centers, government agencies, and independent consultant experts. The goal was to provide trainees with an understanding of the inherent interdisciplinary nature of nanotechnology innovation and transformation through exposure to the pathways from scientific discovery at the nanoscale to technology implementation in the form of innovative new products. The series was popular with graduate students from all science and engineering departments and the technical discussions and exchanges were of sufficient depth to engage all attendees regardless of their disciplinary background.
