The National Science Foundation today announced continuing funding of $19.9 million over five years to the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR). The grant will support the work of five interdisciplinary research groups, four seed projects, seven major shared experimental facilities and three outreach programs in the center, which is one of 29 such national centers supported by the agency.

At the same time, the office of New York Gov. George Pataki announced state matching funds for the CCMR, tied to the NSF grant, of $400,000 a year over five years to support a new industrial outreach program for small businesses.

"New York has made a wise investment in research facilities at Cornell," Gov. Pataki said in a statement. "It has become increasingly clear that such investments are paying off in terms of leveraging additional federal research dollars. The cutting-edge research being conducted at Cornell will help position New York to secure the high-tech, high-salary jobs of the future."

Cornell President Hunter Rawlings has identified advanced materials research as one of three "strategic enabling research areas" – together with genomics and integrative molecular

biology and information sciences – for which Cornell will need to attract major support in order to remain a top-ranked university.

The NSF award is part of a $134 million funding package for 11 existing materials centers, including Cornell's, and four newly established centers. All of the centers, including CCMR, work closely with industry to identify and address opportunities and obstacles for materials development. Much of the work takes place at the nanoscale level (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter, or the space occupied by three silicon atoms), requiring specialized equipment and expertise to create new properties that could potentially revolutionize consumer and industrial products, the agency stated.

"The products of modern materials research impact our economy and our everyday lives," said Thomas Weber, director of the NSF's Division of Materials Research, in announcing the awards. Each of the five interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs) at CCMR that will be supported by the NSF funding consists of between seven and nine primary faculty members plus postdoctoral associates and graduate and undergraduate students. The groups meet weekly or twice monthly to discuss research findings and possible collaboration in such areas as nanostructured materials, nanoscale polymer-inorganic hybrid materials and surfaces and thin-film interfaces of oxide glasses.

In addition, four seed projects in new materials will be funded by the NSF grant, all of which, like their predecessors, could advance to join fully funded IRGs if the NSF grant is renewed after five years.

"The activities of the center increasingly are tied to an idea emerging on the international scene that if you also want to advance the cause of biology, then continuing strong support of the engineering and physical sciences through modern materials research is essential," said Neil Ashcroft, professor and director of CCMR.

In outreach, the agency grant will continue funding of the CCMR's active K-12 program in which Cornell researchers and graduate students host activities and visit schools to involve children and teachers in science and engineering. The new grant also will include funding for an evaluation of science outreach programs. Deborah Trumbull, Cornell associate professor of education, will provide an analysis of CCMR evaluations and surveys in order to refine and tailor the center's outreach programs. Said Ashcroft, "We must know if K-12 outreach is working."

The NSF funds also will enable continuation of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, which brings up to 40 students a summer to the Cornell campus to work with researchers. This program now has been expanded to include teachers in a six-week summer workshop.

The New York state funds, said Helene Schember, associate director of CCMR, will enable the hiring of an industrial outreach officer who will work with small upstate New York companies. "The purpose of this state funding is to help keep and attract industry in New York," she said.

The center is hoping to link up faculty with small concerns and provide aid both in research and in processing of materials, which would be beyond the financial resources of many small concerns. "We have a very strong nanostructures group both in the traditional sense and in the area of polymers and nanocomposites, both of which are of great interest to industry," Schember said. "The idea is that although we are not a manufacturing facility, we can assist in exploring some of the critical initial steps," she noted.