In October 2003, General Motors, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), NYSTAR, CAMP and the U.S. Department of Energy announced the completion of the first phase of a $1.37 million endeavor to improve the lost-foam casting process used at GM's Massena Powertrain plant.

In addition to annual funding that NYSTAR provides to CAMP, an $81,000 technology transfer grant from NYSTAR helped to enable CAMP to partner with Buffalo Wire Works to develop the prototype for the optical analysis technology used in the lost-foam casting process.

Through NYSTAR funding, and Clarkson's CAMP process development, Buffalo Wire Works was able to launch a start-up company, VisionWorks LLC. The new optical analysis technology enabled GM to achieve its goals of increased casting quality and efficiency.

Without question, technology transfer creates new businesses, fosters new industries, and helps develop new markets. The growth in technology commercialization, and the benefits that it can reap for institutions that create technologies and companies that license them, has also made the task of technology transfer more complex. NYSTAR's technology transfer goal is to facilitate the transfer of knowledge that could have direct economic value from universities to industry. Commercialization of technology is key to growing a successful high-technology economy in New York.

From left: Vice Provost / CAMP Director S.V. Babu, Clarkson University President Anthony Collins, Inger (Professor Giaever's wife), Nobel Laureate Professor Ivar Giaever, and Professor Egon Matijevic' (the Victor K. LaMer Chair in Colloid and Surface Science)

Nobel Laureate Professor Ivar Giaever Delivers Shipley Lectures at Clarkson University

Dr. Ivar Giaever, Institute Professor of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, presented the Ninth set of Shipley Distinguished Lectures at Clarkson University. He is a Norwegian-born American who pioneered the study of the behavior of organic molecules at solid surfaces and the interaction of cells with surfaces. In 1973 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Doctors Leo Esaki and Brian D. Josephson for their discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in solids.

Professor Giaever's lecture titled "The Nobel Prize and the Future of Science" offered a look at the future of science, new discoveries, and the role played by the Nobel Prize in scientific inquiry.

His other presentation on "Examining Cells in Tissue Culture Using Electrical Means" described a unique method (developed in his laboratory over the last decade) to quantify the behavior of cells in tissue cultures.

The Nobel Laureate's lectures were co-sponsored by Clarkson's Center for Advanced Materials Processing and the School of Arts and Sciences. The Shipley Distinguished Lecture Series was initiated in 1994 by a generous gift from Charles and Lucia Shipley through the Shipley Family Foundation. The purpose of the lecture series is to promote scholarly achievements at Clarkson by providing the opportunity for idea exchange and active learning, as well as exposing undergraduate and graduate students to the most prestigious speakers from all over the world.