Clarkson's External Research Funding Exceeds $16.5 Million for Academic Year

Clarkson University Vice Provost for Research S.V. Babu has announced that the total external research funding for the 2003-04 academic year has exceeded $16.5 million. That figure represents more than a 250 percent increase in research dollars brought into the University over the last seven years.

"This is an enormous accomplishment and one that supports Clarkson in its pursuit of 'academic excellence' in all aspects," said Babu. "It was also achieved while undergraduate education and training remained central to Clarkson's mission."

"During our recently completed academic year, Clarkson faculty raised over $16.17 million in external research funding," Babu explained. "The Center for Advanced Materials Processing (CAMP) has received an additional $380,000 in membership fees and unrestricted research grants, bringing the
total to over $16.5 million. This is, by any measure, an unparalleled and superlative performance and our faculty deserves enormous credit for this achievement."

Among the grants received by some of the CAMP faculty this year was a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Army for ongoing obscurant smoke research conducted by Vice Provost Babu and CAMP researchers and Professors of Chemistry Richard Partch and Dan Goia; $1 million and $375,000 grants
both to Babu for CAMP administration and research and faculty development, respectively, from the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research; $450,000 Environmental Protection Agency grant to Bayard D. Clarkson Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Philip K. Hopke
for the development of advanced factor analysis methods for air particle source identification and apportionment; and $410,000 in grants from NSF and the U.S. Army to Professor Vladimir Privman, who has a joint appointment in the Departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his colleagues at the Center for Quantum Device Technology for quantum computing research.

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CAMP Takes Lead in U.S. Army-Industry Research on Obscurants

In 2003 CAMP Professors S.V. Babu, Dan Goia and Richard Partch commenced research on high aspect ratio nanoparticles for potential use as obscurants of infrared radiation. The funding (which totals 2.7 million research dollars) was secured through a House of Representatives Bill sponsored by Congressman John McHugh as a result of a proposal defining the relevant technological expertise of the two investigators. The requisite properties of the optimum composition, shape and size particles includes electrical conductivity, one dimension on the order of a few nanometers, and dispersibility as primary particles when dry. Professors Goia and Partch have already prepared several samples of potential obscurants (in their CAMP laboratories) by a combination of chemical and physical methods. Figures 1 and 2 show examples of flake and needle materials.

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Clarkson Professors Suni, Rasmussen, and Faber Receive Funding to Develop an Undergraduate Nanotechnology Curriculum

Clarkson University Professors Ian Suni, Don Rasmussen, and Brenton Faber have received a two-year, $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop three undergraduate curriculum modules in the emerging field of nanomaterials science and engineering.

"Introduction to Nanomaterials Science and Engineering" is a collaboration between CAMP Professors Ian Suni and Don Rasmussen in the Chemical Engineering Department, and Brenton Faber, professor of Technical Communications.

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