From silver anniversary to media, CU celebrates nanotech
By David Brand and Sarah Davidson
The actual dedication of Duffield Hall on Oct. 6 was only one event among many in a week of lectures, lunches and workshops celebrating Cornell's leadership in nanotechnology research and education.
The major tenant of the $58.5 million center is the Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF), now ensconced in the new Lester B. Knight Laboratory, with its 16,000-square-foot clean room. So it was only appropriate that the other major event of the week was the 25th anniversary of the founding of CNF, a National Science Foundation-funded national user facility for nanotechnology research and microfabrication.
The anniversary celebrations began on Oct. 6 and continued on Oct. 7 with talks by researchers and distinguished alumni, among them Irwin Jacobs '54, founder and CEO of Qualcomm Inc., and Jeff Hawkins '79, inventor of the Palm Pilot.
Speaking at Barnes Hall on Oct. 6, Jacobs warned that "we have to remain more innovative if we are going to generate jobs." An example, he said, was the cell phone, which holds the promise of new medical and educational uses, such as transmitting video by bringing materials into the classroom through high data rate connections.
Giving the closing address for the CNF celebrations on Oct. 7, also in Barnes Hall, Hawkins said of Duffield Hall: "We imagine new products that will benefit humankind. We imagine new manufacturing processes, a whole new world of the small and even a hope for new discoveries about the nature of life."
Earlier in the day, at the CNF anniversary luncheon in the Memorial Room, Willard Straight Hall, President Jeffrey S. Lehman had saluted Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering Joseph Ballantyne, who in 1977 led the faculty team that put together the original proposal that led to the creation of CNF and who later became its founding director.
Said Lehman: "Today as we celebrate CNF's anniversary, I want to thank Professor Ballantyne for his outstanding contribution and service. By opening the door to the very small so many years ago, and by his continued leadership, he has helped Cornell earn a very large distinction as the leading academic nanotechnology facility in the world."
Later in the week, on Oct. 8, it was the turn of another NSF-funded nanotechnology organization on campus to celebrate its founding. The Nanobiotechnology Center held its fifth annual symposium in Clark Hall with speakers including Director Barbara Baird, Edward Cox from Princeton University and Bruce Patton from Oregon Health and Science University.
The week began on Sunday, Oct. 3 with more than 25 journalists from around the country who arrived on campus for a two-day nanotechnology workshop sponsored by the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscience, a new institute headed by Robert Richardson, senior vice provost for research, who opened the event at a dinner at the Statler Hotel.
The workshop, organized by Research Projects Coordinator Lesley Yorke and the Cornell News Service, began Oct. 3 with a primer course, "Nanotechnology 101," during which journalists were introduced to the concepts of the world of the very small by Cornell faculty members Carl Batt, professor of food science, and George Malliaras, assistant professor of materials science and engineering. The journalists then actually entered the world of nanotechnology in the CNF clean room in Duffield Hall. Here, they were able to see for themselves how nanoscale devices are made by both the "top-down approach," which describes chiseling away at silicon to get to the nano size desired, as well as the "bottom-up approach," which involves laying down single molecules to build a device.
That evening, as the workshop attendees dined below the bones of a right whale at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, guest speaker and Nobel Laureate Horst L. Störmer of Columbia University discussed the importance of nanoscience research programs.
The workshop ended on Oct. 5 with two panel discussions, one on the environmental and social implications of nanoscience and the other on the roles of academia and the media in shaping public understanding of the technology. Members of the second panel included Curtis Suplee, director of the NSF Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, New York Times reporter Barnaby Feder and Bruce Lewenstein, associate professor of science communication. The moderator was Tommy Bruce, vice president for communications and media relations.
Ellen Simon, a writer for the Associated Press, viewed the two days as tremendously helpful. "This has been a great primer. It has really helped me to distinguish what is currently happening in nanotechnology -- and what technologies aren't out there yet," she said.
Originally published in the October 14, 2004 issue of Cornell Chronicle
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