N&N Program Description

Lawrence Launches a Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (N&N) Program

In May 2003, Lawrence University was awarded a grant from the NSF-NSE Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) program. The one-year grant provided funding for the creation of a Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (N&N) program jointly overseen by Professors Karen Nordell (Chemistry), David Hall (Biochemistry), and Jeff Collett (Physics). The top priority of the N&N program is to make nanoscience and nanotechnology more visible to our undergraduate students by incorporating nanoscience topics, experiments, and activities into various introductory science courses in physics, chemistry, and biochemistry.

What's the BIG news about this small science?
Nanoscale science is an emerging branch of science that derives much of its power and potential from its cross-disciplinary character - a character that stems from the merging of many conventional scientific sub-disciplines with equally varied aspects of engineering, technology, and mathematics. This broad interdisciplinarity contributes much to the novelty of nanoscale science, and has the potential to generate strong interest among the nation's science and engineering students. Chemistry has been a central discipline in nanoscience and nanotechnology since its conception, and chemists are poised to provide much of the innovation and expertise for the field as it develops. In an article in the August 4, 2003 issue of Chemical and Engineering News entitled "Educating Chemists for the Future", Ronald Breslow highlighted the challenge of this interdisciplinarity saying, "Students who are trained as chemists will increasingly be working with physicists, biologists, materials scientists and engineers and less and less with groups that are only chemists." He went on to say, "If we want to juice up chemistry courses, we should tell students all the things that are left to do, not all the things that have been done." In this spirit of innovation and inspiration, the National Science Foundation, through its Nanoscale Science and Engineering (NSE) program, and the National Nanotechnology Initiative, have made nanoscience and nanotechnology a top priority for national efforts involving research, education, and broader societal implications. To quote Dr. Neal Lane, former director of the NSF and science and technology advisor to President Clinton, "If I were asked for an area of science and engineering that will most likely produce the breakthroughs of tomorrow, I would point to nanoscale science and engineering."

New Equipment Purchases
To support these new experiments and many others that have been used in laboratory courses for several years, funds from the NSF-NUE grant have purchased twelve new, fully portable laboratory workstations including Ocean Optics UV-vis spectrometers based on PC notebook computers. These new workstations are being used in many classrooms and laboratories providing students with a much richer learning experience. They have allowed students to collect and analyze data more easily and with more flexibility than was possible before. We are hoping to expand the capabilities of these workstations with additional software and experimental probes.

Additional Funding for the Program
In August 2003, we submitted proposal to the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation: Special Grants Program. The proposal was entitled, "Enhancing Educational Outreach Programs in Chemistry: Taking Nanoscience "On the Road"." Unfortunately, the proposal was not funded.

In late 2004, Karen Nordell, George Lisensky (Beloit College) and Craig Teague (Cornell College) were awarded an Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Faculty Career Enhancement grant ($3500) to support nanoscience-related collaborative efforts between the three schools.

Last updated February , 2006

  Department Site   •   Lawrence University