Holbrook opens BuckeyeThon
	Beneath a banner that reads "For every child, for every reason,"President Karen Holbrook offers a few words of inspiration before the dancers hit the floor in the Feb. 1 BuckeyeThon.
Photos by Jo McCulty Called the "Party With a Purpose," the BuckeyeThon, a 14-hour dance marathon held in the Ohio Union Ballrooms, benefits the Behavioral Health Services department of Children's Hospital in Columbus. Approximately 80 students participated and helped raise more than $27,000 for Children's Hospital.

Grant funds new nanotechnology program

By Pam Frost Gorder, Research Communications

With a $2.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Ohio State is set to launch an educational program to train the experts who will one day help make nanotechnology a practical reality.

The five-year grant, part of NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, unites four Ohio State research centers that were already working on various aspects of micro- and nanotechnology, to create an educational program of unusual breadth and depth.

L. James Lee, professor of chemical engineering, Helen C. Kurtz Chair of Chemical Engineering, and director of Ohio State's Center for Advanced Polymer and Composite Engineering, will lead the new program, titled Molecular Engineering of Microdevices (IGERT-MEMD).

Researchers have been working for years to develop working devices on scales as small as a millionth of a meter (microtechnology) and a billionth of a meter (nanotechnology), but the challenges of developing such technology commercially are immense, Lee explained.

"This program will address those challenges by integrating all the fundamental aspects of creating micro- and nanotechnologies -- the structure of materials, design and fabrication of devices, and their applications in industry," Lee said.

"The sheer scope makes it impossible for any single research center or academic department to consider this challenge. We proposed to develop a close collaboration between four multidisciplinary research centers, industrial partners, and national laboratories to accomplish these goals," he added.

The research centers are headed by Lee and four other key personnel who are co-principal investigators on the grant:

• Center for Advanced Polymer and Composite Engineering (CAPCE), Lee. With its focus application-oriented research, CAPCE currently partners with more than 20 commercial companies worldwide to create new materials from advanced plastics and hybrid materials. The center hosts seven laboratory facilities that are capable of the same manufacturing and materials testing jobs done in industry every day.

• Center for Industrial Sensors and Measurements (CISM), Hendrik Verweij, professor of materials science and engineering and Orton Chair in Ceramic Engineering, director, and Prabir Dutta, Robert K. Fox Professor of Chemistry, deputy director. Verweij also serves as the co-director of the IGERT-MEMD program. Unlike other sensor laboratories in the United States, CISM specializes in sensors made from materials other than silicon, such as ceramics and polymers. Researchers at its extensive facilities have already begun developing artificial intelligence and neural-net software for analysis of gas streams, and will expand their efforts to include the development and testing of sensors for automotive, biomedical and coal combustion applications.

• Center for Automotive Research and Intelligent Transportation (CAR-IT), Giorgio Rizzoni, professor of mechanical engineering and Ford Chair in Electromechanical Systems, director. CAR-IT holds research partnerships with nearly every major automobile manufacturer in the world. With its extensive laboratories for engine and vehicle analysis, fluid mechanics and combustion, and electronics and sensors testing, the center is well suited to test new environmental applications of micro- and nanotechnology, such as cleaning contaminants from automobile exhaust.

• Biomedical Engineering Center (BME) and Ohio MicroMD Laboratory, Andreas F. von Recum, associate dean in the College of Veterinary Medicine and professor of experimental surgery, oral biology, and biomedical engineering, director. The BME has focused its efforts on developing micro- and nano-devices for biomedical applications, including targeted medicine delivery and improved medical testing. Its linkage to MicroMD lets the BME combine the processing of silicon, ceramics and polymers with access to biological components, such as engineered nucleic acids and proteins.

The new IGERT grant will support doctoral-level training of 30 graduate students, who will build their curriculum from courses at two or more participating centers. In addition, each student will perform an internship at one of the University's industrial partners or a national laboratory. According to the NSF, students are to emerge from the IGERT-MEMD program with the "multidisciplinary skills and global awareness needed to promote broad impacts on society."

IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating American Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the multidisciplinary backgrounds and the technical, professional and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to spark a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.

In total, NSF awarded 17 IGERT grants this year, all ranging between $2.7 million and $2.9 million. The grants established programs for public policy, high-performance computing, and forestry conservation, among other areas of research.

Yedavalli elected IEEE fellow

By Pam Frost Gorder, Research Communications

An Ohio State professor has been given one of the highest honors of a professional engineering organization: election to the rank of Fellow by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Among his accomplishments, Rama Yedavalli, professor of aerospace engineering and aviation, recently revitalized a dormant area in engineering research: the stability analysis of uncertain systems. This research has far-reaching implications for the design of control systems in applications such as aircraft and spacecraft control, as well as control of other mechanical, electrical and chemical systems.

Rama Yedavalli

"Until recently, researchers were of the opinion that these problems were just too computationally intensive," Yedavalli explained. He showed that these problems are indeed solvable in a simple, computationally tractable way and presented innovative algorithms that have enabled engineers to design control systems quickly and inexpensively.

"We in aerospace engineering are pleased that Professor Yedavalli's contributions to robust stability analysis of linear systems have been recognized by the academic community, affirming what we have already known about his excellent scholarship," said Michael Foster, section head for aerospace engineering in Ohio State's Department of Aerospace Engineering and Aviation. "Both our undergraduate and graduate students benefit greatly from his teaching and research in modern control theory."

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers provides recognition to individuals whose "contributions to the art and science of electro- and information technologies worldwide have improved the quality of daily life." In any one year, no more than 0.1 percent of IEEE members may receive this honor.

According to his official citation, Yedavalli was elected IEEE Fellow for his "contributions to parameter robustness analysis of state space systems and robust control of linear uncertain systems."