A new partnership between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Sandia National Laboratories, and a select group of leading
universities and corporations will present Rensselaer graduate students
with a host of new cutting-edge internship and research experiences.
Rensselaer and the other institutions signed a memorandum of
understanding in August to establish the National Institute for
Nano-Engineering, or NINE. The partnership has been driven by concerns
over the health of America’s science and engineering
education and capacity for innovation, as highlighted in the 2005
report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” from the
National Academies.
“This partnership allows Rensselaer to strengthen
existing ties and forge new relationships with global technology
leaders in industry, academia, and government,” said
Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson, who was an author of the
National Academies study. “NINE is a shining example of how
our government can reach out to academia and industry for the purpose
of energizing and educating young people in the sciences and
engineering, and in helping our nation maintain its leadership role in
the world economy.”
“Our successful and highly visible nanotechnology
center and our outstanding materials science program are the reasons
that we were invited to be a member of the prestigious NINE
partnership,” said Alan Cramb, dean of Rensselaer’s
School of Engineering. “Giving our faculty members and
students unfettered access to Sandia’s stellar research staff
and facilities will only strengthen Rensselaer’s reputation
as a nanotechnology leader and as one of the world’s leading
universities for engineering research and education.”
The goal of NINE is to broaden students’ education
through a unique team research experience by engaging in
multidisciplinary teams working on pre-competitive research in
leading-edge technical areas. Breakthrough discoveries in
nanoengineering are anticipated and students will gain rich technical
experience and breadth by collaborating with top institutions around
the country. NINE will also expose students to other key aspects of
science and engineering, including business, legal, political, and
social issues.
David Duquette, a professor at Rensselaer and head of the
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is overseeing the
school’s involvement in NINE. Duquette said NINE’s
focus on materials science in nanotechnology plays to
Rensselaer’s strengths, and will lead to exciting research
opportunities for students. Partner companies will share industry-level
nanotechnology and materials science challenges to NINE, which in turn
will recruit faculty and students from partner universities to
collaborate and research the topic at Sandia.
“Our students will be expected to spend a
considerable amount of time at Sandia, anywhere from three months to a
year,” Duquette said. “It will be an exciting
program for Rensselaer.”
Duquette said the program will likely grow over time and new
opportunities for Rensselaer faculty and students will emerge. This
summer marked the beginning of the NINE technical projects and an
initial education program at Sandia, in which two Rensselaer graduate
students participated. The NINE program also plans to reach out to
teachers and pre-college students to raise awareness about
nanotechnology and materials science engineering.
Sandia will oversee the partnership from its Albuquerque,
N.M., and Livermore, Calif., facilities. Sandia is a multiprogram
laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company,
for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security
Administration.
NINE could be a prototype of a national innovation hub for
engineering education and innovation analogous to what is going on
around the globe in other countries, Sandia said. The recently enacted
America COMPETES Act supports the establishment of Innovation
Institutes to address science and engineering discovery and education.
President Jackson recently applauded the passing of the
America COMPETES Act as a vital step for addressing the need of the
United States to sustain its national capacity for innovation. Jackson
has long warned of what she has dubbed a “Quiet
Crisis” in America — the threat to our
nation’s capacity to innovate due to reduced support for
research and the looming shortage in the nation’s science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce. The impending work
force shortfall results from a record number of retirements on the
horizon in these fields, and not enough students in the pipeline to
fill the vacancies.
According to Jackson, if the United States is to maintain its
leadership in science and technology, it will require a significant
increase in the number of people choosing to pursue careers in these
fields. She has urged a national focus on energy research as a focal
point to excite and encourage greater new interest and innovation.
Jackson said addressing the world’s energy needs in an
environmentally sustainable way is the central challenge of our time,
and holds the potential to invigorate today’s science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce in much the same way
the race to the moon propelled those fields in the 1960s.
Along with Rensselaer, the initial NINE members include Intel
Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., IBM, Lockheed Martin Corp., Corning Inc.,
Goodyear Tire and Rubber, University of Wisconsin, University of
California at Davis, University of Florida, Yale University, Harvard
University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Illinois,
Rice, Notre Dame, University of New Mexico, and Harvey Mudd College.
Inclusion in the partnership was by invitation only.