Conference Across MRSEC-PREM Schools (CAMPS) a Big Success

The Conference Across MRSEC-PREM Schools, CAMPS, was a student-led initiative sponsored by University of California – Santa Barbara (UCSB) and The Ohio State University (OSU) MRSECs with the aim of taking advantage of the wide MRSEC-PREM network to benefit all participating institutes’ students and faculty. The conference was held at OSU on October 13 and 14, 2022. Given the collaborative spirit that MRSEC instills in us, we found that it is imperative to expand upon this spirit to become cross-institutional and benefit from each other’s knowledge, network, and industry connections.

A team of three graduate students, one from OSU and two from UCSB, organized and emceed the workshop. The students structured the workshop to focus one day on careers in academia and a second day on careers in industry and invited 8 scientists to share their research, soft skills, and work experience with the students. Participants actively and enthusiastically engaged in networking opportunities with their peers and with the speakers as well as presented posters during the workshop. As one participant says, “I enjoyed having more networking time with the industry professionals, university faculty, and other participants. Being an undergraduate it was an amazing opportunity to speak with Master and Ph.D. students from other universities which I do not get to do often if at all.”

The CAMPS workshop welcomed 50 students from 27 institutions, 10 of which were MRSEC sites and 9 were PREM sites. One of the participants nicely summarized the diversity of the workshop, “I am also happy that participants of this conference is a very diverse group. The group of participants is diverse and inclusive in terms of degree (PhDs, graduate students, and undergraduate students), ethnicity, and gender. It is impressive (and not easy) for an event to be organized to such diversity and inclusiveness.” Given the overwhelming success of this National Science Foundation, NSF, funded workshop, there is discussion for strategies to embed this workshop as part of the MRSEC and PREM programs for future students.

Faculty Research Initiative Video Series: Nandini Trivedi

How is a collection of electrons like a society? Nandini Trivedi, professor of physics in the CEM, says in both cases, individuals act differently in a group than they do alone. She studies these interactions in electrons, with an eye to their beneficial practical applications, such as the dissipationless transmission of electricity through superconductivity.

Watch her video here.

2022 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program Request for Proposals

We are pleased to announce the 2022-2023 Materials Research Seed Grant Program Request for Proposals (RFP). This enhanced seed program leverages resources and best practices of the Center for Emergent Materials (CEM), an NSF MRSEC; the Center for Exploration of Novel Complex Materials (ENCOMM); and the Institute for Materials Research (IMR).

The three funding tiers of the OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program offered are:

Proto-IRG Grants
Proto-IRG Grants provide funds up to $100,000/year per award in direct costs, require one Principal Investigator (PI) and two Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs), and may have unfunded collaborators with the goal of forming new Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) within the CEM, a National Science Foundation (NSF) supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).  These proposals should fall within the program scope of the Division of Materials Research at the NSF.  We invite proposers to communicate with CEM representatives (https://cem.osu.edu/) to identify competitive topics.

Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants
MTBGs provide funds up to $70,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI and one Co-PI, and may have unfunded collaborators, with the goal of forming multidisciplinary materials research teams that can compete effectively for federal block-funding opportunities, such as the NSF MRSEC program.

Exploratory Materials Research Grants
EMRGs provide funds up to $50,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI, and may have Co-PIs and/or unfunded collaborators, with the goal of enabling nascent and innovative materials research to emerge to the point of being competitive for external funding.  EMRGs, while open to all faculty, emphasizes support of pre-tenure faculty members.

Key Dates:

  • Request for Proposals Issued: Monday, October 24, 2022
  • MRSGP Virtual Open House: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 4:00 PM ET
  • Letters of Intent Due: Monday, January 9, 2023 at 5:00 PM ET
  • Notice of MRSGP Appropriateness: Monday, January 16, 2023
  • Proto-IRG and Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants tiers only – Mandatory Team Proposal Presentations: Wednesday, January 25, February 1, and February 8, 2023
    • 4:00-5:00 PM, Physics Research Building, Room 4138
  • Proposals Due (All Funding Tiers): Monday, March 6, 2023 at 5:00 PM ET
  • Awards Announced (anticipated): Friday, August 26, 2023
  • Funded Projects Start Date (anticipated): Friday, September 1, 2023 (12-month project period)

Have a question? Please contact IMR Proposal Development Specialist Joanna Gardner, at gardner.306@osu.edu , or visit our MRSGP webpage.

 

2022 Workshop: Topological Electrons

Dear Colleagues,

We are excited to announce an in-person conference, “Topological Quantum Electrons Interacting In-person”, to be held in beautiful Quy Nhon, Vietnam from July 10-16, 2022.

https://www.icisequynhon.com/conferences/2022/topological/index.html

The conference will be preceded by a 1-day summer school for students, postdocs, and other junior participants at the conference location (ICISE) on Sunday, July 10th.

A list of confirmed speakers and other information is available on the various tabs of the website above.  Some registered participants will also be chosen to give talks.

We would appreciate it if you could distribute this email and the attached flyer as broadly as possible to those in your research circle, department, and institute who may have an interest in this conference.

Registration, lodging details, and logistical information are on the link above and in the attached flyer: Conference_flyer_2022

We hope to see many of you and your group members in Quy Nhon this July!

Sincerely yours,

Nurit Avraham

Greg Fiete

Ady Stern

Tran Minh Tien

Jean Tran Thanh Van