2009 Strategic Interest Call for Proposals: Hybrid Materials

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The Center for Emergent Materials (CEM) announces a call for proposals to the Seed Funding Program. The RFP for the 2009 Strategic Interest Call for Proposals: Hybrid Materials is available for download. The application deadline is 5:00 PM, Wednesday, July 1, 2009, with an anticipated start date on or about September 1, 2009.

Through the Seed Funding Program, NSF intends to provide flexibility for the Center to respond quickly and effectively to new opportunities beyond the current scope of the center. Direct ties of the proposed research with the existing Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) are not required. However, synergy with the mission of the CEM is expected.

The aim of the Strategic Interest Grant Program is to develop into areas of strategic interest to the materials community. The 2009 call focuses on the field of hybrid materials, broadly defined. The grants provide funds of up to $50,000 in direct costs to be expended over a 12-month period.

Potential applicants may contact the Seed Board Co-Chairs Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin (ejh@mps.ohio-state.edu, 614-247-4074) or Julia Meyer (jmeyer@mps.ohio-state.edu, 614-292-7995) for questions related to potential research activities.

The 2009 Rapid Response Grant Call for Proposals will be issued in the near future.

CEM faculty member Chris Hammel published in Nature

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Chris Hammel’s commentary titled “Imaging: Nanoscale MRI” was published in the April 2009 issue of the journal Nature in the section News & Views.

Abstract: Magnetic resonance imaging offers rich three-dimensional pictures, but with limited resolution. Imaging at the nanometre scale has now become possible using highly sensitive force-detection techniques.

Nature is the international weekly journal of science and has been published monthly since 1870. The full text is available here.

Middle School Students Explore Materials at CEM

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Trains that don’t touch the track? Bananas can be hammers? Metals can have memory?!? Middle school students investigated these phenomena and more during a morning of hands-on activities with CEM faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students on February 18, 2009. This visit to the CEM was part of the Breakfast of Science Champions, an Ohio State program that introduces students to science, math, and engineering, and the visit was the second hosted by the CEM this academic year. The students will return to campus in May to participate in a videoconference during which they will share what they learned about the CEM and materials science with other students.