from the Go-Huskies! dept.
In a press release issued on 24 July 2000, the University of Washington (Seattle) announced it is launching the nation's first doctoral degree program in nanotechnology. The UW already operates the Center for Nanotechnology.
The new program will put in place a Ph.D. nanotechnology track tied closely to other science disciplines. Nine departments will take part, and students will earn concurrent degrees in nanotechnology and in a discipline of science, engineering or medicine. The effort is being funded by a $2.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation's Integrative Graduate Education Research Training program.
More about the program can also be found in this article from the Bellevue, Washington Eastside Journal (7 August 2000).
More from the press release:
The groundwork for the new program has already been laid with the UW's Center for Nanotechnology. Founded in 1997 with $2 million from a UW initiative designed to encourage interdisciplinary educational pursuits, the center has established close working relationships among otherwise separate departments using nanotechnology as a unifying theme.
As a result, the faculty and academic infrastructure to support the new doctorate already exist . . . The bulk of the NSF money, awarded in $500,000 increments over five years, will pay for student fellowships that will allow Ph.D. candidates to pursue in-depth nanotechnology research. Part of the grant will fund symposia and conferences to encourage collaboration, and an additional one-time $200,000 award will go toward purchasing additional equipment for the university's NanoTech User Facility, where graduate and undergraduate students receive hands-on instruction in operating state-of-the-art equipment.
The end goal . . . is to broaden students' training and prepare them to seize the future. Nanotechnology is multi-disciplinary, delving into the corners of the atomic world where sciences overlap, often exploring uncharted ground.
Participating departments include biochemistry, bioengineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, materials science and engineering, molecular biotechnology, physics, and physiology and biophysics.
