Foresight Institute awards Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology

Oct. 13, 2003 — The Foresight Institute, a nonprofit nanotech think tank, awarded its 2003 Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology Saturday to University of California, Berkeley researchers Steven Louie and Marvin Cohen, and University of California, Los Angeles researcher Carlo Montemagno.

Louie and Cohen, who won the “theory” category, were recognized for their use of carbon nanotubes to create the building blocks of molecular electronics and new types of sensors. Cohen is also a founder of the nanotube startup Nanomix, and Louie is an adviser to the company.

Montemagno, who won the institute’s “experimental” category, is working on materials and devices that are engineered with the properties of systems you find in the biological world. His “end-game” is a device with “embedded intelligence,” and he said he’s about two years away from his first application and possible launch of a company based on a membrane that can filter water.

This is the 11th year that the Foresight has awarded the Feynman prize, named for physicist Richard Feynman, whose seminal 1959 speech, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” first outlined the possibilities of nanotechnology.

The Foresight Institute also awarded its Foresight Prize in Communication to Paul Holister and Tim Harper of Cientifica, whose nanotech newsletter TNT Weekly was recognized for fostering a better public understanding of molecular nanotechnology.

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