June 2, 2008 — The National Science Foundation (NSF) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN) at Northeastern University is pleased to announce that this year’s recipient of the Roger H. Grace Fellowship in Nanomanufacturing is Cihan Yilmaz. Yilmaz, a 2006 graduate with BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey with a GPA of 3.99/4.00, was ranked 1st in about 1,600 students in the college of Engineering at Yeditepe.
The award, which is a renewable one-year position with a stipend to work in the area nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing at CHN, will allow Yilmaz to study at Northeastern’s CHN, who is currently examining the directed assembly of nanoparticles.
Roger Grace, President of Roger Grace Associates, and Ahmed Busnaina, Ph.D., the director of CHN, will be announcing Yilmaz as the recipient of the award during the Nano Science & Technology Institute’s (NSTI) Nanotech 2008 Conference in Boston on Monday, June 2 at the Hynes Convention Center, Room 209, beginning at 1 p.m. ET.
“Being an alumnus of Northeastern University in both their undergraduate and graduate engineering schools, and a consultant in micro and nanotechnology commercialization for over 25 years, I have kept a watchful eye on the progress of the university as a player in the research and development area,” said Grace.
“Most recently, the university has captured two major National Science Foundation grants to create Engineering Research Centers, a significant accomplishment. The Center has caught my attention because of its focus on the commercialization of nanotechnology, which is of great importance to me and my firm. I am honored to make a contribution to support research students in this area in such a prestigious and important position and to have my friend and learned colleague, Professor Ahmed Busnaina, as their research advisor,” added Grace.
Professor Busnaia stated, “The CHN is well positioned to discover innovative answers to the wide-ranging challenges of nanomanufacturing and train scientists to bring these new techniques to industry. It is one of the very few research centers in the nation to focus solely on developing economically viable fabrication processes to bring inventions into commercial production, and do so more quickly than the usual multi-decade time frame. The future of nanomanufacturing will depend on a workforce well-educated in nanoscience and nanoengineering. Among the greatest challenges in nanotechnology is the ability to commercially produce devices that work at the nanoscale level, which is measured at one-billionth of a meter. If developed, these systems could catapult the field into a $1 trillion industry by 2015”.