About CENTC

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The National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry established the Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI) Program to nurture innovative approaches to addressing intellectual challenges in basic chemical research and education with the potential for broad societal impact. CCIs are meant to provide the opportunity for ambitious groups of investigators to share a commitment toward solving a "big problem" in an atmosphere having a high tolerance for risk and within a structure permitting considerable agility. CENTC investigators are working together to tackle one of the most urgent and critical issues in the world today – the need for more efficient, inexpensive and environmentally friendly methods of producing chemicals and fuels.

Leadership
The Director of CENTC is Prof. Karen Goldberg of the University of Washington, Seattle. Major decisions for the Center are made by the Director, Prof. Maurice Brookhart of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Prof. William Jones of the University of Rochester who together form the CENTC Executive Committee. The Executive Committee also receives input from the CENTC External Advisory Board. The day-to-day operations of the Center are managed by Dr. Nadine Gruhn.

Partner Institutions
CENTC is located across thirteen North American university campuses and one national laboratory. The University of Washington is the lead institution where the Principal Investigator and staff are located.

Personnel
CENTC has 17 senior investigators located at the various partner institutions. These senior investigators collaborate on CENTC research projects with the help of over 60 graduate students, postdoctoral associates, undergraduate students, and high school students and teachers.

Collaborative Research Enhanced with Cyberinfrastructure
CENTC provides a highly integrated, interdisciplinary research environment. One of the challenges within CENTC is that the partners are located hundreds to thousands of miles from one another. CENTC relies heavily on cyberinfrastructure for communication due to the distributed nature of the Center. This use includes monthly center-wide videoconference meetings as well as frequent smaller group discussions and video chat meetings during the day-to-day operation of Center activities.

Center Commitment to Diversity
NSF's goal is to expand the numbers and diversity of individuals – women and men, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities – engaged in the science and engineering enterprise through increased participation of underrepresented groups and institutions in all NSF programs and activities. All CENTC institutions are equal-opportunity employers.

History
The NSF CCI program was originally implemented as the Chemical Bonding Centers Program.  Under Phase I of this program, The Center for Activating and Transforming Strong Bonds (CATSB) was formed (September 2004).  CATSB involved 13 faculty investigators at 8 institutions. When Phase II funding was granted, CATSB was renamed CENTC.