Department of ChemistryCMDITR - Center for Nanotechnology - CENTC - CPAC - JIN
The Center on Materials and Devices for Information Technology Research (CMDITR) is one of thirteen Science and Technology Centers funded by the National Science Foundation. Information technology ranks among the three largest components of the world economy, yet the chemistry of materials which enable information transfer is not widely appreciated. IT requirements in computing, telecommunications, transportation, and defense applications are growing rapidly. As a conseiquence, researchers must look to new materials and device concepts to anticipate the practical limits of Moore's law as well as bandwidth bottlenecks in telecommunications and the need to reinvent the data management infrastructure.
CMDITR, headquartered at the University of Washington, represents a consortium of major research universities: the University of Arizona, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland (Baltimore County), Cornell University, Norfolk State University, and the University of Central Florida. The Center numbers over 200 active participants, including 14 UW faculty and 80 UW graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates from six departments. Membership is dictated largely by participation in research activities in two core thrust areas: Electro-Optic and All-Optical Switching Materials and Devices (EO-AOS) and Light Sources and Organic Electronics (LSOE).
A Center approach to science enables students and faculty to ask big-picture questions and solve problems with interdisciplinary tools and perspectives. CMDITR contributes approximately $1.6M/year toward the training of graduate students and postdocs. Additionally, members partake of travel grants to visit partner campuses, share instrumentation facilities, interact with industry affiliates, mentor summer interns, and participate in educational and diversity enhancement programs. The Center’s coupling of research and education over a ten-year horizon will lead to the creation of a talented and diverse workforce capable of pushing the frontiers of high technology.
For more information visit: http://www.stc-mditr.org/
The Center for Nanotechnology offers an Optional Ph.D. Program in Nanotechnology, the first of its kind in the nation, providing graduate students with excellent interdisciplinary education experiences in nanoscale science and nanotechnology in 11 different departments including molecular biotechnology, bioengineering, electrical engineering and/or physics. Research includes interfacing surface/materials chemistry with problems in biochemistry/biotechnology, novel nanostructured materials, micro- and nano-electronics, electro-optics, new tools to non-invasively probe biological systems or materials with unprecedented nanoscale resolution or sensitivity, molecular machines.
Nanotech Fellowships offers up to 2 years of stipends supporting innovative graduate research projects in nanoscale science or nanotechnology through funding from the University of Washington Initiatives Fund (UIF). support for students to pursue research directed by advisors from different fields.
The Center for Enabling New Technologies through Catalysis (CENTC) draws together a group of investigators studying the activation of strong chemical bonds. Many of the scientific and technological advances of the 21st century will depend on new and improved syntheses of chemical compounds. 
Fundamental studies and commercial successes alike, from biology and medicine to information sciences, will require new materials with specifically tailored properties. It is increasingly important that chemical production use efficient and environmentally friendly syntheses, with effective utilization of available raw materials. Chemical syntheses of the future will require the ability to selectively activate and transform these usually unreactive strong chemical bonds. This center is dedicated to elucidating and applying the fundamental principles necessary for activation and transformation of strong chemical bonds such as C–H, C–C, C–O, C–N, N–H, and H–H bonds.
The Center for Process Analytical Chemistry (CPAC) was established in 1984 at the University of Washington as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC). CPAC is now a self-sustaining organization, with a successful consortium of sponsors recruited from all sectors of industry, as well as several government agencies. The CPAC program can be summarized by three main components: (1) the investigation of new measurement approaches based on the miniaturization of traditional instrumentation and the development of new sensors and non-traditional instruments based on fundamentally different sensing mechanisms not associated with traditional analytical chemistry techniques; (2) the investigation of issues related to the integration of process measurement with process modeling and control, including: process analyzer and process model robustness, improved analyzer data treatments, and cross-cultural education between measurement and control communities; and (3) the improvement of mechanisms for interaction, collaboration, and communication of Center activities, research programs, government agencies, and the general measurement and control community.
The University of Washington, Battelle Memorial Institute, and Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) in 2001 established the Joint Institute for Nanoscience. Although located at the University in Seattle, Washington, activities are conducted at both the University and PNNL. Both the university and PNNL have committed an annual basis, approximately $500,000 by each institution for support of the Joint Institute for Nanoscience. Most of this money will be awarded on an application basis with the aim of supporting research collaborations between PNNL and UW. Award applicants can seek funding for graduate student, postdoc or faculty salary, tuitions for grad students, travel or housing expenses.
Some CMDITR students