IGERT: Multiscale Phenomena in Soft Materials

Cuny City College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal describes an inter-institutional IGERT program in soft materials to be offered jointly at City College of CUNY and Columbia University, which are in close proximity. De Gennes defines soft materials as organic media that organize on supramolecular length scales via weak associative interactions. Examples include thin polymeric films for sensors, organic blends for electronic displays, and natural and artificial tissue, spanning the range from complex fluids to soft solids. They are intrinsically multi-scale, molecular to macroscopic. A stunning variety of structures and morphologies can emerge, enabling a wide range of new technologies, and all scales impact processing and use. The Ph.D. program will be built around joint seminars, an industrial internship, collaborative thesis research, and a core of joint course offerings, including two new laboratory courses. The research will be in three complementary areas: effects of confinement on polymer statics and dynamics, chemical and physical patterning, and multi-scale phenomena in bio-related materials. The proposed core curriculum will be taken in addition to the core disciplinary requirements in the student's major department. Our proposal is consistent with existing Ph.D. requirements for all five participating departments, and does not add in any way to the degree requirements or faculty teaching loads; the soft materials courses will satisfy existing elective requirements, but will enable the students to focus these electives within a coordinated program. The proposed collaborative program is unique in two respects: First, it leverages the intellectual and material resources of two neighboring, urban, public/private institutions with complementary faculty and diverse student bodies. Second, it creates a unique, synergistic environment for research and graduate education in a niche area that is at the heart of numerous technologies essential to industries based in the greater New York regional area. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the multidisciplinary backgrounds and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. In the fifth year of the program, awards are being made to twenty-one institutions for programs that collectively span the areas of science and engineering supported by NSF.