IEEE Nanotechnolgy Newsletter - April 2006

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When I accepted to become the new editor of the "NTC Nanotechnology News"
newsletter in Januray 2006, little did I realize how formidable this task
would be. Fortunately, I received help from my predecessor, Gary Bernstein,
who did a very nice job in initiating this newsletter early 2003. Over the years,
Gary has created a very useful website at http://www.nd.edu/~ntcnews which I will
refer to quite often in the transition period.

My first newsletter will contain the same sections as Gary's but will also
include new ones. Trying to cover the entire field of nanorelated issues would make
this editor a full time job, a luxury which I cannot afford. I therefore opted to give
this newsletter the ultimate goal to be useful mostly to graduate and undergraduate students.
Even with nearly 20 years of experience in conducting research in the field of nanotechnology,
I found it rather difficult to keep track of all the major developments in the field.
I can hardly imagine how more overwhelming the task must seem to students just graduating from
college and with an interest in pursuing graduate studies in nanoscience or nanoengineering.
That is why the newsletter will include a new section called "Student Corner", especially
designed as an outreach to future generations of nanopioneers. I also added a section on
"Books on nanorelated materials and issues" where I plan to list (with the help of you, the readers)
the ever growing number of textbooks dedicated to nanoscience and nanoengineering.
In the section entitled "Nanoeducation", I would like to list the various short courses and
teaching efforts worldwide to educate not only students but also the much broader
community of scientists, engineers and teachers, especially at the high-school level.

With the increasing interest in the field of nanobiology and nanomedicine, there is growing
concern on the impact of the research efforts and discoveries in these specific areas on
the population at large, especially raising issues over health hazards. Therefore, I decided
to include a section in the newsletter which would oversee the "Impacts of Nanoscience and
Nanotechnology on Society".

Finally, I have my personal routine and favorites while trying
to keep track with the field which I will share in the section "Personal Favorites" of this newsletter.

Over the last two years, I have been involved in the organization of the IEEE Nano 2006 meeting
which will be held at the Westin hotel downtown Cincinnati from July 17-20, 2006.
Being the program co-chair for the meeting (with Supriyo Bandyopadhyay from Virginia Commonwealth
University as program chair) has kept me very busy over the last few months. At this time, I am pleased
to report that we have received over 300 abstracts and we have now notified all authors about the status
of acceptance of their paper. The program of the meeting should be available on the web by the end of May.
It will be posted at the website address http://www.ececs.uc.edu/~mcahay/Nano2006/index2006.html
On behalf of the program committee, I would like to invite you to attend this meeting which will
feature a keynote address by Nobel Laureate, Prof. John Fenn, with a talk entitled "Electrospray Wings
For Nanoscale Elephants". The meeting will also feature over 20 invited talks by experts in a wide range
of topics related to the 13 symposia to be included as part of the three day event. Another important
part of the meeting will happen on opening day, Monday July 17, when 10 short courses will be given
by various experts in nanotechnology. The fees to register for these short courses are rather low,
especially for students. All participants will be allowed to take two short courses for the price of one.
For a listing of the short courses, please go to http://www.ececs.uc.edu/~mcahay/Nano2006/shortcourses.html

This newsletter will keep the same outline in forthcoming issues, which I plan to release about every
three to four months. Some sections of the newsletter are intended to become useful glossaries and databases
on various topics. Since I can only dedicate so much of time in achieving these goals,
I will respectfully ask for your help by sending me your comments and any information which you
think would make this newsletter a very useful piece of information for all its readers.

I thank you in advance for your collaboration.

Sincerely yours,
Marc Cahay
marc.cahay@uc.edu