New Grant: NUE: A Nanotechnology Certificate Program for Engineering Undergraduates

Nanotechnology is an area of growing interest among the scientific community in the United States. With powerful applications in the worlds of both biology and electronics, this will be an important area of research in the 21st century. In order to help create engineers to fill this new demand, the Epistemic Games Group and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will collaborate to create a Nanotechnology Certificate for undergraduates. This certificate will offer formal training in nanoscale science, engineering and technology (NSET) to students at the B.S. level and provide formal acknowledgment of this training.

New material concerning nanotechnology and the societal implications thereof will be introduced into several pre-existing courses, and two new courses will be created dedicated solely to them. The Epistemic Games Group will work with co-investigators in the College of Engineering to develop the game Nephrotex: The Dialysis Redesign Project, which will be a core component of one of the new nanotechnology courses.

The Principal Investigator and Co-PI on this grant are Dr. Wendy Crone, Dr. Naomi Chesler, Dr. Kristyn Masters, Dr. David Shaffer, and Dr. Kevin Turner.  The grant, for $199,961, will begin on January 1, 2010 through the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Education and Centers Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education unit.  The summary of the grant proposal can be viewed here.