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| Dr. Kristen Kulinowski International Council on Nanotechnology |
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| Recorded: 5/3/06 | |
| Dr. Kristen Kulinowski is Director, International Council on Nanotechnology, and Executive Director for Education and Public Policy for the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, and a Faculty Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Rice University. She has studied how material structured on the nanometer length scale can be used to manipulate light through the creation of a "photonic band gap". PBG materials do for light what semiconductors do for electrons. Dr. Kulinowski has extensive experience in science education, particularly in developing innovative curricula at the undergraduate level. She worked in the D.C. office of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives on issues such as weapons of mass destruction, antiterrorism legislation, and domestic nuclear power security, and was responsible for shepherding through new legislation on the stockpiling of potassium iodide near nuclear power plants. Dr. Kulinowski earned her B.S. at Canisius College and her M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Rochester. The Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) at Rice University aims to shape nanoscience into a discipline with the relevance, triumphs, and vitality of a modern-day polymer science. Both fields have at their core a complex class of materials, are highly interdisciplinary enterprises, and have enormous potential for spawning technology. Unlike polymer science, however, nanoscience is in its infancy, and its maturation into a discipline to rival polymer science is unlikely to happen spontaneously. The CBEN will foster the development of this field through an integrated set of programs that aim to address the scientific, technological, environmental, human resource, commercialization, and societal barriers that hinder the transition from nanoscience to nanotechnology. The Center's research will focus on investigating and developing nanoscience at the "wet/dry" interface. Water, the most abundant solvent present on Earth, is of unique importance as the medium of life. The Center's research activities will explore this interface between nanomaterials and aqueous systems at multiple length scales, including interactions with solvents, biomolecules, cells, whole-organisms, and the environment. These explorations will form the basis for understanding the natural interactions that nanomaterials will experience outside the laboratory, and will also serve as foundational knowledge for designing biomolecular/nanomaterial interactions, solving bioengineering problems with nanoscale materials, and constructing nanoscale materials useful in solving environmental engineering problems. |
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