From: cryofan@mylinuxisp.com
Date: Fri Aug 30 2002 - 11:57:45 MDT
"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> said:
>
> On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Scott wrote:
>
> > I'm a senior in high school at the moment and have been looking at
> > colleges for nanotechnology in particular. The only school I found with
> > an actual nanotech major was the University of Washington. Has anyone
> > heard anything positive or negative about this particular major at this
> > particular school? Or even better, know of a good school that has a
> > quality program for growing fields such as nanotechnology?
>
> Wow Scott, someone on the extropian list brave enough to launch
> a newbie question -- good for you.
>
> I went to the U.W. (in the late '80's and early '90's) and consider
> it to be a very good school. The nanotech program, at least a
> few years ago (circa Y2K), seemed to be dominated by Dr. Viola Vogel.
> She, unfortunately, had not at that time done her basic homework with
> regard to nanotech (hadn't probably read either Nanosystems or
> Nanomedicine VI) and so had some serious misimpressions about
> what nanotech was or could be. That isn't to suggest one write
> the U.W. off, but just beware of the swamp.
>
> I'm aware of nanotech programs through the California Nanotech
> Institute (which presumably has some related "official" name)
> that are focused at UCSB and UCLA. They seem however have
> an excessive focus on molecular electronics (that isn't "bad"
> mind you, but its a very small subset of "nanotech"). There
> is also a lot of activity in Texas, but I think the emphasis
> there is on nanotubes.
Rice University in Houston, Texas has some people working on nanotech.
Smalley works there, of course. In fact, we recently interviewed for a job a
Rice PhD who had worked with Smalley on some nanotech-type papers while
getting his PhD. I looked at his publications list, and there was more than
nanotubes involved.
Like many of the nano researchers, he had a Chemistry undergrad degree, so,
Scott, if I were you, I would not bother with going to a school with a
nanotech program right now; just get good grades on your undergrad Chem
degree so you can get into a prestigious grad program for your PhD, as that
is where you can really get involved in nanotech. You might want to choose a
small school somewhere out in the boondocks--give you more time to study!
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