Speakers and Theme Chairs

Nathan Baker (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Nathan A. Baker, Ph.D. is currently the Chief Scientist for Signature Sciences at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. After his research training at UC San Diego, he joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Washington University in St. Louis in 2002 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2006. In June 2010, he moved to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as Chief Scientist for Signature Science. Dr. Baker is currently Lead for the National Cancer Institute caBIG Nanotechnology Working Group, Chair for the ASTM E56.01 Subcommittee on Nanotechnology Informatics, and Editorial Board Member for the Biophysical Journal. His research is in the area of computational biophysics, nanotechnology, and informatics. He is actively involved in the development of new algorithms and software for computational biology and modeling in support of these research projects, including development of the APBS and PDB2PQR biomolecular electrostatics software packages (http://www.poissonboltzmann.org/) and the NanoParticle Ontology (http://www.nano-ontology.org/).

Amy E. W. Bednar (US Army Engineer Research and Development Center)

Dr. Amy E. W. Bednar is a Research Mathematician for the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Vicksburg, MS. She performs numeric analyses and develops numeric models. Dr. Bednar earned a bachelor’s in mathematics with an emphasis in applied mathematics and English from Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL, in 2000. She earned a master’s and doctorate in mathematics with an emphasis in topology from the University of Mississippi in May 2002 and December 2003, respectively.

Dr. Bednar is currently leading the development of NanoExPERT (Nanomaterials Experiment-based Predictor of Environmental Risk and Toxicity). NanoExPERT is an internet-accessible predictive model by which an interested user may acquire information regarding the potential ecological risk posed by nanoparticles based on chemical, physical, or bioaccumulation data obtained through experimentation. The model utilizes a material property database that describes environmentally relevant attributes of nanomaterials for technology development. NanoExPERT uses available experimental data from groupings of nanoparticles that are chemically and physically similar to predict the fate of other nanoparticles. Nanoparticles that behave similarly will be grouped by hierarchical clustering based on their properties and toxicology information, and data available within each cluster will be leveraged to generate predictive output for nanoparticles for which full information is unavailable.

Dr. Bednar is also leading the development of CEA-CMD (Comprehensive Environmental Assessment - Conceptual Model Developer). CEA-CMD is a user-friendly software tool to support the development of a generic conceptual model of new materials for the CEA. CEA-CMD will facilitate the user’s building the concept model of the life cycle and risk pathways for a material and/or chemical.

Gretchen Bruce (Intertox)

Gretchen Bruce, DABT, is a senior scientist with 20 years of professional experience as a toxicologist and risk assessor. Ms. Bruce’s project and project management experience includes site characterization and regulatory based risk assessment, exposure assessment, litigation support services, public health evaluations, probabilistic exposure model development, and historical dose reconstruction. Ms. Bruce's primary expertise is in the conduct of toxicological evaluations. On a wide-range of litigation and human health risk evaluation projects, Ms. Bruce has conducted critiques of the toxicological data and literature and characterized likely effect levels and adverse health impacts. In addition, Ms. Bruce has provided toxic tort litigation support in cases where materials were released from industrial facilities and present in workplace environments and consumer products. These projects included assisting in the evaluation of animal and human data for use in establishing a reference dose for perchlorate; characterizing the state of knowledge regarding the toxicity of numerous compounds including metals, solvents, and other organics; assessing probable adverse health effects and toxicity thresholds for organophosphate compounds leaked into airplane cabin air from engine oils and hydraulic fluids; conducting historical reviews of the development of toxicity testing protocols for consumer products and the development of knowledge of lead and arsenic toxicity; and assessing risks of metals and dioxins released from manufacturing facilities.

As a risk assessor, Ms. Bruce has managed and conducted risk assessments for industrial and residential sites in accordance with federal CERCLA/RCRA, state, and local guidance for more than a dozen states. Project experience includes using mathematical models to assess fate and transport and establish site cleanup levels; negotiating with regulatory agencies; designing and conducting field sampling programs and laboratory QA/QC reviews; establishing safe worker-exposure levels to newly developed materials and chemical mixtures; completing a 40-year historical dose reconstruction of mercury released from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation; conducting detailed evaluations of the validity of default assumptions for site-specific assessments; and designing multipathway probabilistic exposure models to characterize the uncertainty and variability in estimated doses.

Vincent Caprio (NanoBusiness Alliance)

Mr. Caprio is the Executive Director of the NanoBusiness Commercialization Association. In November 2008, Mr. Caprio co-founded The Water Innovations Alliance with Mark Modzelewski. Mr. Caprio is one of the foremost advocates for government funding of emerging technologies at both the State and Federal levels. Mr. Caprio has testified before the state legislatures of New York and Connecticut, and has participated in NanoBusiness’ Washington, DC Roundtable for the past nine years. Mr. Caprio is the founder and event director of the 10th Annual NanoBusiness Conference being held in Boston, MA at the Seaport World Trade Center. During the past five years (2006-2011), Mr. Caprio was an invited speaker and guest lecturer on Nanotechnology at over 50 conferences. In 2010 Mr. Caprio has spoken at the NNI Strategic Planning Stakeholder Workshop and the Nanotechnology Partnership Forum at NIST.

Mr. Caprio is a 25-year publishing and tradeshow industry veteran with an impressive track record of launching events focusing on emerging technology markets. Mr. Caprio joined the NanoBusiness Commercialization Association as the Founder and Event Director in 2002, to steer the launch of the highly successful NanoBusiness event series in 2008 & 2009. In 2003 & 2004, Mr. Caprio served as the Event Director in the launch of The Emerging Technologies Conference in association with MIT’s Technology Review Magazine. Mr. Caprio has served as a consultant to the leading emerging technology research and advisory firm Lux Research, for its Lux Executive Summit in 2005 & 2006. In 2002, Mr. Caprio served as the Event Director and Program Director of the Forbes/IBM Executive Summit. Prior to joining the NanoBusiness Commercialization Association, Mr. Caprio was Event Director for Red Herring Conferences, producing the company’s Venture Market conferences and Annual Summit reporting to Red Herring Magazine Founder and Publisher Tony Perkins. His industry peers have formally recognized Mr. Caprio on several occasions for his talents in both tradeshow management and sales. Mr. Caprio was named Sales Executive of the Year in 1994, while with Reed Exhibitions. Mr. Caprio, while employed with Reed Exhibitions, was honored with two Pathfinder Awards in 1995 for launching the New York Restaurant Show.

Mr. Caprio graduated from Villanova University in 1979 with a B.S in Accounting and completed a MBA from Northeastern in 1987. Mr. Caprio is a member of Villanova University’s Financial Club and serves as an active member of Villanova’s President Club. Mr. Caprio serves on the Board of Trustees for the Easton Community Center and the Easton Learning Foundation in Easton, CT. In the summer of 2008, Mr. Caprio was appointed to the Board of Directors for the Fabricators & Manufactures Association Communications, Inc. based in Rockford, IL.

Altaf Carim (White House Office of Science and Technology Policy)

Dr. Carim is currently the OSTP Assistant Director for Nanotechnology. He has overseen the development and operations of a number of major scientific user facilities supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) at the Department of Energy (DOE), including five Nanoscale Science Research Centers and three Electron Beam Microcharacterization Centers. He represented DOE on the Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council – the interagency body responsible for the NNI – from 2002 through 2010, and co-chaired that body from 2006 to 2009. He currently leads the BES team that manages the Energy Frontier Research Centers, major research collaborations started in August 2009 that focus on the long term basic research needed to overcome roadblocks to revolutionary energy technologies.

Dr. Carim entered Federal service in the Office of Basic Energy Sciences at DOE in September 2001. Prior to joining the Scientific User Facilities Division in October 2005, he was a program manager in the Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering with primary responsibility for activities in the structure and composition of materials. Before joining DOE, Dr. Carim was on the faculty at The Pennsylvania State University (in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and as Chair of the Electronic and Photonic Materials program. He was a faculty member at the University of New Mexico and had prior research posts and activities at the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium in The Netherlands, Philips Research Laboratories Sunnyvale, Bell Laboratories, and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He also was a visiting investigator at the Carnegie Institution of Washington during a year-long sabbatical.

Dr. Carim's primary scientific expertise is in microstructural and microchemical characterization of materials, with research contributions in a variety of areas, including semiconductor interfaces, superconducting and ferroelectric oxide thin films and ceramics, crystal structure determination, crystalline defects, joining of ceramics and composites, development of anisotropic microstructures, electron holography, and morphology of nanoparticles and nanowires. He has authored or coauthored over 85 research publications in these areas and has given over 100 conference, seminar, and other presentations. He has been active in numerous professional societies, organized a number of technical meetings and symposia, and held editorial roles with several journals. His awards and honors include recognition as an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator, receipt of an AIST Foreign Researcher Invitation to lecture in Japan, and participation in the project teams recognized with several of the Secretary of Energy's Project Management Excellence Awards.

Yoram Cohen (University of California, Los Angeles)

Dr. Yoram Cohen received his B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc., in 1975 and 1977, respectively, both in Chemical Engineering, from the University of Toronto, and his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in 1981. He has been on the Faculty of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) since 1981. He is also an Affiliate Faculty at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and an Adjunct Professor at Ben-Gurion University. He was a Visiting Professor at the Technion (1987-1988), at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (1944) and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Victoria University (2006). He is a founder and Director of the Water Technology Research Center and the Center for Environmental Risk Reduction, and a member of the UCLA/National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEIN). Dr. Cohen is a UCLA Luskin Scholar and a recipient of the 2008 Ann C. Rosenfield Community Partnership Prize in recognition of his environmental research. He received the 2003 Lawrence K. Cecil award in Environmental Chemical Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the AIChE Separations Division Outstanding Paper Award (1997 and 2009), and was elected Fellow of the AIChE in 2009. In 2008 he received a County of Los Angeles Commendation (2008), a State of California Senate Certificate of Recognition, and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition (US) for contributing to legislation to protect public health and dedicated service to the Los Angeles community. Dr. Cohen served as Chair of the AIChE Environmental Division (2002) and of the Separation Division (2008). He published over 180 research papers and book chapters, presented over 300 papers in scientific conferences and gave over 130 invited talks on environmental impact assessment, contaminant fate and transport, surface nano-structuring, water treatment and desalination, and membrane science and technology. He is also the Editor of three environmental volumes. Dr. Cohen developed patented technologies in water desalination technology, surface nano-structuring, membrane synthesis, and chemical sensors, as well as models and software for environmental multimedia assessment. His present research on the environmental implications of nanotechnology focuses on the development of models and tools for assessing the toxicity of nanomaterials based on high throughput screening, quantitative-structure relations for toxicity and physicochemical properties of nanomaterials, environmental distribution of nanomaterials, and environmental impact assessment. He is also engaged in research on water technology including the development of approaches for distributed smart water systems, optimization, monitoring and control of water treatment systems, water desalination, and membrane development. He has served on numerous Government Advisory Committees (including the USEPA Science Advisory Board and the NRC Board on Environmental studies and Toxicology), recently served on the Blue Ribbon Committee of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and is an active participant in the Nanoinformatics initiative.. Dr. Cohen organized over thirty scientific conferences including the 2008 International Congress on Membranes and membrane processes (ICOM), the 2009 and 2010 West Coast Water Technology Transfer workshops, and he was the Meeting Program Chair of the 2010 Annual AIChE Meeting. He is a member of a number of professional societies including the, AIChE, ACS, NAMS, IDA, AWWA and AMTA.

Joe Glick (Expertool Software)

Joe Glick is the founder of Expertool Software, LLC, and the chief architect of the Expertool universal knowledge modeling platform and methodology. He began architecting knowledge-based solutions for medicine and business in 1983. His current company, Expertool Software, was launched in 1995 and specializes in rationalizing interdisciplinary knowledge silos and capturing human expertise in a computable form. The technology and methodology was evolved in the course of delivering complex solutions for some of the world’s largest organizations. Joe’s flagship project at Pfizer won the Upjohn Innovation Award (Dec. 2007) for the integration and rationalization of Policy, Regulatory, Technology, Legal, Process and Control knowledge bases, creating an engine for holistic change analysis and response optimization.

Joe’s current research focus is the use of cognitive architectures as models for the development of computational architectures to represent knowledge about dynamic and adaptive systems. The initial area of application is systemic risk modeling for Dodd-Frank compliance.

Stacey Harper (Oregon State University)

Stacey Harper, Ph.D., is a Signature Research Faculty Fellow of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental & Molecular Toxicology and the School of Chemical, Biological & Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University (OSU). She earned her bachelor’s degree in natural sciences and mathematics from Mesa State College, CO and her master’s and doctoral degrees in biological sciences from University of Nevada Las Vegas, NV. She then served two years as a post-doctoral research fellow with the Exposure and Dose Research Branch of the EPA. In her research at OSU, she employs in vivo approaches to evaluate the biological activity and toxic potential of novel nanomaterials, and has established a collaborative, multidisciplinary research program to develop a knowledgebase of Nanomaterial-Biological Interactions (NBI). She works closely with industry, academic and government partners to ensure that environmental and human health considerations are addressed together with the development of new nanomaterials. Dr. Harper has been a working member of the ICR Nanotechnology Working Group since 2009. She also serves as the co-chair of ASTM International E56 Committee on Nanotechnologies and a representative of the ANSI-Accredited U.S. Technical Advisory Group for ISO/TC 229 which functions to formulate positions and proposals on behalf of the U.S. with response to ISO standardization activities on environmental health and safety of nanotechnologies.

Mark Hoover (NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center)

Dr. Mark D. Hoover is a senior research scientist in the Division of Respiratory Disease Studies at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, in Morgantown, West Virginia. Mark is a critical area leader in the NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center and also serves as coordinator of the NIOSH Exposure Assessment Cross-sector Research Program. NIOSH is the leading federal agency conducting research and providing guidance on the occupational safety and health implications and applications of nanotechnology. Mark earned a BS degree in mathematics and English in 1970 from Carnegie Mellon University and MS and PhD degrees in engineering in 1975 and 1980 from the University of New Mexico. He is board certified in the comprehensive practice of health physics and in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene. Mark has developed improved approaches, techniques, and instrumentation for aerosol characterization, generation, and control; served as chairman or contributor to the development of many national and international standards; is a past chairman of the AIHA Nanotechnology Working Group; and is author or co-author of more than 180 open literature publications. He recently completed co-editing and writing a new CRC Press handbook on Radioactive Air Sampling Methods. Special emphasis areas for Mark’s work in nanotechnology include a graded approach to exposure assessment and characterization of nanoparticles in the workplace, development of a prototype Nanoparticle Information Library, and promotion of opportunities to apply performance-based occupational exposure limits or control banding approaches to nanotechnology. Detailed information about the NIOSH nanotechnology health and safety research program is available at www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/nanotech/.

Philip Lippel (Consultant, Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies)

Philip Lippel is an expert consultant on innovative applications of nanoscience and emerging technologies. He has worked at the national and international level on a variety of technical, policy, and science communication issues in fields including nanotechnology R&D, science education and the technical workforce, informatics, and telecommunications. Currently he is particularly interested in the emergence of nanotechnology-based solutions to problems in the energy, water, and medical fields.

Dr. Lippel served government as a senior policy analyst at the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office and as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation; industry as a Member of Technical Staff at Agilent Technologies and as founder of L Cubed Consulting; and academia as a faculty member in the Physics Department of the University of Texas at Arlington. He was appointed as a U.S. delegate to the Working Party on Nanotechnology at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and as a U.S. expert to the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee on Information and Communication Technologies.

Alexander Tropsha (UNC-Chapel Hill)

Prof. Tropsha, K.H. Lee Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Research, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, UNC-Chapel Hill, received his PhD in Chemical Enzymology in 1986 from Moscow State University, Russia. He immigrated to the United States in 1989 and has been affiliated with UNC-Chapel Hill since then rising over the years from postdoc to Assistant, Associate, Full, and Endowed Professor. His research interests are in the areas of Computer-Assisted Drug Design, Computational Toxicology, Cheminformatics, and Structural Bioinformatics. His has authored or co-authored more than 140 peer-reviewed research papers, reviews and book chapters and co-edited two monographs. His research is supported by multiple grants from the NIH, NSF, EPA, and private companies. He is a member of editorial boards of several scientific journals and an elected member of the Board and vice-chair of the international Cheminformatics and QSAR Society.

Krishna Rajan (Iowa State University)

Professor Krishna Rajan is the Wilkinson Professor of Interdisciplinary Engineering and Director of the Institute for Combinatorial Discovery at Iowa State University. He is holds appointments in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program. He received his BASc in Metallurgy and Materials Science from the University of Toronto and the ScD in Materials Science with a minor in Science & Technology policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978. He was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and Cambridge University and then joined the National Research Council of Canada as a research staff scientist in the 1980s; after which he joined the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before coming to Iowa State University in 2005.

Dr. Rajan is recognized as one of the world`s leading authorities on the development and use of informatics, statistical learning and combinatorial discovery methods for the development, design and characterization of materials. His research extends into coupling new developments in computer and mathematical sciences into array of multiscale materials modeling problems and atomistic scale characterization and imaging of materials . He has also established the first academic program in materials informatics and combinatorial materials science in the United States as director of the Combinatorial Sciences and Materials Informatics Collaboratory.

Paul Schulte (NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center)

Paul A. Schulte, Ph.D., is the Director of the Education and Information Division, and Manager of the Nanotechnology Research Center and the Prevention through Design programs, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Schulte has extensive experience in conducting research and developing guidance on occupational cancer, nanomaterials, risk communication, and genetics. He is the co-editor of the textbook entitled, “Molecular Epidemiology: Principles and Practices.” He has served as guest editor of the Journal of Occupational Medicine and the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and was on the initial editorial board of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. He currently is on the editorial board of the Scandinavian Journal of Work and Environmental Health, and the International Advisory Board of the Annals of Occupational Hygiene.

Jeffery A. Steevens (US Army Engineer Research and Development Center)

Dr. Jeffery A. Steevens is the Senior Scientist in Biotechnology for the US Army within the Environmental Laboratory at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, MS. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1994 and his doctorate degree in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Mississippi in 1999. As the ERDC’s lead scientist in biotechnology he is responsible for leading the basic and applied research that focuses on innovation in science and engineering to support the peaceful and wartime mission of the soldier. In addition to this research, he also leads environmental research for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. His research activities include risk assessment and management of contaminated sediments, bioavailability and biological effects of military-relevant materials (e.g., explosives, nanomaterials, metals). One of his current responsibilities is leading a multi-disciplinary ERDC research cluster focusing on the fate, transport, and toxicology of military nanomaterials and nano-enabled technologies. In addition to his research on nanomaterials, he is also a technical advisor to the World Bank on international projects, EPA Superfund Program, and provides expertise on many contaminated sediments projects throughout the U.S. His recent research activities have included leading a technical response to the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill, response to the TVA fly ash spill in Tennessee, red mud spill in Hungary, and several Superfund sites.

Aleks Stefaniak (NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center)

Aleks Stefaniak is a Research Industrial Hygienist with the Division of Respiratory Disease Studies at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Morgantown, WV. Aleks’ broad research interest is in human exposure assessment, with particular emphasis on inhalation exposure to metals and nanoparticles. His current focus is on understanding release of nanoparticles into biological systems and measurement methods, including development of reference materials in collaboration with international metrology institutes.

Dr. George O. Strawn (Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program)

Dr. George O. Strawn is the Director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for the Federal government’s multiagency Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. He also serves as the Co-Chair of the NITRD Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council. The NCO reports to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) within the Executive Office of the President.

Dr. Strawn is on assignment to the NCO from the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he most recently served as Chief Information Officer (CIO). As the CIO for NSF, he guided the agency in the development and design of innovative information technology, working to enable the NSF staff and the international community of scientists, engineers, and educators to improve business practices and pursue new methods of scientific communication, collaboration, and decision-making.

Prior to his appointment as NSF CIO, Dr. Strawn served as the executive officer of the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and as Acting Assistant Director for CISE. Previously, Dr. Strawn had served as the Director of the CISE Division of Advanced Networking Infrastructure and Research, where he led NSF’s efforts in the Presidential Next Generation Internet Initiative. During his years at NSF, Dr. Strawn was an active participant in activities of the interagency IT R&D program that is now called NITRD.

Prior to coming to NSF, Dr. Strawn was a Computer Science faculty member at Iowa State University (ISU) for a number of years. He also served there as Director of the ISU Computation Center and Chair of the ISU Computer Science Department. Under his leadership, ISU became a charter member of MIDNET, a regional NSFNET network; he led the creation of a thousand-workstation academic system based on an extension of the MIT Athena system; and the ISU Computer Science department was accredited by the then-new Computer Science Accreditation Board.

Dr. Strawn received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Iowa State University and his BA Magna Cum Laude in Mathematics and Physics from Cornell College.

Sally Tinkle, PhD (National Nanotechnology Coordination Office)

Dr. Sally Tinkle is the Deputy Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office of the National Science and Technology Council. Her responsibilities include facilitation and coordination of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, especially the environment, health, and safety activities. Previously, as Senior Science Advisor in the Office of the Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Tinkle developed the NIEHS nanotoxicology extramural research portfolio and the NIEHS NanoHealth and Safety Enterprise, a framework for public-private partnerships. She has been an active member of the trans-NIH Nanotechnology Task Force and is senior author of the health implications section of the NIH Nanotechnology Report to the NIH Director. At the federal level, Dr. Tinkle co-chaired the Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (2009 – 2010) and is the NSET Nanotechnology Environment and Health Implications working group (NEHI) Task Group Leader for human health and nanomaterials. She is a senior author on the human health sections of the three NEHI environment health and safety (EHS) documents that form the federal approach to EHS research. She is frequently an invited speaker at nanotechnology meetings, both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Tinkle received her PhD from the Department of Physiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, CO and was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Science. Prior to joining NIH, she was the leader of a pulmonary and dermal toxicology laboratory at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown, WV.

Mark Tuominen (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Mark Tuominen is a Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing and MassNanoTech at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests include experimental condensed matter physics. Research in the fabrication and physics of nanoscale devices and materials. This includes two primary research areas: nanostructures from self-assembling block copolymer templates and nanoscale device physics. The first area addresses the general scientific challenge of fabricating nanoscale structures by a convenient method and providing appropriate electrical interfacing to these structures. To adress this challenge, diblock copolymer films are used as a convenient self-assembling template for the fabrication of arrays of nanoscale elements. This results in a new fabrication method for producing integrated devices using block copolymer templates in combination with other lithographic methods. Research includes work on terabit-density single-domain magnetic arrays, magnetotransport devices, field-emission arrays, electrochemical sensor arrays, and thermoelectric cooling elements. The second research area explores issues involved in single charge transport. This includes single-electron investigations of mesoscopic superconductors and, more recently, experimental and theoretical studies on charge shuttle devices, which involves quantum charge transport coupled with mechanical vibration.

Cyrus Wadia (White House Office of Science and Technology Policy)

Dr. Cyrus Wadia is the Assistant Director for Clean Energy & Materials R&D with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he is advising the Executive Office of the President on Federal policy that accelerates innovation and deployment of advanced material systems for energy, national security, and human welfare. Cyrus is on leave from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) and the Haas School of Business where he holds a dual appointment as: Faculty & Co-Director of Clean Tech to Market and Research Scientist. His research in both exhaustible resource economics and the aqueous chemistry of nanoparticles is motivated by the pursuit of new low cost energy technologies using earth abundant materials. Cyrus was recently honored for his groundbreaking work with earth-abundant nanoparticle solar cells as a recipient of the MIT Technology Review Young Innovator award.

Prior to his work at LBNL, Cyrus spent over 7 years in Silicon Valley launching new technology to market. First as an engagement manager with R.B. Webber & Co where he worked with over 15 different venture backed startups; and next as a Senior Product Manager with AvantGo, where he completed several successful new product introductions. More recently, Cyrus founded a boutique Internet services startup specializing in complex data analysis for which he now serves as Chairman of the Board. Cyrus earned his PhD in Energy & Resources from U.C. Berkeley and holds both an M.S. and S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.