Alabama A&M Physicist to Coordinate $15 million NSF Grant for EPSCOR

Physicist from Member University Alabama A&M to Coordinate $15 million NSF Grant for EPSCOR

An Alabama A&M University physicist who directs its Research Institute has announced a five-year $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help build the state’s ability to participate in, conduct and compete for nanotechnology research.

Dr. Daryush Ila, heads Alabama’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), a seven-school partnership that enables the state to become a more formidable force in conducting and promoting nanotech research. Ila, as executive director of EPSCoR, recently announced that the consortium has been awarded $3 million annually for five years in a cooperative agreement from NSF to boost the state’s research capacity.

“We are setting the pace and creating a road map that will help Alabama become a world class nano/bio-science and sensor presence in the country,” said Ila, adding that the award is among the largest ever awarded a university partnership.

More specifically, the agreement will help continue the work of four current Centers of Excellence: Alabama Center for Nanostructured Materials, (ACNM) headquartered at Tuskegee University; the Center for Environmental Cellular Signal Transduction (CECST), led by Auburn University; the Center for Optical Sensors and Spectroscopies (COSS) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; and the Center for Interdisciplinary Discovery via Engineered Nanofabrication (CIDEN) at Alabama A&M University.

Alabama’s EPSCoR project is comprised of Alabama A&M University, Auburn University, Tuskegee University, the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the University of South Alabama. While there are some 27 EPSCoR states, along with programs operating in two U.S. territories, noted Ila, only the Alabama EPSCoR program can boast that two of its centers of excellence are located at historically black college campuses: Alabama A&M and Tuskegee.

Ila said the NSF grant also supports, the ALEPSCoR Education Outreach Initiative (AEOI), an innovative initiative at the University of Alabama, that will ultimately serve 900 students annually.

The major grant award would not have been possible, said Ila, had it not been for the expertise the Alabama EPSCoR program received from the Alabama A&M University Research Institute and SAIC. Their joint assistance enabled EPSCoR to compete as though it were vying for a major contract, he said.
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Source: Partnership for Innovation, Oak Ridge Associated Universities

2008: John Hall, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Physics featured speaker of The Eleventh Putcha Venkateswarlu memorial lecture

2008: John Hall, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Physics

The Eleventh Putcha Venkateswarlu memorial lecture was given by Dr. John L. Hall from University of Colorado, JILA: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO on October 17th 2008. The title of the talk was "The Optical Frequency Comb: A Versatile tool for Science, Metrology, and Medical Diagnostics". Dr Hall shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005 with Theodor W. Hänsch "for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique". The prize was also shared with Roy J. Glauber of Harvard University.

The "Father of Optics Research" at AAMU, Dr. Putcha Venkateswarlu

Dr. Putcha Venkateswarlu

Dr. Putcha Venkateswarlu was born in the small village of Dantaloor, India. He did his undergraduate and postgraduate work in physics in India, and his Ph.D. in physics at Banaras Hindu University under Prof. Asundi, a leading spectroscopist of his time. He went on to perform postdoctoral work at various reputable institutions around the world. He joined Alabama A & M Univeristy in 1982 as a professor of physics. During the last 15 years of his life he brought more than $4 million in research grants to AAMU. In his career he supervised over 50 Ph.D. and over 100 M.S. degree students in physics. At AAMU, 10 students obtained Ph.D. and 11 students M.S. degrees under his supervision. He supervised the very first Ph.D. sudent in physics at AAMU. Alabama A & M physics knew him as the "Father of Optics Research at AAMU." He published over 200 research papers. He worked with three Nobel Prize winners: Prof. Neils Bohr in Copenhagen, Prof. G. Herzberg at NRC in Canada, and Prof. R. S. Mulliken at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Putcha Venkateswarlu passed away on August 8, 1997 after a sudden illness. True to his constant dedication, he worked till the last breath of his life. As a result of Dr. Venkateswarlu's efforts Alabama A&M University is the leading research instituion of in Crystal research, and has produced the most African American Ph.D.s in physics. Therefore, the Putcha Venkateswarlu Memorial Lecture Series in Physics was created by Physics community in 1997. The Putcha Venkateswarlu Memorial Lecture
series continues to bring leading Nobel Laureate Researchers from around the world to lecture.