Three renowned researchers will kick off the Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) inaugural seminar series.

R. Lee Penn, a member of the chemistry department of the University of Minnesota, will initiate the series with a talk on “Chemical, Physical, and Structural Properties of Oxide Nanoparticles.” Penn is focusing on a new method of growing nanoparticles that has promise for controlling their size and shape. She is also investigating iron oxide nanoparticles that can ultimately serve as a record for climate change.

Her talk will be at 3 p.m., Monday, March 12 in 3083 Derring Hall. The sponsors of her talk are ICTAS and the chemistry and geosciences departments.

Tissa Illangasekare of the division of environmental science and engineering at the Colorado School of Mines will speak on Friday, April 6 at 11:15 a.m. in 1060 Torgersen Hall. His talk will be on “Intermediate-scale Testing for Process Understanding, Model Validation and Upscaling of Flow and Transport in Heterogeneous Subsurface Systems.”

Illangasekare is the AMAX Distinguished Chair of Environmental Sciences and Engineering and Professor of Civil Engineering, and the Director of the Center for the Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes (CESEP). He is currently on leave at the National Science Foundation as program director for hydrologic sciences.

ICTAS and the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department are sponsoring his talk.

His primary research interests and experience are in the areas of water flow, fate and transport of chemicals through porous and fractured media, and snow, numerical modeling and intermediate scale physical model testing. Recently he has developed research interests in water management in regions affected by the South Asian tsunami. He is a Fellow of American Geophysical Union, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The third speaker, Dudley S. Finch, will also speak on Friday, April 6, on “Experimental, Environmental and Engineering Challenges of Investigating Nano/Bio – Materials Interface.” His talk will be at 3:30 p.m. in 113 McBryde Hall. ICTAS and the Materials Science and Engineering Department are sponsoring his talk.

Finch will review the biomedical applications where new nanoscale metrology approaches are required. He will emphasize the environmental, engineering, and experimental challenges associated with investigating the nano/bio-materials interface.

Following positions with the mechanical engineering department at the University of Colorado and NIST Materials Reliability Division in Boulder, CO, Finch, in collaboration with Heidi Haehlen, co-founded AISthesis, LLC, a company dedicated to developing Bio-M/NEMS-based devices as new metrology tools for the study of nano/bio materials and interfaces. AISthesis is located in Ashland, Oregon.

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