Acquisition of a Scanning Electron Microscope for Environmental, Biological, and Materials Research and Education at UC Merced

该合同将用于为加州大学默塞德分校(UCM)的新成像和显微镜设备(IMF)购买变压扫描电子显微镜(SEM)，这是加州大学系统的第十个校区，也是近35年来加州大学的第一个新校区。UCM的学术计划强调环境科学与工程、材料科学与工程、定量与系统生物学等主题领域的跨学科和多学科培训。在环境、材料和生物科学的各种研究中，扫描电子显微镜是固体表征的基本研究工具。一个多功能的扫描电子显微镜将立即满足UCM大多数已在船上的科学和工程教员的研究和教育需求。我们预计，随着UCM向学生开放并扩大其教员，我们的用户基础在授权期内将显著增长。我们预计，这种仪器将满足未来5-10年在显微镜方面的基本研究和教学基础设施需求，将有助于为我们的大学招聘最好的新教师，并且由于显微镜的可视性质，将极大地促进K-14和社区的推广工作。UCM的使命是服务于圣华金河谷快速增长的人口，那里主要是西班牙裔，移民和第一代人口很多，在高等教育方面历来代表不足。我们设想这一结构模型和国际货币基金组织将成为一个新生的集中式用户设施，它将是支持UCM在科学和工程领域的教学和研究使命的关键因素，并成为我们成长为一所成熟的研究型大学的驱动力。

0420982O'DayThis award will fund the acquisition of a variable-pressure scanning electron microscope (SEM) for our new Imaging and Microscopy Facility (IMF) at the University of California, Merced (UCM), the tenth campus of the UC system and the first new UC campus in nearly 35 years. The academic program at UCM emphasizes interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary training in the thematic areas of environmental science and engineering, materials science and engineering, and quantitative and systems biology. Scanning electron microscopy serves as a basic research tool for the characterization of solids in a wide variety of studies in environmental, materials, and biological sciences. A versatile SEM will immediately address the research and education needs of a majority of the science and engineering faculty already on-board at UCM. We anticipate significant growth of our user base over the grant period as UCM opens for students and expands its faculty. We anticipate that this instrumentation will meet basic research and teaching infrastructure needs in microscopy for the next 5-10 years, will assist in recruiting the best new faculty to our university and, because of the visual nature of microscopy, contribute greatly to outreach efforts to K-14 and the community. A mission of UCM is to serve the rapidly growing population of the San Joaquin Valley, which is dominantly Hispanic, has a high immigrant and first-generation population, and is historically underrepresented in higher education. We envision this SEM and the IMF as a nascent centralized user facility that will be a key factor in supporting the teaching and research mission of UCM across science and engineering, and a driver for our growth into a mature research university.