IRES in China - Advanced Materials for a Sustainable Development

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This award is a grant in response to Program Solicitation 04-036, International Research Experiences for Students (IRES). The research topic of this program is the development of advanced materials for applications in energy generation and storage and environmental remediation processes. The Clarkson University program will collaborate with Corning, Inc., in New York State, Corning Research China and host research mentors at Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Physics in Beijing, China. Six to twelve undergraduates and three graduate students will travel to China in each of three summers, starting in 2011. Student recruitment will be national, and an effort will be made to include underrepresented minorities. Because of challenges in energy production and management as well as environmental concerns, new processes of energy conversion and storage are needed, and such processes require advanced materials with tailored properties. Examples include the need to increase the efficiency of solar-energy systems. The students in this program will collaborate with leading materials researchers to explore methods for designing and fabricating materials with needed properties. This international experience will broaden the students? understanding of the world and prepare them to engage with Chinese and American colleagues in the future course of their careers. Clarkson plans to institutionalize research and education exchange programs based on this model. Expanding it through both industrial and academic partners will contribute to broader internationalization of U.S. institutions.