Engineering And Public Policy At The Nanoscale: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Course
- Conference
- Location
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Chicago, Illinois
- Publication Date
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June 18, 2006
- Start Date
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June 18, 2006
- End Date
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June 21, 2006
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Engineering and Public Policy
- Page Count
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7
- Page Numbers
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11.548.1 - 11.548.7
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--1185
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/1185
- Download Count
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512
Paper Authors
Jacqueline Isaacs Northeastern University
JACQUELINE A. ISAACS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. She is responsible for the education and outreach activities as well as research on societal implications for the NSF-sponsored Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN), a collaborative Center among NU, UML and UNH. Her research focuses on economic and environmental assessment
of manufacturing.
Christopher Bosso Northeastern University
Christopher J. Bosso is Associate Professor of political science at Northeastern University and a research faculty in the Nanotechnology and Society Research Group in the CHN. In addition to current work on regulatory dimensions of nanotechnology, Bosso writes on environmental and food safety policy, environmental politics, and public policymaking dynamics. His most recent scholarly work is Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway (University Press of Kansas, 2005).
Carol Barry University of Massachusetts-Lowell
CAROL M. F. BARRY is a Professor in the Department of Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, MA. For CHN and at UML, she is the lead for the education and outreach activities for the NSF-sponsored CHN. Her research focuses on plastics processing, particularly at the micro and nanoscales and their application to high-rate nanomanufacturing.
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Engineering and Public Policy at the Nanoscale: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Course
Abstract
The excitement and promise of nanotechnology provides a unique opportunity to increase public awareness of the critical importance of science and technology to society in general and to students in particular. Nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing will require a more diverse technical education of the current and projected workforce. To increase student awareness of the societal implications of this developing technology, the academic partners in the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN), an NSF-sponsored Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC), have created a team taught course entitled “Nanomanufacturing I”. Assessment of engineering and science student performance is reported for the segment of the course that addressed policy issues.
1. Introduction
The academic partners in the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN), an NSF- sponsored Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC), have created a team taught course entitled “Nanomanufacturing I”. Faculty from all three core partner academic institutions, including Northeastern University (NEU), University of Massachusetts at Lowell (UML), and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), have made contributions to the lectures, which were transmitted live each week to partner institutions with a two-hour duration to a student population with diverse scientific and engineering backgrounds on each campus during the Fall 2005 semester. The course was highly interdisciplinary in its technical content, and further, included topics delivered by faculty in social science and humanities. Twenty-three students were enrolled from NU, three students from UML and five students from UNH.
In 2002 the National Research Council made ten recommendations to strengthen the still-young National Nanotechnology Initiative, eventually incorporated into the NNI Strategic Plan (2004). Recommendation #9 was that the National Science and Technology Council, Committee on Technology Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) “should develop a new funding strategy to ensure that the societal implications of nanoscale science and technology become an integral part of the NNI.” Much has been done to meet this goal. Indeed, supported by the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (PL 108-153: 2003), the NSF primarily, but other agencies as well (e.g., EPA, the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety), have committed substantial funding toward understanding the social and environmental implications of the nanoscale revolution.
The intention for the course was not only to provide an interdisciplinary nanomanufacturing course for a student population with diverse scientific and engineering backgrounds, but also to increase the awareness in students, that the societal implications will have a direct impact on the development and implementation of the research upon which they are working.
Isaacs, J., & Bosso, C., & Barry, C. (2006, June), Engineering And Public Policy At The Nanoscale: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Course Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--1185
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