The College of Charleston is one of 10 organizations in South Carolina sharing in a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
The grant establishes a new initiative called Materials Assembly and Design Excellence in South Carolina, or MADE in SC. The collaboration unites South Carolina colleges and universities in a commitment to lead the way in advanced materials research and development.
The researchers will focus on creating new materials that can be used in products and industry, particularly three types of new materials in high demand: optical and magnetic materials, stimuli-responsive polymers and interactive biomaterials.
As part of the initiative, three College of Charleston professors have been awarded a five-year, $500,000 grant to take part in this research. Physics and astronomy professors Narayanan Kuthirummal and Alem Teklu will concentrate on optical and nanomechanical materials characterization, while computer science professor Paul Anderson will work on computational modeling.
“One of the objectives of the MADE in SC grant is to develop strong collaborations with research universities and PUIs (predominantly undergraduate institutions) within the state of South Carolina,” says Kuthirummal, who chairs the Department of Physics and Astronomy. “Such collaborations are expected to further strengthen the experimental and computational materials science research in the School of Sciences and Mathematics at the College.”
In addition to carrying out cutting-edge research, the College will also develop new science programs and educational outreach activities involving local high schools.
MADE in SC partners are College of Charleston, University of South Carolina, Clemson University, Furman University, Medical University of South Carolina, University of South Carolina-Beaufort, Winthrop University, South Carolina State University, Claflin University and Florence-Darlington Technical College.
