Graham Allan
2006 Catalyst Article
The Fiber and Polymer Group continues its long involvement with the nanotechnology of conducting both inorganic and organic reactions inside the Angstrom-sized micropores within the cell wall of never-dried cellulose fibers from wood.
This research has been principally conducted by graduate student Porranee Rattanaviwatpong together with a large group of undergraduate students comprising E.B. Guyette, T. C. S. Ho, J. C. Mallari, A. Pfeif, J. Chang, M. Harsono, J. Ohsie, and Ponarett Xieng, who have become scientifically immortal by being co-authors on two articles submitted and accepted for publication.
On the formal instructional front, the university-wide demand for the creativity and innovation course (CHEM E 309) has increased to the point where it is now offered autumn and spring. The classroom in Kane Hall is filled to its capacity of 200 each time. In both 2004 and 2005, graduate student Elyse Shapiro from New Jersey as TA did a super job of the challenging tasks of collecting and returning literally thousands of assignments, invention notebooks, and book reviews as well as keeping track of all the grades. However, we have not yet been creative enough to find a smooth way of getting physical stuff from Benson to Kane and back to the students.
The importance of igniting the latent creativity that all students possess has been underscored by the continued emergence of China and India in global manufacturing. The former plans to build a large auto industry to serve Europe as well as a huge shipbuilding complex on an island next to Shanghai. With intrinsically lower-cost labor, such ambitious endeavors will inevitably lead to the loss of more manufacturing jobs in the U.S. in the future. The most effective way to combat these changes is for the U.S. and our students to create new technologies and let the old rust-belt industries migrate overseas.
