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Mihail C. Roco Named
NSF Engineer of the Year 2004

Mihail (Mike) Roco, NSF Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology, has been named NSF Engineer of the Year 2004. Dr. Roco is a key architect of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), an interagency effort aimed at advancing research and development in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. He also chairs the U.S. National Science and Technology Council's (NSTC) Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) and directed the preparation of key NSTC reports (1999-2001) setting out 10-year research directions for this emerging field. Under Roco's coordination, federal expenditure on nanotechnology research grew from $116 million in FY1997 to $961 million in FY2004.

Text Box: Mike Roco, NSF Engineer of the Year 2004

"It has been extremely rewarding to organize and lead a major program at the frontiers of human knowledge," Roco commented. "Only 10 years ago, it would have been impossible to organize an interdisciplinary program like the NNI, which provides the opportunity to work with people from different fields-from physics and engineering to neural sciences to social sciences-with very interesting perspectives. The NNI represents a confluence of ideas, with a focus on the 'big picture' issues that will be important for almost all fields of science and technology."

Formally proposed by Roco at a White House presentation in March 1999, the NNI was initially considered a "very long shot" with little chance of gaining acceptance. Within a few short months, however, Roco was able to persuade five key agencies to join NSF in placing a high priority on the program, and to garner high-level support for a recommendation to the President for funding of the NNI.

Roco says that his "highest satisfaction" as a professional engineer has been to see the outcomes that are now emerging in nanotechnology research and development. After three years of the NNI, research is generating results far faster than anticipated, with many nanoscale devices and systems initially envisioned for 20 or 30 years hence now expected to come to fruition within the next five years.

Nanotechnology promises to have a profound impact on many other disciplines, by providing unifying concepts, addressing fundamental issues at a molecular level, and advancing all of science to a new kind of paradigm. The social and economic impacts also will be far reaching, Roco notes. Nanotechnology will help transform medicine by enhancing our ability to understand and treat illness at a subcellular level. Industry will benefit not only from the development of new, nano-based devices and systems but also by a shift toward more environmentally sustainable manufacturing processes that consume less energy, water, and materials and generate less waste.

Roco appreciates how the culture of NSF-with its emphasis on peer review, tough competition among ideas, and opportunities for networking and partnerships-creates a system that effectively identifies and advances important topics in science, engineering, and technology. Currently, NSF's own programs on nanoscale science and engineering cross all directorates and entail some 2,000 active awards in 270 universities and more than 150 small businesses and private organizations in all 50 states.

Prior to joining NSF, Roco was Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kentucky (1981-95), where his research interests were in multiphase systems, visualization techniques, computer simulations, and nanoparticles and nanosystems. He held visiting professorships at Tohoku University (Japan), Caltech, John Hopkins and Delft University (NL).   In 1991, he initiated at NSF the first federal program on nanoscale science and engineering, concerning the synthesis and processing of nanoparticles. Roco is credited with 13 inventions and has authored or co-authored 12 books and more than 200 scientific and engineering articles. He is a correspondent member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Roco serves as editor of several journals, including the Journal of Nanoparticle Research and the Journal of Measurement Science and Technology . In March 2003, Forbes magazine named him "First in Nanotechnology's Power Brokers."

 

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