Focus on: Nanotechnology & Materials Sciences

Nanotechnology — the technology of ‘small’ — has made the leap from buzzword to bottom line impact. The long-term potential of nanotechnology, however, is still in the process of discovery and development. One important factor for success will be linking near-term product development to far-term applications that will exploit the emerging capabilities of nanotechnology and other advancing sciences.

Today, organizations and companies need leaders who understand both the science of nanotechnology and the business of capitalizing on emerging capabilities to create innovative products with viable commercial potential. EMTM offers managers, engineers and technologists the opportunity to expand their knowledge of new technologies in the context of managing innovation.

EMTM's Nanotechnology area is led by Dr. Dawn Bonnell, Professor of Materials Science and Director of the University of Pennsylvania's newly formed Nano/Bio Interface Center. Established in 2004 with $11.4 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, the center brings together researchers from across Penn to study the intersection of technology and biology at the nanoscale level.

Dr. Bonnell, a former Fulbright scholar, worked at the IBM Thomas Watson Research Center before joining the faculty of the University. She is an authority on atomistic processes at oxide surfaces, nanometer scale phenomena in materials and the assembly of complex nanostructures.

First introduced to EMTM as a topic in the program's "Emerging Technologies Seminar," Nanotechnology is now a full course and provides the principal focus for EMTM's technology elective emphasis in Nanotechnology and Materials Science. Other courses include Advanced Materials, Microelectronics and Photonics.

EMTM prepares leaders who can bridge the gap between business strategy and the potential of emerging innovations in Nanotechnology and other fields.

• Who can most benefit?
• Courses available in Nanotechnology, Materials Science and related fields
• EMTM's Emerging Technologies Seminar
• Related Research Centers at Penn

Top of Page

Who can most benefit?

Students attracted to Nanotechnology are not only scientists who are discovering the increasing relevance of nanotechnology to their own work. General managers and IT leaders also find they need a better understanding of nanotechnology in order to support its strategic development and application, as well as to gauge its potential impact and opportunities for growth — on their own businesses and their clients'.

Scientists, research leaders, managers involved in technology development, marketing and intellectual property management, can tailor their EMTM technology and management electives to better understand — and capitalize on — the growing capabilities of nanotechnology.

For more about industries and organizations represented in EMTM, see: Companies.

Top of Page

EMTM Courses in Nanotechnology and related technologies

Several technology and management electives are available for students interested in Nanotechnology and Materials Sciences:

• Nanotechnology — No scientific field or industry sector will be unaffected by the revolutionary opportunities presented by nanotechnology. This course presents the concepts behind the mystery of 'small', and the techniques and applications that will help transform enterprises of the future.
• Microelectronics — Microelectronic technology and devices have been crucial to many recent technological advances and will continue to have an impact. This course looks at the technology behind microelectronics, some of its latest products and trends, as well as the competitive status of this industry in the global economy.
• Advanced Materials — Provides engineering managers with an understanding of the properties, technology, advantages, limitations, and future development of advanced materials — enabling them to critique and evaluate proposed applications and markets.
• Photonics — As limitations of speed, size, bandwidth, power and reliability affect many electronic devices and systems, photonics is a fast-moving area with significant applications to optical communication systems, lasers, medical devices and other high-technology areas.
• Drug Discovery — When your R&D pipeline is central to success, what concepts, systems and tools can help accelerate the discovery of key compounds? This course draws on advances in robotics, genomics, biophysics and statistics, among others, that hold useful applications to modern drug discovery.
• Telecommunications: Introduction to Networking — Investments in networking can produce huge gains and equally high price-tags. For managers without prior background in telecommunications, it can be essential to understand the principles and protocols of modern data networks, both local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (the Internet), as well as basic application protocols and security measures.
• Clinical Technology Innovation — From over-the-counter pregnancy tests to multimillion dollar imaging modalities, technologies found in the hospital setting follow a complex path from design concept to FDA approval. A look at the business models, distribution concepts and economics of established and emerging technologies across the clinical area, including diagnostics, genetic therapies and advanced drug delivery technologies.
• Data Mining — Current methods and industry trends in data mining and business intelligence, including data mining techniques — how they work and when to use them; data warehousing — approaches and challenges; and emerging data mining methods, including text mining and web mining.

Among additional Management Electives:

• R&D Management — How do you manage R&D in an increasingly competitive global marketplace and use technology as a powerful tool of competitive advantage and growth? Addressing the significant issues related to managing R&D in a corporate environment from both strategic and tactical perspectives, topics include key R&D business processes and methods of measuring and optimizing the return on R&D.
• Creating Value Through Technology: IT-Enabled Services and Strategies — Recent changes in information technology and regulation are changing the competitive landscape. How is business being transformed by information technology and the Web, and what role do IT changes play in re-shaping strategy, consumer behavior and Web-based business models?

For a more comprehensive course listing, see: Courses.

Top of Page

Emerging Technologies Seminar

First-year students take part in a year-long Emerging Technologies Seminar that brings faculty and experts from different disciplines to discuss emerging ideas in science and technology, as well as their business implications. Sample topics from previous years include:

• Emerging Technologies: Opportunity or Risk
• Lab on a Chip and Biosensors Technology
• Data Mining for Drug Discovery
• Nanotechnology: Small Things Making a Large Impact
• Penn's Automated Trading Project
• Quantum Computing and Information Science
• Investing in Emerging Technologies

For more, see: Emerging Technologies Seminar.

Top of Page

Related Research Centers

The University of Pennsylvania's research centers are multidisciplinary seedbeds for innovation and applied research, and EMTM students benefit from access to this pipeline of new knowledge. Several members of the EMTM faculty are closely involved with centers investigating emerging information technologies.

In addition to Penn Engineering's Nano/Bio Interface Center, the following centers also have direct faculty ties to EMTM:

Penn Center for Bioinformatics
The rapidly developing fields of bioinformatics and computational biology deal with the management, analysis, and visualization of the flood of information generated in molecular biology, genomics, and other areas of biology and biomedicine. A collaborative effort to promote research and education in this vital area, the Penn Center for Bioinformatics brings together faculty from several schools within the university — from biologists to computer scientists and mathematicians. Lyle Ungar of Penn Engineering's Computer and Information Science Department serves as assistant director of this center. He is a long-time EMTM faculty member and former EMTM director.

Center for Human Modeling and Simulation
The Center for Human Modeling and Simulation exists to investigate computer graphics modeling and animation techniques for embodied agents, virtual humans, and their applications. Major foci involve developing behavior-based animation of human movement especially for gesture, gait, and facial expression, constructing a parameterized action representation for real-time simulation and animation, and understanding the relationship between human movement, natural language, and communication. The center's director, Norman Badler, Associate Dean of Penn Engineering and Professor of Computer and Information Science, teaches EMTM's course on Computer Visualization for Scientific Data.

GRASP Laboratory
One of the premier research labs focusing on fundamental research in robotics, vision, perception, control and automation, the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab is a multi-disciplinary research laboratory founded in 1979 at Penn Engineering. EMTM faculty member Vijay Kumar, who holds appointments as Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Computer and Information Science, is director of the GRASP Laboratory.

Top of Page