The Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology at Georgia Tech has announced the winners for the 2017 Spring Seed Grant Awards. The primary purpose of the IEN Seed Grant is to give first or second year graduate students in various disciplines working on original and un-funded research in micro- and nano-scale projects the opportunity to access the most advanced academic cleanroom space in the Southeast. In addition to accessing the high-level fabrication, lithography, and characterization tools in the labs, the students will have the opportunity to gain proficiency in cleanroom and tool methodology and to use the consultation services provided by the IEN processing staff.  In addition, the Seed Grant program gives faculty with novel research topics the ability to develop preliminary data in order to pursue follow-up funding sources.

With the beginning of funding for SENIC,  the IEN seed grant program was extended to include non-Georgia Tech students and PI’s for award consideration. This award session is the second in which an off-campus research project was chosen for inclusion.

The 5 winning projects, from a diverse group of engineering disciplines, were awarded a six-month block of IEN cleanroom and lab access time. In keeping with the interdisciplinary mission of IEN, the projects that will be enabled by the grants include research in materials, biomedicine, energy, and electronics applications.

The Spring 2017 IEN Seed Grant Award winners are:

• Michael Griffin (PI David Ku, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering), Investigation of 3D Lithography Methods: Applications to High Shear Microfluidic Thrombosis Assays
• Imran Hossain (PI Prabhu Arumugam, Louisiana Tech - Mechanical Engineering), Development of a Novel Electrochemical Microarray to Monitor Brain Aging Biomarkers
• Colby Lewallen & Tim Lee (PI Craig Forest, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering), Development of Substrates for High-Throughput Neuro-Anatomical Circuit Reconstruction
• Darshit Patel (PI Billyde Brown, Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute), 3D Microsupercapacitors for On-Chip Integration with Emerging Electronics
• Yutong Wu (PI Nian Liu, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering), In-Electrolyte Microscale Probing of Electrochemical Reactions and Processes

Awardees will present the results of their research efforts at the annual IEN User Day in 2018.

For more information about IEN cleanroom facilities, research capabilities, and collaboration opportunities please visit www.ien.gatech.edu.