Within the School of Chemical Sciences, we also have an newly remodeled, excellent Library for all our needs regarding books, journals, and papers.
The SCS Academic Advising Office and the Career Consulting and Placement Services Office assists our undergraduate and graduate students with the next steps in their career upon graduation.
Participating Faculty: Kenis, Leckband
The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and
Technology is an inter- and multidisciplinary research institute
devoted to basic research in the physical sciences, computation,
engineering, biology, behavior, and cognition. The institute's primary
mission is to foster interdisciplinary work of the highest quality
in an environment that transcends many of the limitations inherent
in traditional university organizations and structures.
The building was made possible by a $40 million gift from UIUC alumnus
Arnold O. Beckman, founder of Beckman Instruments, Inc., and his
wife Mabel M. Beckman, with a $10 million supplement from the state
of Illinois. The daily operating expenses are funded by the state,
while its research programs are supported mainly by external funding
from the federal government, corp-orations, and foundations.
Research at the Beckman Institute is focused around three main themes:
Nearly 1,000 researchers from 20 UIUC departments as far-ranging as psychology, computer science, and biochemistry, comprise 19 Beckman Institute groups, working within and across these overlapping areas. All Beckman Institute faculty members hold full-time appointments and teach in traditional departments but have moved their research programs-either in part or in full-to the institute.
Participating Faculty: Braatz, Leckband,
Pack, Zhao.
The Biotechnology Center, founded in 1985, is
an interdisciplinary program that includes 127 faculty members from
the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Agricultural, Consumer
and Environmental Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, Medicine,
Applied Life Studies, and the Beckman Institute. Its primary mission
is to augment research in biotechnology at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign by
In addition, the Biotechnology Center Placement Office provides job placement for advanced-degree students in the biological and biomedical sciences. The facilities are located at four centrally located campus sites, close to major users. Research services are available to University of Illinois faculty members at subsidized on-campus rates. Services are also available to off-campus users at nonsubsidized rates.
Participating Faculty: Alkire, Granick, Kenis, Lewis, Masel, Seebauer, Zukoski.
The FS-MRL, an interdisciplinary research laboratory
dedicated to developing the highest-quality fundamental interdisciplinary
programs in materials science, condensed matter physics, and materials
chemistry, is a DOE national facility. The research programs focus
on addressing national needs of direct interest to the Division
of Materials Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The FS-MRL
provides a highly stimulating environment for a community of scholars
from 10 departments (Materials Science and Engineering, Physics,
Chemistry, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Theoretical
and Applied Mechanics, Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering,
Computer Science, and Mathematics) ranging across two colleges,
Engineering and Liberal Arts and Sciences. The physical facility
includes 160,000 gross square feet of space in three contiguous
buildings.
The theme of the interdisciplinary research carried out in the
FS-MRL is nanoscale systems: surfaces, interfaces, and structures.
The primary themes are: surface, interface, and thin-film science,
nanoscale synthesis and mesoscale engineering, complex materials
systems, driven materials systems, biomimetic materials synthesis,
and solid-liquid interface science and confined fluids.
Within FS-MRL is housed the Center for Microanalysis of Materials
(CMM), which is one of four DOE electron-beam national user facilities.
CMM contains a complete array of modern nanostructural and nanochemical
analytical techniques, including electron microscopy (scanning-,
transmission-, and scanning-transmission electron microscopy), scanning
probe microscopy, surface microanalysis, x-ray scattering, and ion-beam
spectroscopies, as well as synchrotron beam lines at the Advanced
Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, and at the National
Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Participating Faculty: Braatz, Kenis,
Kong, Leckband, Zhao
The mission of the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) is to advance life sciences research and to stimulate bio-economic development in the State of Illinois. The IGB houses three cross-cutting Program Areas:
Systems Biology, Cellular and Metabolic Engineering and Genome Technology. Significant problems facing humanity will be addressed, such as stabilizing the biosphere, managing new and emerging pests and pathogens, and maintaining an abundant and healthy food supply. Coupled to the Research Themes are programs that explore the ethical, legal and social issues arising from the New Biology. The IGB is housed in a $75 million, 107,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art facility, that opened in the fall of 2006.
Participating Faculty: Kenis, Lewis, Masel
The Microelectronics Laboratory is a multidisciplinary
research facility in the College of Engineering that houses advanced
equipment to support research in photonics, microelectronics, nanotechnology,
and biotechnology. The research activities that are facilitated
by the laboratory can be divided into four areas: optoelectronics
and photonic systems, microelectronics for wireless communications,
microelectromechanical systems, and nanobiosystems.
The vertically integrated research programs of the optoelectronics
and photonic systems area are focused on the conceptualization,
design, fabrication, and testing of microelectronic and optoelectronic
devices, circuits, components, and systems for light wave communications
and optical interconnects. The activities of the microelectronics
for wireless communications area include the design and fabrication
of state-of-the-art, low-power RF and microwave monolithic integrated
circuits (MMICs) and GHz analog-to-digital converters for advanced
wireless communication systems and advanced digital radar systems.
These two research areas are supported in the laboratory with
extensive development of growth, characterization, and processing
technologies for a broad range of III-V semiconductor materials,
quantum wells, superlattices, and nanostructures. The III-V materials
include compounds and alloys with band gaps appropriate for UV
detectors, visible emitters, near- and mid-infrared sources (LEDs,
side-emitting lasers, and VCSELs), detectors, FETs, and HBTs.
The microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) area focuses on the development
of micromachining methods for a variety of materials such as silicon,
gallium arsenide, and polymers to enable applications in many interdisciplinary
areas, including wireless communications, optoelectronics, and biomedical
engineering.
The nanobiosystems area focuses on utilizing the various technologies
developed in materials, nanofabrication, devices, and MEMS to study
and solve biological issues. Biomolecular flow patterns in nanoscale
channels, integration of lasers onto biochips for real-time fluorescence
study of bioreactions, and implantation of active devices in cells
to study cellular biochemistry are examples of research activities
being carried out.
The Microelectronics Laboratory is one of the nation's largest and
most sophisticated university-based facilities for semiconductor,
nanotechnology, and biotechnology research. It contains 8,000 square
feet of class 100 and class 1,000 clean-room laboratory space and
state-of-the-art ultra-high-speed optical and electrical device
and circuit measurements. In the past, the laboratory has housed
various centers, including the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center
for Compound Semiconductor Microelectronics and the DARPA-funded
Center for Optoelectronic Science and Technology. It currently houses
the DARPA-funded Center for Bio-Optoelectronic Sensors and Systems.
The laboratory is a user facility that is available for use by university
and industrial personnel from across the nation.
Participating Faculty: Alkire, Braatz, Hanratty,
Higdon.
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign opened its doors
in 1985 as one of the five original National Science Foundation
Supercomputer Centers. During the decade covered by that program,
the center earned an international reputation for innovative applications
in high-performance computing, visualization, and desktop software.
The center supported diverse areas of scientific research and created
a virtual environment laboratory that is among the most advanced
in the nation. In 1993, NCSA Mosaic, the Web browser that launched
the multibillion-dollar dot.com industry, was developed at the center.
In 1997, NCSA became the leading site for the National Computational
Science Alliance (Alliance), one of two partnerships of NSF's Partnerships
for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program As the
leader of the Alliance, NCSA continues to be at the forefront of
supercomputing technology and works to apply the power of supercomputers,
high-speed networking, and virtual reality to the needs of society,
including our schools, our communities, and populations that have
been underrepresented in the technology revolution. NCSA's partners
include research universities, national laboratories, and Fortune
500 companies, which use the center's innovative technologies to
gain a competitive advantage in business.
NCSA's computing resources include a 1,024-processor SGI Origin2000
array, a 256-processor NT super cluster, and an HP-Convex Exemplar
X-Class. NCSA is committed to expanding its supercomputer clusters
made from off-the-shelf components. NCSA and the Alliance also
continue their efforts to deploy the PACI Grid, which links supercomputers,
advanced visualization environments, remote scientific and medical
instrumentation, and very large databases through high-speed networks.
The center offers the best connectivity possible to its users and
partners through OC-12 (622 megabytes per second) connections to
two Internet backbone networks: the very high-speed Backbone Network
Service (vBNS), developed by the NSF and maintained by MCI/Worldcom;
and Abilene, the high-performance research network established by
the Internet2 consortium.
The National Science Foundation, state of Illinois, University of
Illinois, industrial partners, and other federal agencies fund NCSA.
