Education
ICTAS impacts personal growth and opportunity through support of interdisciplinary teaching, learning, research, and discovery in close alignment with the mission of Virginia Tech.
A prime example of ICTAS support of education is promulgated through affiliation with the Virginia Tech Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Science (SBES). While SBES infrastructure is advanced through direct support from ICTAS, SBES research is advanced through the utilization of emerging technologies, state-of-the-art laboratories, and facilities. SBES will re-locate in early 2009, joining ICTAS in a new headquarters building on the Virginia Tech campus.
ICTAS also creates and coordinates programs designed to expand personal and professional growth while nurturing creativity, intellectual exploration and expression in a collaborative team environment.
ICTAS Faculty Fellow Program
Designed after the prestigious Fellow Awards in Bell Labs and other institutions, this program will honor top notch faculty through recognition at a public ceremony and a financial award. It will be limited to 0.1% of the faculty per year with a lifetime cap of 1% This program is in the early stages of formulation and details will be announced as we sort through the resources to fund it.
ICTAS Doctoral Scholars Program
A new program, the ICTAS Doctoral Scholars Program, was established in 2007 to honor exceptional Ph.D. applicants with a Graduate Research Assistantship through the Ph.D. qualifying period. This program is a cooperative effort supported and coordinated primarily by ICTAS, with significant contributions from participating departments, colleges, and the graduate school. Successful candidates of the highest caliber will be selected for this honor. This award is an investment in the university intellectual talent, creativity, and productivity, and complements the mission and strategic plan of the university. The initial goal for the program is to recruit 10 scholars per year toward a steady number of 40 ICTAS scholars by 2011 ad infinitum.
Outreach
Economic development has been a vital part of the Virginia Tech mission since the university's founding in 1872. Today, that mission reaches throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia and is facilitated by ICTAS through:
Research dissemination and technology transfer
Technical assistance for business and industry
Support to community and economic developers
Partnering to share Virginia Tech expertise and addressing issues that affect societal well being
ICTAS is continuously reaching out and cultivating opportunities to devlop communities locally and globally.
Virginia Tech, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to sign Memorandum of Understanding
Virginia Tech and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are poised to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
to formally recognize a series of new collaborations under discussion between both organizations. The signing of the document is
expected to occur before the end of calendar year 2009.
This MOU will cover nanotechnology; nanotechnology environmental, health & safety; biotechnology; renewable materials; sustainable water
technologies, and energy. These areas were chosen to highlight the areas complementary between Virginia Tech and NIST researchers.
The initial collaborative effort between Virginia Tech and NIST will be sustainable water technologies.
Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) engaged in collaboration discussions
Virginia Tech and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory continue discussions targeted to a partnership in research collaborations. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
is expected to formally recognize the outcome of the discussions.
Increasing the cooperative and collaborative links between Virginia Tech other research organizations will enhance the scientific, technical, and engineering
competence and breadth of the partnering institutions, while making better use of their respective facilities and enabling their faculty and staff to work together
to develop stronger programs of mutual interest and benefit. This enhanced capability will permit partners to accomplish goals together that they could not achieve separately.
These types of cooperative relationships will bring new and additional resources to both parties through new programs, collaborations, efficiencies, and resource use
optimization; enrich the regional economic environment; and provide a catalyst for the creation of more regional collaborations, perhaps leading to the creation of a
regional center or joint institute, designed to enhance the cooperation between public, private, and academic sectors.
The Virginia A. L. Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership (VPMEP)
Virginia Tech and VPMEP are partnering to create a framework by which Virginia Tech, primarily through the College of Engineering, and VPMEP jointly promote technical assistance, research, and outreach with manufacturing interests in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collaborative effort is expected to improve competitiveness of manufacturers across the Commonwealth. ICTAS will coordinate the Virginia Tech effort on behalf of the College of Engineering.
Robert (Bob) Schwabik, Project Manager for Technology Transfer, will nurture a pipeline connection with clients of the Virginia A. L. Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership (VPMEP) as well as with the fifty nine centers currently participating in the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST MEP). Bob has over 38 years total industrial experience, including more than 10 years at VPMEP.
Assisting small manufacturers of Virginia in understanding and protecting intellectual property and serving as a resource for interfacing with Tech's vast inventory of technology and intellectual property is a new area for the Manufacturing Extension Program. One of the first steps planned to advance university discoveries is to help researchers communicate (via invention disclosure) the unique technology or expertise that is presented in the disclosure so that the technology or expertise and the potential applications are more apparent to the non-technical reader. This undertaking is co-sponsored by Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties, Inc.
Pulaski Nanotechnology Park
Dr. Roop Mahajan, ICTAS Director, is serving on a commission appointed to explore feasibility and planning for a nanotechnology park in Pulaski, Virginia. Several separate studies were commissioned during the fall of 2007, all scheduled to be completed within a year of authorization. The following diagram depicts considerations underway:
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