MIT professor lectures on nanotube research

Michael S. Strano, EG ’03PhD, who is the Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), returned to UD in April to deliver the Department of Chemical Engineering’s Allan P. Colburn Memorial Lecture. His topic, “The Chemistry of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Applications to Biomolecule Detection, Nanotube Separation and Electronic Networks, ” reflected his research interests. His work focuses on biomolecule and nanoparticle interactions and the surface chemistry of low-dimensional systems, nano-electronics, nanoparticle separations and applications of vibrational spectroscopy to nanotechnology.

After earning his doctorate at UD, Strano was a postdoctoral research fellow at Rice University under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley.

He is the recipient of several awards, including a 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a 2006 Beckman Young Investigator Award, the 2006 Coblentz Award for Molecular Spectroscopy, the Unilever Award from the American Chemical Society in 2007 for excellence in colloidal science and the 2008 Young Investigator Award from the Materials Research Society.