Chancellor chooses chemist to be CNSI director
By Joie Guner
Nov. 9, 2003 9:00 p.m.
A UCLA professor of chemistry will bring in a new wave of
leadership at the California NanoSystems Institute.
Last week, Chancellor Albert Carnesale appointed Fraser Stoddart
the new director for CNSI. Stoddart is currently the Saul Winstein
Professor of Organic Chemistry at UCLA.
Roberto Peccei, UCLA vice chancellor of research, said he is
pleased with the decision to choose Stoddart, who is a universally
recognized chemist.
Stoddart, a previous co-director of CNSI, has been associated
with studying nanosystems for decades.
His specialty in terms of research is, as he put it,
“covering the fundamental nature of the mechanical bond in
chemistry.”
He plans on continuing this research at the institute.
“Our great interest is the development of little motor
molecules that are of nanometer dimensions, and trying to use these
motor molecules both in a mechanical sense to activate little
machines and in an electronic sense,” Stoddart said.
The research will have many applications.
“There may be applications both to electronics and to
activated devices “¦ there could be applications in the area
of sensing,” Stoddard said.
The sensing that Stoddart referred to is the detection of toxic
wastes in the atmosphere.
But Stoddard emphasized he doesn’t want people to lose
sight of the educational aspect by getting caught up in the
technology.
“It is giving the opportunity to a new generation of
students to be educated and trained in a way that has removed
interdisciplinary barriers and allowed them to see the benefits of
collaborating across and between barriers,” Stoddart
said.
He believes the CNSI will attract talented and motivated
undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students from around the
world.
These students will get the chance to participate in
joint-research with students from the University of California,
Santa Barbara, which is collaborating with UCLA through the
CNSI.
“One of the things I hope that we will achieve in a short
period of time is an increase in the amount of interaction between
the two campuses,” Stoddard said.
“We are very enthusiastic of it encompassing as much of
the UC system as we can and indeed beyond into … places close by
like Caltech, Stanford and USC,” he added.
