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About the Center


International Center for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials

In the past few years The University of Texas at Austin started efforts in the Science and Engineering areas under the leadership of Dr. Juan Sanchez, VP for Research. This has already resulted in increased interactions with Latin America that have started to produce important results. A top Mexican scientist, Miguel Jose Yacaman, has been recruited by the University of Texas at Austin, and major research programs and collaborations have been established with the most prestigious Mexican Universities and research centers. UT Scientists such as Dr. Don Paul, Dr. Isaac Sanchez, and Dr. Alan Bard, have collaborative research programs with Mexico. The numbers of graduate students from Latin America has increased. Major actions have been undertaken such as the donation of a supercomputer to a Mexican research center. Also trough collaborations, Latin American scientists are using the high speed computers, the TMI facilities, and other equipment.

The Institute is aimed to give a definite impulse to the collaborations and cooperation with Latin American Engineering and Sciences and plays the role of the Mexican Center in the Science and Engineering areas. One of the goals of the ICNAM is to increase the number of Hispanic students in UT.

We have detected the following problems:

  • UT Engineering and Science schools are not doing any systematic effort to recruit top level students in Latin America . The high quality of our programs is not generally known in Latin America.
  • The graduate advisors in general are not aware of the high quality research institutions that exist in Mexico, and the top level student that they produce. Those students typically after a masters degree tend to apply to MIT or Berkeley just because they are not aware that similar quality exists at UT – Austin.
  • Many departments are getting applicants (and accepting them) from third class Latin American institutions. Those students have not performed at the same level as the Chinese or Indian students and have created a bad reputation among some professors.

Activities of the ICNAM

 The main activities of the ICNAM are:

  • Establish research networks.
  • Organize workshops in the areas of research in nanotechnology and materials science.
  • Conduct topical Meetings.
  • Stimulate Industry on both sides of the border.
  • Provide training courses in new techniques available at UT- Austin particularly the facilities available at TMI.
  • Promote graduate students exchange.
  • Develop joint supervision of graduate students between Texas and Latin American scientists.
  • Promote post doctoral exchanges.
  • Promote senior researcher exchanges.
  • Provide supplementary support for sabbatical stays.
  • Prepare educational materials.
  • Support the use of common equipment in a research network.
  • Support summer visits and workshops for the development of innovative courses in materials for the Americas.

Once the above mentioned activities have been consolidated, the center could expand undergraduate and graduate educational opportunities by offering joint Doctoral Program on materials and nanotechnology, in as well as other outreach activities focused on nanoscience education.

One of the great challenges of the state of Texas is to educate the increasing Hispanic population in the state at higher standards. The problem can be reflected in the statistics; Hispanics  are only 14% of the enrollment  of the College of Engineering and 14.7% of the College of Natural Sciences. This is extremely low when compared with Asian-American wich represent 23% of the students and a much lower  fraction of the Texas population. The huge drop comes at the doctorate level where the Hispanic enrollment falls to 3.8% in Engineering and 2%  in Natural Sciences. One of the solutions will be to have Latin American graduate students  and post docs that will act as a roll model for Hispanic under grads  and help them to go to graduate school. However the statistics of foreign students are in the opposite sense:

Foreign Students Total  53%

India       30%
Korea      20%
China      20%
Other Asian Countries    1%
Other East Asian Countries  (Japan, Malaysia, etc.)  6%
Taiwan      4%
Arab Countries 3%

Mexico      3%
Venezuela 2%
Colombia  1%
Brazil        1%

African Countries  2%

Europe      7%

Total Asian Countries   84%
Total Latin American Countries   7%
Total European Countries  7%
Total African Countries  2%

 

Center Location:
International Center for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (ICNAM)

102 E. 24th Street / NST 1.206D
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712

Phone: 512.471.7138
Fax: 512.475.8090