School students to meet Nobel Laureates

Jun 30, 2004

When: 2pm, Thursday July 1: Where: Science Centre, Squires Way, Fairy Meadow

The event hopes to encourage school students to be interested in nanoscience at a tertiary level. Nobel Laureates will speak with 100 invited high school students about why they began a career in science, why this is such an exciting area of research and what it was like winning the Nobel Prize.

The students will have the opportunity of putting their questions to the three Nobel Laureates attending the conference (Professor Alan Heeger (University of California USA),Professor Alan MacDiarmid (University of Pennsylvania, USA) and Professor Hideki Shirakawa (University of Tsukuba, Japan).

The newly-introduced nanotechnology courses at the UOW will also be highlighted. These are the: i) Bachelor of Nanotechnology, ii)Bachelor of Nanotechnology (Advanced), both 4-year courses and iii) Bachelor of Science (Nanotechnology) a 3-year course.

The focus of the courses is on materials and chemistry with the emphasis on how to make nano-materials and how to characterise their structure and properties. This theme is supported by studies in physics, mathematics and introductory biology. Students can choose elective subjects from different interest areas including biology, physics, mechatronics and also materials or chemistry. Current employment is mainly in the research sector (University or CSIRO), but with the number of private start-up companies emerging there is expected to be a world-wide increase in employment in the private sector.

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128