Peter Cummings to receive the 2007 AIChE Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Award

Peter Cummings, John R. Hall Professor of Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt, will receive the 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AlChE) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Award at the institute’s annual meeting in November. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of nanoscale science and engineering in the field of chemical engineering through scholarship, education or service.

Cummings is being honored "for outstanding research accomplishments and national leadership in computational nanoscience," according to the award citation. Nanoscience refers to the study of matter as small as one billionth of a meter.

As principal scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and director of the laboratory’s Nanomaterials Theory Institute, Cummings oversees a team of scientists and engineers working to develop new materials to be used in medicine, electronics, and a wide variety of industrial applications. Since joining the Vanderbilt engineering faculty in 2002, his achievements include developing the leading model for water used in molecular-level computer simulations and participation in computer modeling to predict how individual cancer cells are likely to spread through the body.

Cummings has been a strong advocate for the development of new multiscale computer modeling techniques to support advances in nanoscience and to make nanotechnology a practical reality. His areas of specialization include nanotribology, molecular electronics, and hybrid organic-inorganic nanocomposites.

He will touch on all of these topics while delivering the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Award Lecture during the AIChE Annual Meeting, Nov. 4-9, in Salt Lake City, Utah. His talk is titled, “Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience – Emerging Tools for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.”

Cummings was also the recipient of AIChE’s Alpha Chi Sigma Award in 1998 recognizing the most outstanding research achievement in chemical engineering over the previous decade and was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2006.

Contact: David F. Salisbury, david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu 615-343-6803, Vanderbilt University

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