Millennium Café

The distinction between conventional electronics and soft human body and organs poses a grand challenge in the broad medical field. Our solution to address the challenge is to invent a new class of electronics, namely rubbery electronics, which is constructed from elastic rubber electronic materials with tissue-like softness and mechanical stretchability to allow seamless integration with soft deformable tissues and organs. This presentation will discuss some recent development and understanding of rubbery organic semiconductors, rubbery transistors, integrated electronics, sensors and bioelectronics.

Charlie Anderson | Biology

People have grown and harvested plants for food, shelter, energy, clothing, and medicines for millennia, but our newfound ability to comprehend and manipulate plant metabolism and structure opens a cornucopia of new potential uses for Earth’s photosynthetic kingdom. I will highlight how researchers in the Center for Biorenewables are leveraging the amazing powers of plants to create the next generation of advanced biomaterials and bioproducts for the benefit of everyone and the planet we call home, and discuss how you can get involved in our center.

Join this unique edition of the Millennium Café to learn about many new research capabilities, to meet Huck, MCL, and Nanofab staff, and to enjoy a delicious cup of coffee.  The open house will start with a brief presentation in the MSC Café Commons and then transition to posters/demonstrations throughout the building.

David Hughes | Entomology

PlantVillage is the largest and most technologically advanced decision support system for smallholder farmers in the world. The biggest threat facing all farmers (smallholder farmers or otherwise) is climate change. We focus on climate change adaptation reaching 16 million farmers/week with expectations for a x10 increase in the coming 3 years. This number of farmers could be a massive assist in climate change mitigation. Farms in the global south could draw down and store carbon enabling a massive wealth transfer to solve poverty in a single generation. PlantVillage has won both the Student and Milestone Carbon XPRIZE and we are competing for the $50 million prize and we need your help: engineers, material scientists, dreamers. Come join us and save the world!

Laura Y. Cabrera | Engineering Science & Mechanics

Knowing when you have crossed the line from an ethical to an unethical situation can at times be difficult to discern. Neuroethics is a relatively recent interdisciplinary field that describes, examines, and looks for practical ways to address ethical, social and cultural implications of advances in neuroscience and neurotechnologies. Neuroethisists working together with other disciplines aim to strengthen and ensure the responsible research and innovation around neurotechnologies.

Sanjana Krishna Mani, Christopher Wheatley, Ama Agyapong

On May 5^th >40 students competed in the Millennium Café Pitch Competition sponsored by PPG. The competition was fierce as students had <2 minutes to introduce their research in a manner that was understandable and inspiring to our panel of judges. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear the top-3 winners from this year’s competition.

• Sanjana Krishna Mani - “Machines in Microscale: Light-driven Oil Submarines”
• Christopher Wheatley - “Making cold sintering industrially feasible using ultrasonic nondestructive characterization”
• Ama Agyapong  - “Journey to Ordering”