Nobel Laureate Headlines Nanotech Symposium

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Alan Heeger, who won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will headline Northwestern University's 2008 International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN) Symposium Thursday, Nov. 20. He will discuss "Low-Cost Plastic Solar Cells."

The day-long symposium will be held in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Orrington, 1710 Orrington Ave., Evanston. In addition to Heeger, this year's symposium will include presentations by seven other distinguished speakers in sessions that focus on nanoelectronics, molecular nanotechnology and nano-optics and nanomaterials. (Presentations will be highly technical.)

Symposium speakers include:

• Paul McEuen, Goldwin Smith Professor of Physics, Cornell University
• Donald Eigler, physicist and IBM Fellow, IBM Almaden Research Center
• J. Fraser Stoddart, Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry, Northwestern University
• Julius Rebek, Jr., professor and director, Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
• Lars Samuelson, professor and director, Nanometer Structure Consortium, Lund University, Sweden
• Jeffrey Moore, Murchison-Mallory Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Cherry Murray, principal associate director, science and technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The IIN is an umbrella organization headquartered at Northwestern that unites more than $445 million in nanotechnology research, educational programs and infrastructure. Under the direction of Chad Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the IIN organizes and sponsors a symposium each year that brings together leading national and international researchers to address important topics in the diverse field of nanotechnology.

Attendance at the symposium is free of charge, due to support from gwSaar; Husch Blackwell Sanders Welsh & Katz; NanoInk, Inc.; Northwestern University Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center; and Northwestern University Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence.

To register and for more information, go the symposium's Web site or call (847) 491-5784.