Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: "University of Dayton Hires Researchers with Goals of Creating New Technologies, Jobs"

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Scott Gold (L), Ohio Research Scholar in Multiscale Composites Processing, and Khalid Lafdi, Wright Brothers Institute Endowed Chair in Nanomaterials.

Scott Gold (L), Ohio Research Scholar in Multiscale Composites Processing, and Khalid Lafdi, Wright Brothers Institute Endowed Chair in Nanomaterials.

Abstract:
The University of Dayton School of Engineering has hired two faculty members with a combined nine inventions for the region's Wright Brothers Institute and the state's Ohio Research Scholars program to help create technologies that could lead to jobs.

University of Dayton Hires Researchers with Goals of Creating New Technologies, Jobs

Dayton, OH | Posted on November 20th, 2010

Scott Gold, owner of five inventions, will join the School of Engineering as an associate professor in chemical and materials engineering and Ohio Research Scholar in Multiscale Composites Processing. He will be part of a research cluster with The Ohio State University and the University of Akron.

Khalid Lafdi, who came to the University in 2001 as a researcher in the Research Institute, will be a Wright Brothers Institute Endowed Chair in Nanomaterials. He holds four patents and has licensed three nano-manufacturing technologies to Ohio companies. Although Lafdi has a primary appointment in the School of Engineering he will continue to serve as a carbon group leader of the multi-scale composites and polymers division of the University of Dayton Research Institute.

"We are very pleased to have Dr. Gold join our School of Engineering family. We look forward to his contributions to the excellent teaching and research in the School of Engineering," said Tony Saliba, dean of the University of Dayton School of Engineering. "Dr. Lafdi is a world authority in carbon science and an outstanding educator. As the Wright Brothers Institute Chair, he will expand our academic program in nanomaterials, forge partnerships with industry and other organizations, and advance the regional and national stature of the University in this field."

Gold's area of expertise is the processing of nanoscale materials and composites using surface tension, or how a liquid interacts with solid surfaces. Applications include the fabrication of nano-structured materials that can be used in electronic devices, batteries, fuel cells or composite materials. The journal Synthetic Metals has profiled his work.

For the past six years, Gold served in the chemical and nanosystems engineering programs at Louisiana Tech University. In 2008, he earned the College of Engineering and Science Outstanding Teacher award. Gold also led the development of online engineering courses and is a certified peer reviewer for online courses.

Lafdi has secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in research funding while at the University of Dayton. He helped establish the University's Nanoscale Engineering Science and Technology facility, the Research Institute's Carbon Research Lab, a thermal management lab and a manufacturing transition facility at the National Composites Center in Kettering, Ohio. The latter is designed to facilitate scale-up processes and technology transfer of nanomaterials and devices to bring technology to the marketplace.

Lafdi also has published more than 100 articles and chapters in refereed journals and edited four books in nanocomposites and thermal management.

Before coming to the University, Lafdi was at Southern Illinois University where he helped develop new electrode supercapacitors, nano-structural materials, composites and aircraft friction materials. He also contributed to the creation and establishment of a new National Science Foundation Center for Advanced Friction Studies at Southern Illinois University.

Lafdi will share the Wright Brothers Institute appointment with Joel Fried, whom the University hired from the University of Cincinnati last month.

The University Dayton has hired two other Ohio Research Scholars in the past two years - Heinz Robota in fuels and Vijayan Asari in layered sensing.