Release

Media Advisory: NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris Headlines First UAlbany Journalism Lecture Series Event

ALBANY, N.Y. (Februry 6, 2007)

What:
NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris, who has reported from the Galapagos Islands, the South Pole, the Amazon rainforest, and Beijing at the height of the SARS epidemic, will give a lecture on "Nanotech: What Is It, Anyway?" This is the first event of the Scientists & Journalists: Dialogues for the 21st Century, Spring 2007 lecture series sponsored by the University at Albany's Journalism Program.

Who:

When:
Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007, 4 p.m.

Where:
NanoFab South Auditorium, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, University at Albany, 255 Fuller road, Albany, NY

Background:
The University at Albany recently received approval from State University of New York (SUNY) and the State Education Department to begin a 36-credit bachelor's degree program in journalism. Students interested in journalism previously studied the subject as a minor in the English Department, beginning in 1973. The minor still continues. The new undergraduate program offers students four concentrations: public affairs journalism; science, technology, and society; digital and visual media; and general journalism.

The program has received a grant of $25,000 from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation to bring leading science writers and journalists to campus. "Nanotech: What Is It, Anyway?" is the first event of the Scientists & Journalists: Dialogues for the 21st Century, Spring 2007 lecture series sponsored by the program.

About CNSE:
The College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany-State University of New York is the first college in the world dedicated to the research, development and deployment of innovative nanoscience, nanoengineering, nanobioscience and nanoeconomics concepts, and in May 2006, it was ranked by Small Times magazine as the nation's number one college for nanotechnology and microtechnology. CNSE's Albany NanoTech complex is the most advanced research facility of its kind at any university in the world: a $3 billion, 450,000-square-foot complex that attracts corporate partners from around the world and offers students a one-of-a-kind academic experience, and it is growing. The UAlbany NanoCollege is also home to the New York State Center of Excellence in Nanoelectronics.  The CNSE complex, financed through more than $500 million in governmental support and over $2.5 billion in corporate investments, houses the only pilot prototyping facilities in the academic world for the two standard sizes in computer chip design, the 200-millimeter (or 8-inch) wafer, and the 300-millimeter (or 12-inch) wafer. CNSE has more than 250 U.S. and worldwide partners, including some of the world's largest semiconductor and semiconductor-related tool manufacturing companies.  More information is available at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering web site.



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