Poly-Med a part of MADE in South Carolina
We’ve included a portion of the press release from Clemson University about a recent announcement featuring a new initiative: Materials Assembly and Design Excellence (MADE) in South Carolina. Poly-Med is proud to be a partner in this statewide initiative.
CLEMSON, South Carolina — South Carolina’s position as a national leader in advanced materials just got a giant boost.
A team of researchers from 10 universities across the state has received a $20 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) to establish a new initiative: Materials Assembly and Design Excellence in South Carolina, or MADE in SC.
“The vision of MADE in SC is to discover and establish new and sustainable approaches for the design and assembly of advanced materials that serve South Carolina’s STEM research, education and workforce needs, and to invigorate economic development,” said Rajendra Bordia, professor and chair of the materials science and engineering department at Clemson University and the co-principal investigator and scientific director for the statewide program.
Other collaborating colleges and universities are the University of South Carolina (USC), the Medical University of South Carolina, the College of Charleston, Furman University, USC Beaufort, Winthrop University, Claflin University, South Carolina State University and Florence-Darlington Technical College.
With the EPSCoR grant, MADE in SC is committed to hiring 17 new researchers over five years at five institutions. The universities will also invest in training postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students; outreach to K-12 schools and the public; and developing new facilities.
Clemson will receive $5.9 million of the grant and will hire five new faculty members, support 12 new doctoral students to work with 17 faculty members from six departments, and invest in new equipment for materials research.
MADE in SC underscores how important academic research is to economic development, said James P. Clements, president of Clemson University.
“Universities are hotbeds of innovation and as Clemson’s research enterprise grows, so grows the South Carolina economy,” Clements said. “Our incredibly talented faculty, staff and students allow us to conduct valuable research that our partners in industry can build upon and which will continue to benefit the residents of South Carolina for decades to come.”
Among the current corporations in South Carolina for which MADE in SC will provide support and future employees are AVX, BMW, Boeing, CuRE Innovations, GE, IBM, Michelin, Milliken, Poly-Med, Savannah River National Laboratory and Tetramer, Bordia said.
