Today, in the University at Buffalo's Barbara and Jack Davis Hall Atrium, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced a major push for a five-year, $120 million federal research grant for UB's new Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics as well as a commitment to find additional research funding opportunities for the center. Schumer was joined by UB President Satish Tripathi and UB Professor Dr. Mark Swihart. The federal grant, which UB has preliminarily applied for, would provide five years’ worth of funding for cutting-edge research to establish a Department of Energy "Innovation Hub." University officials believe that federal research funding is the key to transforming UB's newly created Materials Informatics Center of Excellence into a national center of critical materials research. This Department of Energy designation would go towards expanding research on materials science that could lead to the development of synthetic substitutes for rare earth elements, new clean energy alternatives, biomedical and life sciences technology, as well as advanced manufacturing. Schumer stressed that such areas of scientific research generate solutions for some of the nation's greatest challenges, and that federal support for cutting-edge research in major industry clusters is the key that will unlock large scale business development in western New York, like it has at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany.
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