Savas Kaya, associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, will explore nanotechnology during his Science Café talk titled, “Nanoscale Science & Engineering: Hype or Opportunity?” at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9 in the Baker University Center Front Room.
To the public, “nanoscience” typically conjures images of science fiction movies with either outlandish gadgets or worse yet as destructive robots trying to take over the world.
“This could not be further from the truth,” Kaya said. “Science education can be reinvented and made more interesting.”
Throughout the past 20 years, technological advances have made nanoscience something more tangible for the everyday person from common light microscopes to microscopes that are able to observe individual atoms. Even the state-of-the-art scientific instruments that used to be only available for researchers are now available as demonstration tools for the public.
Kaya will bring some of this equipment from nanO stUdio, which is something he has set up for aspiring young scientists and scholars, to the Front Room with the hope of allowing the public to break the notion that nanoscience is only for cold, deep dark labs and serious scientists.
He said he believes that in the future, these instruments will be integrated into high school classrooms, where students will hopefully begin to see nanoscience as something accessible and meaningful.
Café events are free and open to students, faculty and staff. Café Conversations and Science Cafés are both venues for students to share their interests informally during a conversation exchange in a friendly setting. The Science Cafe is hosted by Dr. Sarah Wyatt, Professor of Environmental & Plant Biology and Vice President of the Ohio University Chapter of Sigma Xi. The two series are sponsored by the Ohio University chapter of Sigma Xi and the Office of the Vice President for Research. Find the Science Café on Facebook and Twitter.
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