My Project Abstract

Dear CNS fellows,
 

So far this internship has brought valuable skills and experience to my career development. Since the internship started I was hoping to gain experience and improve my writing and public speaking skills. The internship has had great emphasis in these two fields and has given me very valuable knowledge and confidence. The other gain that I am still developing is to keep building my professional network, talk to professionals in the field and gain knowledge of my future career steps. So far the CNS colleagues have been wonderful and have given me an irreplaceable experience. I am very thankful to my mentor Roger for choosing me and for all his unconditional help. Thank you to Cathy, Dr. McCray, and all the CNS colleagues. I know I will always remember this experience.

I leave you with my project abstract. I hope you enjoy it and we could talk about it more tomorrow after the presentation. Happy reading!

Green Nano-Visions and Their Policy Consequences

            My Project analyzes how environmental visions of nanotechnology impeded policy makers from seeing many of its environmental risks and implications. Between the mid-1980s and 2000s, key figures such as Eric Drexler, Nobel scientist Richard Smalley, and National Science Foundation administrator Mihail Roco all promoted nanotechnology as a tool to solve pressing environmental challenges. They envisioned a world where nanotechnology made anthropogenic activity more environmentally sustainable. For instance, in 2000, when the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) began, Roco declared nanotechnology would boost crop yields, desalinate water, provide sustainable energy, and diminish pollution.

            In the years just after the NNI began, these visions about nanotechnology’s environmental applications impeded scientists and policy-makers from seeing its potential implications and environmental consequences. Although, today, nanotechnology does include beneficial applications like water remediation and solar energy absorption, much remains unknown about nanotechnology’s environmental, health, and safety (EHS) implications. Despite numerous studies revealing the likely toxicity of some nanomaterials to humans, soils, plants, and other organisms, only 3% of the NNI budget is dedicated to EHS implications. Nanotechnology’s earliest advocates promoted their visions of environmental applications so effectively that EHS concerns about nanotechnology went underexplored during the crucial earlier years of the American nanotechnology enterprise.  By uncovering the early environmental visions of nanotechnology, this project helps explain why American efforts to explore nanotechnology’s EHS issues remain delayed and underfunded.

Welcome CNS Summer Interns

Greetings to our CNS-UCSB summer interns for 2012. Since arriving on June 18, the four interns have worked closely with their graduate student mentors on projects furthering the aims of their Interdisciplinary Research Groups.

The interns themselves will tell you more about themselves and their work in their upcoming blog entries. So for now, I'd like to briefly introduce them, and urge readers to check out their bios  on the CNS Website.


Gianna Haro is working with mentor Roger Eardley-Pryor (IRG 1) to explore metaphors shaping the regulation of nanotechnology policies.


Kelly Landers is working with mentor Galen Stocking (IRG 2) to map the nanoenterprise and nano educational opportunities in California.


Eddie Triste is working with mentor Cassandra Engeman (IRG 3) to identify non-governmental organizations (NGOs) addressing nano regulatory issues in the U.S. and internationally.


Bryan Phillips is working with mentor Zach Horton (X-IRG) to  describe the aspects of the  innovation process that help and hinder the development of the nano-solar industry.


Stay tuned for further details about this exciting work.