NSF announces four new centers

NSF announced four new Science & Technology Centers, bringing the number of the foundation's S&T Centers to 17. The new centers will receive a total of $76 million over the next five years to support multiuniversity collaborations to study next-generation polymers, climate modeling, microbial oceanography, and coastal environments. The S&T Centers "provide a unique environment that allows scientists to push the frontiers of both research and education by developing creative partnerships among disciplines, institutions, and walks of life," said NSF Director Arden L. Bement Jr. The four centers are the S&T Center for Layered Polymeric Systems, headquartered at Case Western Reserve University and designed to use a layering process to achieve features on the micro- and nanoscale; the S&T Center for Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes, headquartered at Colorado State University and designed to study ways to improve climate models for enhanced climate and weather forecasting; the S&T Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research & Education, headquartered at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and designed to improve the understanding of oceans; and the S&T Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction, headquartered at Oregon Health & Science University and designed to apply genomics and proteomics to study coastal margins.