Project Manager Qualifications and Organization Description
 
Tianhong Cui is currently Distinguished McKnight University Professor in Mechanical Engineering and an Affiliate Senior Member of the graduate faculty in Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota.  He joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 2003.  He was also a visiting professor at University of Freiburg in Germany in 2006. He is an international leading expert on micro sensors and advanced manufacturing. He has more than 310 publications and 8 US patents in the relevant area. As an editor-in-chief, he founded the first engineering journal of Nature Publishing Group titled Microsystems & Nanoengineering, and he is also responsible for another Nature Journal, Light: Science & Applications.  In the meantime, he is serving as an associate editor for Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and Journal of Nano Research, and he was a past editor for IEEE Sensors Journal.
 
The proposed fabrication work will be done in Minnesota Nano Center (www.nfc.umn.edu) at the University of Minnesota in a 7000 square foot facility, including 3000 square feet of class 10 clean room. The Lab contains all of the major pieces of processing equipment. Minnesota Nano Center well maintains these systems, keeps safe operating procedures, and trains students.  State support, support from NSF through the National Nano Coordinated Infrastructure Network (NNCI), and industry usage allows Minnesota Nano Center to offer academic rates that are normally less than half of the actual cost of operation. In 2014, NFC took possession of a second clean room as part of a new Physics and Nanotechnology Building.  The new building is across the street from the ECE Building which houses the existing clean room.  At 5000 square feet under filter and almost 10,000 square feet gross, it is more than double the existing space. In addition to expanding the suite of clean room tools available, the lab will also operate two new non-clean core labs that support research in nanomaterials and nanotechnology.
 
The design and characterization of the sensor networks proposed here will be performed in the Technology Integration & Advanced Nano/Microsystems Laboratory (TIAN Lab), located in room ME4128 of the Mechanical Engineering Building, on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota. The lab is equipped with the state-of-the-art instrument and facilities to conduct the proposed research. TIAN Lab resources include a variety of fabrication and characterization equipment and tools, sufficient for Professor Cui and his Ph.D. student to design, fabricate, characterize and analyse the proposed sensor networks for pollutant monitoring. 
 
The Center for Biorefining directed by Professors Roger Ruan and Paul Chen is a University of Minnesota research center and helps coordinate the University efforts and resources to conduct exploratory fundamental and applied research on renewable energy, materials, and environmental mitigation. The Center’s research programs are founded by DOE, USDA, DOT, DOD, LCCMR, IREE, Xcel Energy, and other federal and state agencies, NGOs, and private companies. The Center is equipped with state-of-the-art analytical instruments, and processing facilities ranging from bench to pilot scale for characterization and field testing of this project.
 
Professor Tianhong Cui in Mechanical Engineering will serve as the PI and project manager.  He will be responsible for overseeing the project, all reports, and deliverables.  He will also develop the sensor networks, portable units, and data transfer protocols.  Professor Roger Ruan in Bioproducts and Biosystems will be a collaborator responsible for setting up and conduct field tests of the proposed techniques. Paul Chen, associate professor in Bioproducts and Biosystems, will be another collaborator responsible for lab analysis of water quality using conventional and the proposed techniques.