Daniel Paez, “Nanofabrication of Metal-Polymer Composites for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Based Biosensing” in the Electronic, Magnetic, and Photonic Materials Division.	Ninoshka Cantres, “New Application of Recycled Metallic Matrix Composites” in the Light Metals Division.
Nayomi Plaza, “Effects of Magnesium Levels in Aluminum Matrix Compositesc Subject to Mechanical Wear and Abrasion” in the Structural Materials Division.	Alexandra Cintrón-Aponte, “On the Statistical Analysis of the Effect of Chemical Composition in Al-V and Al-Zr Composites Under Directional Solidification” in the Extraction and Processing Division.

Daniel Páez is a UPRM Mechanical Engineering MS student working under the guidance of Prof. Rubén Díaz; his work is supported by the Puerto Rico Institute of Functional Nanomaterials. Ninoshka Cantres (UPRM Chemical Engineering undergraduate), Nayomi Plaza (UPRM Mechanical undergraduate), and Alexandra Cintrón and Víctor Martínez (both UPRM Industrial Engineering undergraduates) have been directly supported by PREM. Nayomi Plaza and Víctor Martínez are also recipients of the Puerto Rico Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. This is the second year in a row in which Alexandra won the First Prize in the EPD division of this competition. Other PREM students co-authoring the winning posters were: Ruth G. I. Hidalgo (2006 TMS LMD Scholar and Bridge-to-Doctorate fellowship holder), José Vázquez and Carlos Báez (both 2007 TMS Poster Contest winners). Of all the 12 awards available, UPRM students received 4, i.e. 33%. In 2007, PREM students won two, while in 2008 UPRM PREM students received three.

The UPRM team waggle the four ribbons in celebration and are joined by Dr. Robert Shull and his wife. Dr. Shull (NIST Magnetic Materials Group Leader) was the 2007 TMS President and served in the TMS Board of Directors.

The large UPRM delegation shown below was joined by Andrew Fairbrother (third from left in the back row), from New Mexico Tech, and 2008 UPRM REU participant and Z. Humberto Melgarejo, UW PREM doctoral student (far right). The travel of the group was made possible not only by UPRM PREM support but also by grants and donations from TMS, the PR LSAMP, the PRSGC, BP, Raytheon, and the NASA/MUST program. Important travel funds were provided by UPRM Dean of Engineering, Dr. Ramón E. Vásquez Espinoza, a prime supporter of PREM and the Chapter.

These achievements crown a fruitful 2008-2009 Academic Year for the Mayagüez Material Advantage Chapter. Founded in 2004 under the auspice of UPRM PREM the group received the 2008 Chapter of Excellence by the national organization. The award was officially conferred during the Materials Science & Technology meeting held in October in Pittsburgh.

After returning to campus, the successful delegation presented the ribbons to UPRM Engineering Dean Dr. Ramón Vásquez (left), Daniel Páez, Ruth Hidalgo, Nayomi Plaza (Chapter President), Alexandra Cintrón, Ninoshka Cantres, José Vázquez, Víctor Martínez, and Prof. O. Marcelo Suárez (Chapter Faculty Mentor).

The Chapter outstanding performance was praised by the 2008 TMS President Dr. Diran Apelian (on the left photograph). He visited the Mayagüez campus in early February 2009 to meet with the Material Advantage students and UPRM faculty. Other individual achievements of Material Advantage/PREM students were:

1. Nayomi Plaza, who joined PREM as a junior high school student and became 2007 Puerto Rico Math Honorific Mention top high school graduate, received the Robert C. Byrd scholarship, the Lockheed Martin HENAAC scholarship, the NASA/MUST scholarship and a Boeing scholarship.

2. Maxuel Cruz, a Puerto Rico Space Grant Consortium undergraduate fellow, received the Northrop Grumman HENAAC scholarship.
3. Ronald Carrasquillo, former UPRM PREM and now UPRM CREST undergraduate Chemical Engineering student, received one of the three Engineering awards in the 2008 Sigma Xi poster competition.

For this research project, Ronald Carrasquillo (in the photograph below with the winning poster) and his mentor, Dr. O. Marcelo Suárez (UPRM PREM PI), had received a competitive Grants-in-Aid of Research award from the Sigma Xi Honor Research Society in May 2008.

In this project, Al-Sn-based composites reinforced with AlB₂ dispersoids are proposed as substitutes for commonly used Al-Sn-Si bearing alloys because of the superior wear strength observed in the new composite. The study is expected to be submitted for publication in March 2009.

Yarymar Martínez (left), Ronald Carrasquillo (center) and Roberto Rivera (right) working in the UPRM characterization laboratory where most of this work was carried out.

Ronald joined PREM in 2007, while Yarymar participated as volunteer during the Fall 2008 semester in Dr. Suárez’s research group. Roberto is supported with a scholarship from the Puerto Rico Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Program to work under the guidance of Dr. Suárez.

This Nanotechnology Center for Biomedical and Energy-Driven Systems and Applications (NCBEDSA) seeks to secure national competitiveness of our institution in the area of materials engineering research and nanotechnology. To achieve this goal, the NCBEDSA was structured, following the successful MRSEC’s model, in four interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs) and an interdisciplinary education group (IEG):

IRG1: Multifunctional nanoparticles for magnetically actuated siRNA delivery
IRG2: Quantum dot systems for cancer therapy
IRG3: Nanoporous materials for separations and catalysis
IRG4 nanoengineered composite materials for energy efficient devices and applications

The IEG’s activities will not only impact society segments (encompassing middle and high schools as well as teachers and public school counselors) but also the whole scholar echelon from undergraduates and graduate students to participating faculty

From left to right: Drs. Arturo Hernández, O. Marcelo Suárez, Jeannette Santos, Oscar Perales and Carlos Rinaldi.

The entire list of the principal investigators and senior personnel involved in this major project are provided in the table.

Top row: Luis Rivera, Surindar Singh, Madeline Torres, Jeannette Santos, Jaquelina Alvarez, Sandra Dika, and Oscar Perales. Bottom row: Eduardo Juan, Arturo Hernández, Agnes Padovani and Marcelo Suárez. Not shown: Carlos Rinaldi, Nelson Sepúlveda, Guillermo Serrano, Maharaj Tomar, and Paul Kohl.

IRG1	Carlos Rinaldi (leader)	Chemical Engineering
	Madeline Torres	Chemical Engineering
	Eduardo Juan	Electrical and Computer Engineering
IRG2	Arturo Hernández (leader)	Chemical Engineering
	Nelson Cardona	Chemical Engineering
	Raphael G. Raptis	Chemistry, Univ. Puerto Rico – Río Piedras
IRG3	Oscar Perales (leader)	Engineering Science & Materials
	Luis A. Rivera	Chemistry
	Maharaj S. Tomar	Physics
	Surinder P. Singh	Engineering Science & Materials
IRG4	O. Marcelo Suárez (leader)	Engineering Science & Materials
	Nelson Sepúlveda	Electrical and Computer Engineering
	Agnes Padovani	Engineering Science & Materials
	Guillermo Serrano	Electrical and Computer Engineering
	David Suleiman	Chemical Engineering
	Paul Kohl	Chem. & Biomol. Engineering, Georgia Tech
IEG	Jeannette Santos (leader)	Engineering Science & Materials
	Sandra Dika	Office of Institutional Research & Planification
	Jaquelina E. Alvarez	General Library

Front row from left to right: Tunde Adelakin (President); Ruth Hidalgo (Treasurer); Lilia Olaya (Secretary); and Yarilyn Cedeño. Back row: professors O. M. Suárez and O. Uwakweh (Faculty Mentors)

MRS University Chapters are entitled to many benefits including: travel support for student members to attend MRS Spring and Fall Meetings; distinguished speaker support; special project grants; access to MRS publications; and other in-kind support.

While fifteen PREM graduate and undergraduate students constitute the initial UPRM Chapter membership the Chapter officers expect to expand the initiative by intensive recruitment efforts.

The initial Executive Committee of the UPRM MRS Chapter are:

The photograph on the right shows ASM Fellow Dr. Kumar Sridharan (center), Prof. O. Marcelo Suárez (left) and PhD student Z. Humberto Melgarejo (right) in front of the sculpture “Máquina” on UW Engineering Mall.

In early July five teachers from Mayagüez, Cabo Rojo, and San Sebastián have completed their projects on themes ranging from nanoparticles for explosive detection to synthesis of high coercivity nanostructured oxides. The outcomes of the projects were praised by representatives from the Puerto Rico Department of Education who attended the final presentations.

PREM has also partnered with the UPRM Dept. of Mechanical Engineering to provide the necessary materials laboratory environment for Summer Camp intended to attract female students to the program. The young visitors toured the facilities (the largest UPRM materials-dedicated laboratories) and were introduced to the wonders of materials. Similarly, a select group of 11-grade students hosted by the UPRM Pre-Engineering office and students from the Interamerican University at Bayamón, Puerto Rico benefitted from this arrangement.

Additionally, PREM’s Outreach and Education Office assisted UPRM’s Access and Success (CUA in Spanish) Project, a campus-wide initiative that has been working on the connections between socio-economic status and access to higher education.

In Puerto Rico students from low-income households are largely underrepresented in public higher education, resulting from inequalities in K-12 education. Through an action research paradigm a context of outreach activities was established involving, in the process, low-income active UPRM students as research assistants and outreach leaders. Currently the focus is on students from public housing communities in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. The young visitors enjoyed the “magic” of materials and learned how this “magic” involves science and lots of dedication.

Effect of TaB₂ doping on the current density of MgB₂.

Magnetization-magnetic field profiles for cobalt ferrite synthesized before and after acidic treatment. The coercivity was as high as 7.9 kOe in the acidic treated sample.

Furthermore, our most recent results evidenced that the coercivity of the cobalt ferrite nanocrystals could be enhanced even further. A post-acidic treatment of the ferrite nanocrystals caused their coercivity to rise up to 8 kOe at room temperature. The corresponding average crystallite size was 20 nm. To our knowledge, this is the highest coercivity value reported so far in the scientific literature. This value is even above the theoretically predicted maximum of 5.3 kOe. This type of nanosize material can be considered a very promising material for data storage.

The University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez (UPRM) PREM project in association with the Department of Engineering Science and Materials designed and proposed the establishment of an undergraduate Certificate in Materials Science & Engineering (CMSE). The curricular sequence has been approved by UPRM administration to start running in August 2008. The purpose of the CMSE is to provide the students with a solid background and basic skills to identify, rationalize and face common problems associated to materials processing and the macro, micro and nanoscale. This complementary knowledge will situate our students in an advantageous position in the labor force market related to processing and technological applications of functional materials. Also, the CMSE can be considered as a platform to motivate the students to pursue a more advanced degree in Materials Science and Engineering in our Campus.

The CMSE includes courses, a seminar and a hands-on research experience. The courses will cover selected topics on the characterization and processing of functional materials. The Seminar will be used to expose our students to actual situations of critical scientific and technological interest. Additional elective courses from other departments will also be associated to this new curricular sequence. Finally, the participant students will also get hands-on expertise on the processing and characterization of materials being part of active UPRM research groups in structural materials, nano-structured materials, multifunctional materials, among others.

To sustain this effort and an upcoming Master of Science program on Materials Science & Engineering (another UPRM PREM’s objective), in the last two years the UPRM College of Engineering has hired six professors with a wide range of expertise.