Since the president’s announcement, the consortium of five universities, two government labs and 12 private industry partners that won the DOE grant — all under the direction of NC State and its College of Engineering — has been laser-focused on its mission to engineer new wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors that will revolutionize energy efficiency in a variety of applications, including electronics, power grids and electric vehicles.

NC State leads the $140 million institute in its drive to perfect the manufacturing and accelerate the commercialization of WBG semiconductors, which allow power electronic components to be smaller, faster, more reliable and more efficient than the silicon-based semiconductors that are the current industry standard.

Bringing that technology to market will both reduce the nation’s energy consumption and boost our manufacturing competitiveness, which has waned in recent decades, especially in North Carolina.

PowerAmerica’s five-year mission includes:

• Developing critical WBG power electronics technologies
• Sparking early commercialization in high-value markets by stimulating demand
• Supporting and growing the manufacturing base
• Nurturing the U.S. WBG semiconductor industry through education and training

Now under the leadership of retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Nick Justice as its executive director, PowerAmerica moved into offices on NC State’s Centennial Campus in 2015 and is working hard to develop high-tech manufacturing processes that will make power electronics more efficient and sustainable than ever before.

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]]> https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/28/poweramerica/feed/ 0 https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/record-breaking-fundraising/ https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/record-breaking-fundraising/#respond Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:45:48 +0000 http://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/?p=176 NC State set a new university record for private giving this fiscal year, with donations reaching $208.5 million for the first time ever — just the latest uptick in support since Chancellor Woodson took the helm.

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]]> NC State set a new university record for private giving this fiscal year, with gift receipts and new commitments reaching $208.5 million.

This is just the latest uptick in an unprecedented surge of donor support since Chancellor Woodson took the helm in 2010. Before his arrival, gift receipts and new commitments had never topped $100 million per year; for each of the past three years, they have been roughly double that figure. For the first time ever, NC State’s endowment is approaching the $1 billion mark.

Donors big and small are boosting NC State: More than 36,000 donors supported our innovative work in 2015, a 15 percent increase over 2011. Gifts arrived from all 100 North Carolina counties, all 50 states and 49 countries worldwide.

Exceptional gifts continued to mount in this fiscal year.

A $4 million gift from Steve and Judy Zelnak created an endowed dean’s chair in the Poole College of Management. Moise and Vera Khayrallah gave $8.1 million to found a world-leading center for diaspora studies — the only one of its kind in the country and the first endowed center at NC State. The R.B. Terry Charitable Foundation pledged $16 million to the College of Veterinary Medicine, already ranked No. 3 in the nation. And the Goodnight Scholars endowment became the first NC State scholarship endowment fund to surpass $100 million.

This year’s strong fundraising sets the stage for the largest capital campaign in NC State history. Philanthropy has a powerful impact on the university, helping us attract the best and brightest students, recruit and retain the nation’s top faculty and advance crucial research that seeks out problems and solves them.

NC State’s growing support has already drawn national notice: The university is steadily climbing the Philanthropy 400, an annual ranking of fundraising effectiveness published by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. By the end of 2014, NC State stood at No. 25 among the nation’s public colleges and universities — and 48th overall among all institutions.

State funding gives this university the foundation to be good, but it’s the record-breaking support of alumni and friends that makes NC State great.

Give to NC State

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]]> https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/record-breaking-fundraising/feed/ 0 https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/bright-minds-brought-together/ https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/bright-minds-brought-together/#respond Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:44:32 +0000 http://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/?p=174 The biggest challenges confronting society are also the most complex, requiring not just the best minds in science and technology working on a problem, but the best minds working together.

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]]> The biggest challenges confronting society are also the most complex, requiring not just the best minds in any given field working on a problem, but the best minds working together.

In a lab at NC State, graduate students worked together to solve a medical challenge: how to get people with asthma to use a lung function meter to manage their condition. It’s a big problem. Although most asthma sufferers own a peak flow meter, few use it consistently, even though it helps them determine when to take or adjust medication.

The answer was elusive because it wasn’t, strictly speaking, a medical issue. In fact, solving the challenge required the students to create a groundbreaking device together with a smartphone app that reduces the cost and complexity of the lung test, even as it enables doctors to view their patients’ results via a remote server.

All of this took expertise in multiple disciplines, including industrial design, engineering and business. Ordinarily you wouldn’t find students and faculty in such widely diverse fields working together in one lab.

But NC State is no ordinary university.

A new initiative called the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program has spurred the creation of 20 interdisciplinary faculty clusters in areas ranging from bioinformatics to regenerative medicine.

The clusters, led by some of NC State’s most experienced researchers, have already recruited and hired more than 40 new faculty members, including both established and emerging leaders in their fields — all with a strong commitment to diversity and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The program is paying dividends in multiple ways: stimulating the creation of new academic programs at the master’s and doctoral levels, attracting top graduate students from around the world, generating partnerships with government and industry, and fostering a spirit of collaboration across the university’s 10 colleges.

For example, the forensic sciences cluster includes experts in molecular biomedical sciences and textile engineering and chemistry. The geospatial analytics cluster brings together researchers in marine, earth and atmospheric sciences; forestry and environmental resources; and computer science. And the genetic engineering and society cluster includes faculty in science policy, international affairs, agricultural and resource economics, and entomology.

Every faculty cluster at NC State is a unique combination of people, skills and resources, but they all share a common goal: putting their heads together to solve some of society’s biggest challenges.

The faculty clusters program has also established NC State as a national leader in fostering diversity and interdisciplinary innovation. Since the program’s launch, Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education have spotlighted the program, which is quickly becoming recognized as a best practice in higher education.

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]]> https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/bright-minds-brought-together/feed/ 0 https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/questioning-the-answers/ https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/questioning-the-answers/#respond Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:43:57 +0000 http://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/?p=172 Increasingly, NC State is the choice for elite students like junior Mia de los Reyes, who has published a research paper, studied with world-class astronomers and earned prestigious scholarships.

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]]> For senior math and physics double-major Mia de los Reyes, research means asking many questions and getting few answers.

That’s always been the case for the Park Scholar. As a child, she asked her dad the same questions all kids ask their parents: Why do leaves change colors? Why is the sky blue?

Her father, NC State civil engineering professor Francis de los Reyes, never made the search easy. He’d ask Mia what she thought, then challenge her answer. Back and forth they’d go — question and answer, answer and question.

“I wouldn’t say I actually learned why the sky was blue, because he never told me,” Mia de los Reyes says. “But I learned to think.”

De los Reyes brought these critical-thinking skills to NC State, where she has built an impressive and diverse résumé of achievements, winning Park, Goldwater and Astronaut scholarships; interning at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN); and leading the Just Cuz hip-hop dance collective on campus.

Now she has added another prestigious honor to the list. De los Reyes is NC State’s first-ever recipient of the Churchill Scholarship, awarded to only 15 high-achieving U.S. students this year for graduate study at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. She will use it to pursue a master’s degree in astronomy starting this fall, focusing on the evolution of galaxies.

The work de los Reyes will do at Cambridge has roots running back to the start of her time at NC State. As an incoming freshman, she participated in the physics department’s Undergraduate Research in Computational Astrophysics program before starting her first academic year.

“I haven’t stopped doing research since,” she says.

Her research projects on campus have included investigating supernova turbulence and testing polymer tubes for nuclear source reactors, and her summer research internships have given her the chance to work in the United States and Europe with advanced space telescopes and giant particle accelerators.

Increasingly, NC State is the choice for elite students like de los Reyes. During the 2014-2015 academic year, current and past Wolfpack students earned prestigious national honors, including two Goldwater scholarships, six Fulbright fellowships and nine National Science Foundation research fellowships. Over the last five years, more than 100 NC State students have earned a national scholarship or fellowship.

NC State’s Park Scholarship program has been an important part of drawing these high-caliber students to the university. The four-year scholarship is awarded to approximately 35 students each year on the basis of outstanding accomplishments and potential in scholarship, leadership, service and character. In addition to covering recipients’ tuition and fees, room and board, and other expenses, the program provides unique enrichment opportunities for leadership, mentoring and civic engagement.

“The Park Scholarship has given me a lot of freedom to pursue what I really want to do,” says de los Reyes. “And I am immensely grateful.”

Choosing NC State over the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, de los Reyes says, positioned her to pursue the opportunities and honors she has had.

“Coming here allowed me to stand out in a way that other schools might not have,” says de los Reyes of her college choice. “One opportunity has continued to lead to another since then.”

De los Reyes is showing her gratitude for these opportunities by giving back to other female students in the sciences. She’s volunteered with the Wake Young Leadership Academy, where she coached middle-school girls competing in the Science Olympiad competition. She also co-founded the Serious About Math and Science Club at Raleigh’s Enloe High School, where she started her high school career, and she serves as a mentor to other women in physics at NC State.

“I’ve been able to go to good schools and win scholarships. But the people who win awards generally keep winning awards, and I don’t think that’s fair,” she said. “So I think it’s my responsibility to give back to the people who aren’t here yet.”

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]]> https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/questioning-the-answers/feed/ 0 https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/economic-engine/ https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/economic-engine/#respond Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:24:48 +0000 http://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/?p=163 Today’s gold rush is an innovation boom fueled by scientific research at NC State. That boom includes the town of Troy, N.C., where an advanced manufacturing plant has opened, bringing 500 jobs and more than $50 million in investment.

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]]> America’s first gold rush swept through the rural Piedmont region of North Carolina in the early 19th century after a youngster snagged a 17-pound gold nugget while fishing in a creek northeast of Charlotte. But by the time the nearby town of Troy, North Carolina, was founded in 1852, prospectors had fled the region for the lure of California’s gold fields and it looked like the town had missed its chance at economic prosperity.

Until now.

Today’s gold rush is an innovation boom fueled by scientific research at NC State. That research is not only revolutionizing the packaged food industry; it’s also revitalizing Troy, where NC State startup company Aseptia has opened Wright Foods, an advanced manufacturing plant. The plant brought 500 jobs and more than $50 million in investment to the town.

The plant is owned and operated by Aseptia, a startup company launched by two NC State food scientists and a local entrepreneur. It packages fresh foods such as soups, purees and juices in airtight cartons that can be safely stored on the shelf for a year or longer without the use of refrigeration, preservatives or additives. A patented process ensures that the foods retain their original flavor, aroma and texture.

The innovation is pure gold, driving Aseptia to a coveted spot on the last year’s Inc. 5000, a prestigious list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States. The company has grown by an astounding 12,427 percent in the past few years, increasing revenue from just over $100,000 in 2010 to more than $13.8 million today.

In the 21st century, prosperity isn’t something you find in a creek; it’s something you create through these kinds of strategic partnerships between academia, government and industry. That’s why the federal government and industry leaders have tapped NC State to drive some of the nation’s most important public-private partnerships and address the globe’s grand challenges, including efforts to build a new advanced manufacturing sector, develop novel techniques for data analysis and halt the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.

Innovators on NC State’s Centennial Campus, one of the most successful university research campuses in the United States, focus on moving scientific discoveries out of the lab and into the marketplace, creating jobs and improving the economy. Thanks to groundbreaking programs such as the Technology Incubator, licensing and patent assistance, and industry-friendly research agreements, powerful ideas quickly become powerful economic engines across the state.

That’s a resource more precious than gold.

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]]> https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/27/economic-engine/feed/ 0 https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/22/incubating-innovation/ https://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/feature/2015/07/22/incubating-innovation/#respond Wed, 22 Jul 2015 13:52:54 +0000 http://web.ncsu.edu/annual-report/2014-2015/?p=134 Ingenuity alone doesn’t turn a promising idea into a marketable product. That’s why Chancellor Randy Woodson launched the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund.

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]]> Ingenuity alone doesn’t turn a promising idea into a marketable product. That’s why NC State launched the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund (CIF) in 2010.

Between the research lab and the real world, there’s a long, uneven path. Starter funding is key to navigating that path, and the CIF fills funding gaps where financial support for technology development can have a decisive impact.

Since the fund began, 23 projects have earned support from the CIF. The university’s $1.4 million commitment to those projects has yielded a major return on investment: $4.4 million in follow-on funding, $926,000 in licensing revenue and seven startup companies.

The 2014-2015 CIF projects include an effort to cost-effectively extract biofuels from saltwater algae; a project to create a better device for identifying dangerous plaque in arteries; and a smarter, more efficient fuel injector for cars.

The fund’s success stems from NC State’s approach to selecting CIF recipients. Each year, roughly 75 faculty members file CIF proposals. After initial screening, finalists pitch their technology development projects to a selection committee comprising representatives of university innovation partners: Eastman Chemical, Rex Healthcare, the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network, First Flight Venture Center, HQ Raleigh, the Kenan Institute, NC Idea Fund Partners, Hatteras Venture Partners, the Center for Entrepreneurial Development and the North Carolina Small Business Technology Development Center.

Chancellor Randy Woodson makes the final selections, with input from the university’s research leadership.

Proof-of-concept funds like the CIF are critical to supporting innovators, says Kelly B. Sexton, director of NC State’s Office of Technology Transfer. The presence of Research Triangle partners in the review process differentiates NC State’s fund from others.

“We’re working really hard to get the voice of the marketplace into the lab and make sure that the commitments we’re making through the CIF are based on validated market needs,” she says.

Meet some of the CIF’s biggest successes:

CellSentry has developed a system of embedded software/firmware components that protects computer clouds and mobile systems. The package, based on research by NC State computer scientists Peng Ning and Ahmed Azab, is part of Samsung’s Knox security and data management system.

Scientific Organizational Solutions is applying the ideas of psychology to the hiring process. Because it takes longer to come up with a lie than to tell the truth, psychology professor Adam Meade has developed software that gauges how long candidates take to answer questions on computer-based employment tests.

The SleepiBand, a headband developed by NC State engineer Alper Bozkurt, deploys a smartphone to encourage sounder sleep. The band links to a mobile app that wakes users during shallow sleep cycles. Funded by the CIF in 2013, the SleepiBand has been in clinical trials under a partnership with Duke University and has drawn funding from the National Institutes of Health.

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