A high-definition view of the nanoworld

Technology is aiding an exciting new collaboration between Monash University and the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa).
With the installation of high definition video-conferencing equipment at the Technion, similar to existing equipment at Monash, both universities are looking forward to closer research ties in the future.
Professor David Abramson, Science Director of the Monash e-Research Centre, said that the new technology will greatly support ongoing collaboration between researchers at Technion’s Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management and the Faculty of Engineering at Monash University.
“These initiatives mark a new point of presence for Monash University in Israel, and this seminar is just the first of many,” Professor Abramson said.
“Researchers from opposite sides of the world can now collaborate more effectively through these interactive seminars.
“Monash University is very grateful to the Victorian Friends of the Technion for providing financial support; and Professor Boaz Golani, Dean of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Professor Dov Dori, Head of the Enterprise System Modeling Laboratory, and Professor Wayne Kaplan, Head of the Department of Materials Engineering, at the Technion for helping to bring both institutions together for this cutting-edge research,” Professor Abramson said.
In the first interactive tele-seminar linking the two universities, Professor Eugene Rabkin, from the Technion reported on his high-precision experimental studies on the physical and mechanical properties of gold nanoparticles.
Professor Rabkin’s findings will help Monash researchers in their work with the mechanical and physical properties of materials.
Professor Yuri Estrin who leads the Monash University’s Centre for Advanced Hybrid Materials said researchers at Monash are currently developing nanomaterials to enhance mechanical strength and biocompatibility of medical implants and the size and effects on strength discussed by Professor Rabkin is critical to these applications.

More seminars on a range of topics of mutual interest to both universities are planned over the coming months.

Also supported by the new Technion-Monash tele-seminars - which build on Monash’s tele-seminar links with the University of Warwick in the UK, the University of California, San Diego and the University of Illinois - is the exciting Monash Undergraduate Research Projects Abroad project – an eScience research internship program for high achieving third year undergraduates at Monash University.

“We are hoping to send students not only to the US this year, but also, Israel. The world just keeps getting smaller,” Professor Abramson said.