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Greater than a Sum of its Parts: Synergisms through the CREST Center

Faculty #8
Discipline: Chemistry & Chemical Sciences
Subcategory: STEM Research

Kimberley Cousins - California State University San Bernardino
Co-Author(s): Usher, Timothy (CSUSB; Podar, Shashi (UNL); Miller, Daniel (UB); Pallenbarg, Robert (COD); Farmer, Carl (COD); Zhang, Renwu (CSUSB); Callari, Sara (CSUSB) CSUSB: California State University, San Bernardino UNL: University of Nebraska at Lincoln UB: University of Buffalo COD: College of the Dessert, Palm Dessert CA



Our CREST Center for Advanced, Functional Materials provides numerous opportunities for our participants from within and between partner institutions to interact. Several of the new ideas and projects that have developed through collaborations will be highlighted. In particular, one Community College (CC) “Wintership” student project has been expanded through collaboration with CSUSB to demonstrate novel metal-cyclosiloxane interaction that has not been previously reported. In addition to the interesting science, we are exploring potential practical applications of the finding in water treatment. One of our current multiferroric candidate materials was uncovered when a visiting graduate student from UNL left a beaker of reagents in a hood at CSUSB. Months later we found crystals, codenamed “blue” which shows potential as a multiferroric compound. It’s crystal structure was solved, suggesting both electric and magnetic properties, and investigations into its function are underway. Our newest faculty member in Physics spent last summer at UNL, and is collaborating with one of the original CREST investigators in preparing and studying thin films of croconic acid. They are optimizing the high vacuum deposition conditions to prepare films of very precise thicknesses, and will be growing crystals in an electric field in an attempt to grow the first very thin films of this material with ferroelectric properties. Our visiting graduate student from UB whose prior experience was limited to surface calculations, initiated a joint computational investigation into the proton transfer mechanism for bulk croconic acid, while at CSUSB. This project is continuing at UB, and was the focus of our undergraduate visitor to UB’s work this summer. Finally, on a conversation between a CC partner faculty member and a CREST team member led to a large funded project for scholarship support for transfer students at CSUSB and four regional CCs, through the NSF-S-STEM program.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): NSF-HRD 1435163

Faculty Advisor: None Listed,

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. DUE-1930047. Any opinions, findings, interpretations, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of its authors and do not represent the views of the AAAS Board of Directors, the Council of AAAS, AAAS’ membership or the National Science Foundation.

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