The National Science Foundation's Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures at A&T recently organized the fifth International Conference on Composites Engineering.

The conference attracted more than 600 participants from around the world and featured more than 500 technical paper presentations on research in the broad basic and applied technical areas of composites and other advanced materials.

Sankar, an A&T professor of mechanical engineering and technical director and principal investigator of the center, was co-chairman of the conference, which was held July 5-11, 1998 in Las Vegas.

More than 12 technical sessions were developed by the A&T center, and A&T researchers Dr. Devdas Pai, Dr. Ajit Kelkar, Dr. David Klett and Dr. Mark Schultz of the mechanical engineering department and Dr. Clinton Lee and Dr. Chung Yu of the electrical engineering department led sessions.

Sankar also was chairman of the plenary session on federal funding opportunities in materials research. Thanks to its reputation and close technical ties, the center was able to attract top officials from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Air Force, the Army and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to make presentations at the session.

In all, 16 faculty members and graduate students from A&T's College of Engineering participated in the conference, presenting a total of 21 papers.

The other faculty members participating were Dr. William Craft and Dr. Samuel Owusu-Ofori of the mechanical engineering department. The A&T graduate students who participated were mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidates Jerry Lang, Larry Russell and Qiuming Wei; mechanical engineering master's degree students Rommel Simpson, William Martin and Rajeev Krishnan; and electrical engineering Ph.D. candidate Justin Foreman.

Also presenting a paper was Varun Rae, a recent graduate of A&T's master's degree program in mechanical engineering who works for Cummins Engine Co. of Columbus, Ind.

Dr. Christopher Grace one of A&T"s first three PhD recipents and resent master's graduate Jametta McRae wee co-authors of paper presented by Craft.

The multimillion-dollar Center for Advanced Materials was one of four centers founded in 1998 by the NSF under its Centers for Research Excellence in Science and Technology program. It is a joint effort with N.C. State.

The center focuses on interdisciplinary research in smart materials and structures, principally in the areas of electronic materials, structural materials, materials science, and mechanical and materials engineering.

Next year's conference will be held June 27 through July 3, 1999 in Orlando, Florida.