I am a proud graduate of Ohio's Kent State University. I've been a proud graduate for a long time. But it wasn't until recently that my family and friends started taking my KSU alumni status as the mark of a great education. Not that they thought Kent was a bad school, they just never gave much thought to Kent at all.
Thanks to a television ad campaign to highlight alumni achievements (including Devo band member and founder Mark Mothersbaugh, who went on to become a successful composer, writing musical scores for film and television – check out the commercial), many others now know that Kent State University is truly a leading university.
Kent State is a powerhouse when it comes to its fashion school, its applied linguistics studies, its journalism school and its liquid crystal institute.
In fact, The Glenn H. Brown Liquid Crystal Institute (LCI) is the nation's leader in liquid crystal technology and education, blending basic and applied research on liquid crystals. This approach has resulted in technological advances and new applications such as display tablets, optical shutters, variable transmission windows, projection display devices, and flexible displays.
With the above information in mind, I always read with great interest anything regarding LCI. When I first started at Kent, my only introduction to liquid crystals was really primitive digital watches. To my amazement, my university was pushing that to extremes. When this release hit my desk, I felt compelled to pass along the information.
Pittsburgh-based ChemImage -- a provider of hyperspectral imaging instrumentation and software for chemical and biological applications, in partnership with Kent State's LCI, announced that it is one of six companies selected to receive up to $1 million in funding from the Ohio Third Frontier Advanced Materials Program, a program devoted to accelerating the development and growth of the advanced materials industry in Ohio. The award will be used to establish a manufacturing facility for ChemImage's patented multi-conjugate filter (MCF) technology.
Based on liquid crystal technology, these unique tunable filters are the key component of the company's hyperspectral imaging instrumentation used to characterize the material composition of
samples crossing multiple industries.
The Ohio Third Frontier Award will allow ChemImage to continue its collaboration with the Liquid Crystal Institute and establish a permanent manufacturing facility for ChemImage Imaging Technologies in Northeast Ohio, with about 20 jobs expected within the next two to five years of operation.
This is great news for Ohio, LCI and ChemImage -- and yet another reason I am a proud graduate of Kent State University.
Traci Purdum
Senior Digital Editor