Otter visits research complex

    POCATELLO — Eric Burgett handed Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter a large cubic zirconium diamond as an example of crystalline models that can soon be produced at the Research and Innovation in Science and Engineering Complex in Pocatello Wednesday morning.
    Otter quipped that his wife might enjoy wearing a rock that size on her hand, barring the weight of the specimen.
    Otter attended round two of Idaho State University’s tour of RISE in the former Ballard Medical building as part of promoting the Idaho Global Entrepreneurial Mission or IGEM. Otter was unable to personally attend the first program hosted Jan. 18. due to weather conditions in the state’s capital.
    “I’ve wanted to make IGEM a reality,” Otter said to a crowed of local officials in a cleanroom of the RISE.
    Otter has proposed $5 million to go toward the IGEM program. The initial investment is smaller compared to Utah which invested about $73 million into a similar program.
    The IGEM program mission includes creating “new enterprises and high-paying knowledge-based jobs by increasing strategic areas of research and development” through partnerships in industry, higher education and government.
    The RISE Complex is 260,000 square feet in size and is the only one facility like it in the world, according to Burgett an assistant nuclear engineer professor who is orchestrating research projects at the center.
    “This facility allows us to further our ability to really bring IGEM to Idaho State,” Burgett said. “The facility is designed around multi-disciplinary research, focused mostly on materials, but it’s also focusing on interdisciplinary and cross-boundary research.”
    While research partnerships with other universities has already begun, Burgett said having the governor make a stop will only help bring awareness to facility’s potential.
    “It’s an exciting opportunity to let people in the state and federal level know what the university is doing here,” Burgett said.
    He said the idea behind the facility is to leverage assets. Since companies may not be able to buy all of the expensive equipment needed to conduct various research endeavors, the facility would allow for invaluable collaboration and access to research equipment, according to Burgett.
    The leveraging and collaboration will help in the applied side of IGEM’s aim.
    Burgett said nano technology is a field of his research that combines two normally “isolated worlds” of research. He said interdisciplinary research can lead to new sciences.
    “IGEM is the applied side that makes it useful,” Burgett said.

For more information on IGEM, visit www.idahotechcouncil.org.

By Vanessa Grieve
vgrieve@journalnet.com
February 2, 2012