Dr. Mary L. Good is the Donaghey University Professor at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock and serves as the managing member for Venture Capital Investors, LLC, a group of Arkansas Business Leaders who expect to foster growth in the area through the opportunistic support of technology-based enterprises. Materials are the building blocks for modern infrastructure in transportation, communications, and housing. The knowledge base for materials also sets the limits for innovation in new devices, information delivery systems, and the exploitation of new science. Even in an era of decreasing federal budgets for frontier materials research, the discovery of new materials with fascinating properties moves aggressively. However, the exploitation of these new discoveries through innovative applications is time-consuming and expensive.
New approaches are in sight.
The potential of driving discovery through creative problem solving has major implications for materials research, development and application.