[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/preston.jpg” caption=”John Preston’s term as director of the Brockhouse Instititute for Materials Research has been extended for one more year. File photo. “]You won't find the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research (BIMR) on any campus map, but you will be able to find the Institute located squarely at every stage of advanced materials research.

Established more than 40 years ago as an offshoot of the Materials Science Department, the Institute for Materials Research was the first interdisciplinary materials research institute in North America, “the first to have researchers from a variety of departments — chemists, physicists, geologist, all types of engineers — doing advanced materials research together, ultimately building the foundation for our internationally recognized research organization,” says John Preston, recently reappointed for a one-year extension of his term as director of the BIMR.

The Institute — renamed in 1995 in honour of Nobel Prize winner and professor of physics, Bertram Brockhouse — is the virtual home to all materials research-related activities at McMaster, maintaining central facilities that support more than 120 faculty members from 13 departments across the University.

Preston, professor of engineering physics, was first an acting director of the Institute for a two-year period, then completed a five-year term as director, a term which Senate extended for one more year to Aug. 31, 2009.

“Under John Preston's leadership, the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research has, and will, continue to do great things,” says Mo Elbestawi, vice-president research and international affairs. “Dr. Preston helped to oversee the development of the Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy and increased the BIMR's membership — not only from within our University, but also attracted representation from other North American and international institutions. He has directed several key projects and coordinated the facilities, researchers, staff and industry partners to make the best use of some of the world's finest research talent and equipment. I'm extremely pleased that he has agreed to extend his term as director.”

Preston (a McMaster alumnus) has been on faculty since 1989 and from his experience, he believes that across the board, McMaster's contributions to materials-based research in the last 10 years have been extraordinary. The Institute has played an important role in many of those contributions, often working collaboratively with other research centres such as the Centre for Emerging Device Technologies and the McMaster Manufacturing Research Institute as well as many academic departments interested in materials.

“In many respects, we have moved beyond competing with other Canadian universities and towards being a true national resource. With the electron microscope centre as our 'flagship', we have an array of facilities that are unique in Canada. These include the Centre for Crystal Growth, the Photonics Research Laboratory, the McMaster Analytical X-Ray Facility (joint with Chemistry) and the addition of the Brockhouse Neutron Spectrometer (with the McMaster Nuclear Reactor). With these tools, Institute members are rapidly establishing themselves as leaders in both traditional and non-traditional areas of materials research.” Preston says.

Research conducted through the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research is often at the nanoscale, where materials are manipulated and studied on an atom by atom basis. The applications for this research are wide and varied, from determining the safest and most effective lightweight materials for automobiles, to enabling a more efficient extraction of precious metal from rocks by using bacteria; from developing new catalysts to improve chemical processes and reduce harmful emissions to improving the efficiency of solar cells.

In any given year, there can be as many as 500 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows carrying out some of their research through the Institute, accessing its many facilities to carry out ambitious interdisciplinary projects. These projects have traditionally encompassed faculty and students from science and engineering, but under Preston's leadership, membership has grown to include faculty from departments within Health Sciences and Social Sciences — research areas not traditionally linked to the BIMR.

Preston will continue to facilitate the development of broad interdisciplinary proposals and research activities at the BIMR. “The Brockhouse Institute is ideally suited to riding the next wave of materials synthesis and characterization. We have the top specialists in the materials research field, our facilities and techniques are state-of-the-art and the highly interdisciplinary nature of the projects that we undertake will enable us to answer questions that have been around for years.”