What you learn here could change the world.
It could be Professor Grant Norton’s work with nanomaterials that changes the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, or perhaps it will be where you take what you learn from him that does the job.
His work on “nanosprings” could be the key to making hydrogen a viable fuel for automobiles by solving how to store the gas for ready use by a car. He currently shares research and results with private companies who are developing alternate-fuel technology. Using nanomaterials 1,000 times smaller than a human hair, they could solve one of humanity’s biggest challenges.
You might assist Professor Norton in the lab to work on “open-ended” research projects, not the confined, structured “design” projects typical of many undergraduate engineering programs.
“Undergraduate students get to do cutting-edge research, and many end up as first or co-authors on papers before graduating. They are so well prepared that Washington State University students are sought after by graduate schools around the country.”
In class, professor of materials science and engineering Norton tries to help students see the relevance of what they’re doing and the enormous positive effect they can have on society. “As a result, they see the impact they can have on the big issues that face us, with the biggest being energy.”
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