Dr. Ashok Vaseashta, PhD, Director

Prof. Ashok Vaseashta received PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA in 1990. Before joining the Institute for Advanced Sciences Convergence (IASC), he served as a Professor of Physics and Physical Sciences and Director of research at the Nanomaterials Processing and Characterization Laboratories, Graduate Program in Physical Sciences at Marshall University and visiting Professor at the 3 Nano-SAE Research Centre, University of Bucharest, Romania. In 2007-08, he was detailed to the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the US Department of State working with the Office of Weapons of mass Destruction and Terrorism and Foreign Consequence Management Program. His research interests include nanostructured materials for development of chemical-bio sensors; environmental pollution monitoring, detecting and remediation; and green nanotechnology. He is one of the leading researchers in the field of Green Nanotechnology. He authored over 200 research publications, edited/authored three books on nanotechnology, presented many keynote and invited lectures worldwide, served as Director of two NATO Advanced Study Institutes and co-chair of an International Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. He served as a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce, NIST, and ANSI delegation to the U.K. representing the U.S. position on Standards in Nanotechnologies at the inaugural meeting of the ISO/TAG to TC-229. He is a member of NATO-SET-040, an exploratory team panel investigating security and surveillance applications of nanotechnology. He serves as an expert counsel to UNESCO and to the South East European Consortium on NANO-Science and Technologies. He is an active member of several national and international professional organizations. He has earned several fellowships and awards for his meritorious service including 2004/2005 Distinguished Artist and Scholar award.




Stella H. North,PhD, Senior Research Fellow
Prior to joining the Institute for Advanced Sciences Convergence (IASC), Dr. North was an American Society for Engineering Education post-doctoral research fellow at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering. Dr. North received her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from Georgetown University. Her doctoral work involved the investigation of regulatory mechanisms linking bacterial DNA replication and recombination pathways. She holds an M.Ed. in science education and an AB in biology with a minor in art history. Prior to her graduate studies, she conducted molecular biological research in the fields of cancer biology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, MA) and ion channels at Duke University Medical Center (Durham, NC). She comes to the IASC with broad technical background in the areas of biodetection and biointerface development, molecular recognition and self-assembly, cellular communication and regulatory mechanisms, and recombinant DNA and protein technologies.


Sugandha Patibanda, Intern/Analyst
Sugandha Patibanda is currently in the Doctoral Bioinformatics program at George Mason University. Prior to this, she was an NLM Fellow at the Department of Biomedical Informatics at University of Pittsburgh in 2003-04; and has Masters in Biological Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University (2002). Earlier, she was a Junior Research Fellow at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India in 1992.