June 17, 2010   

Adrien Treuille, assistant professor of computer science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, will join a panel of top scientists in a live webcast to discuss how the U.S. government can tap the full potential of three “Golden Triangle” technologies: information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology.
The webcast will be from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 22 and can be viewed via the website of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
The workshop, organized by PCAST’s President’s Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), is part of an effort to gather expert and public input on how the federal government can best use its resources so that these promising technologies can provide the greatest possible economic benefits to society. PCAST refers to IT, biotech and nanotech collectively as the Golden Triangle.
In addition to Treuille, participants include Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google Inc., Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Aneesh Chopra, associate director of technology for the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Viewers of the webcast can submit comments via Facebook or Twitter. Ideas also can be submitted anytime on the OpenPCAST website. Among the topics of interest to PCAST are: predicting where basic research is taking us; determining where knowledge gaps remain; finding roadblocks that impede commercialization; identifying infrastructure necessary for testing; prototyping and manufacturing breakthrough technologies; and determining where federal support for Golden Triangle technologies is most appropriate.
Treuille, who last year made Technology Review magazine’s prestigious TR35 list of the world’s top 35 innovators under the age of 35, specializes in finding ways to make realistic computer simulations run in real-time on everyday computers. This capability could help engineers design better controls for cars and airplanes and be used to create highly realistic simulations for training firefighters and other emergency responders. His work was the basis for Draft Track, a special effect for auto racing telecasts that allows viewers to “see” the turbulent air behind a racecar, and contributed to FoldIt, an online game that is helping biochemists unravel the mysteries of how proteins fold.