UW-Madison professor wins Tibbetts Award

Max G. Lagally, E.W. Mueller Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UW–Madison, has been awarded a 2002 Tibbetts Award.

These awards honor individuals, small firms, projects, and organizations that have used the stimulus of Small Business Innovation Research funding to make a clear and definable difference.

Lagally was honored along with the company he founded, Piezomax Technologies, Inc. (now nPoint Inc.) and leading this Madison company to successful development of nanomotion products.

Lagally received more than $3 million SBIR funding during the company’s research-and development stages. nPoint, with 14 employees, expects $2 million in revenues this year and anticipates achieving profitability in the fourth quarter of 2003.

Lagally is the only Tibbetts Award recipient from Wisconsin this year. Recipients of the 2002 Tibbetts Awards, including Lagally, will be honored in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Oct. 2.

The U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Technology sponsors the Tibbetts Awards. In 2002, the SBA celebrates the 20th anniversary of the SBIR program, and the seventh anniversary of Tibbetts Awards, which are named for Roland Tibbetts, a former SBIR program manager at the National Science Foundation. He is acknowledged as the founder of the SBIR program.