February 29 marked a major milestone for the Corvallis Microfluidics Tech Hub, or CorMic, as the consortium submitted their proposal to the U.S. Economic Development Administration to be considered for up to $70 million in funding as part of the Biden Administration’s Tech Hub Program. As one of the 31 Tech Hubs designated by the Biden Administration in October, CorMic has positioned itself to become a global leader in microfluidics over the next decade.

Doctoral students Jacob Dawes and Debbie Chou, under the guidance of Associate Professor Matt Johnston (left), test a setup to measure small particles as they pass through a microfluidic flow cell. These beads serve as cell surrogates, but the target application is for cell counting — or flow cytometry — a commonly used tool in bio labs and for medical tests. The goal is to develop a smaller, much more integrated cell counting system using custom integrated circuits.

Ph.D. student Quintin Pope considers technology’s potential to alter social dynamics

Photo by Owen Roth

Quintin Pope doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about artificial intelligence hastening the demise of civilization. In fact, he estimates the probability of “pure AI doom” to be less than 1%.

Real-world experience just hasn’t borne out any worst-case scenarios, he says.

“A lot of the arguments people made about AI, prior to there being any AI worthy of the name to argue about, turned out to be totally wrong,” Pope said.