Our surveys determined the demographics of tenured and tenure track science and engineering faculty at research universities; these reveal the representation of women and minorities among those faculty. We compare these data versus similar NSF data for students. Such comparison reveals that women and minorities have far fewer same-gender and same-race mentors and role models than majority students do. The comparison also shows that although women and minorities have an increasing share of PhD degrees, their share of the most recently hired faculty (assistant professors) is not similarly increasing. Nanotechnology research and inspiring ways to expose students to its results and scientists are described.