| GRANT NEWS |
A $1.35 million grant has established a Women’s Business Center (WBC) at Florida Tech, under the College of Business. The grant, from the U.S. Small Business Administration, will provide a wide range of training programs and resources for women to start or grow their small businesses.
The WBC will address regional needs for training, counseling, mentoring and technical assistance for entrepreneurial women and women-owned small businesses on Florida’s east central coast. There will be no charge for counseling, mentoring and basic courses; participants will be charged minimally for some of the center’s more advanced courses, workshops and seminars.
For more information, contact Ann Becker, chair of the WBC board of directors, at (321) 674-8780 or abecker@fit.edu, or WBC Director Donn Miller-Kermani at (321) 674-7007 or
dkermani@fit.edu.
A valuable, new scientific instrument is coming to the department of biological sciences thanks to Michael Grace, associate professor of biological sciences. He earned a grant of almost $370,000 from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Major Research Instrumentation program to purchase a new confocal microscope.
The instrument will augment the university’s growing High Resolution Microscopy and Advanced Imaging Center. Grace is center director.? “Confocal microscopy is a very important tool in life sciences and materials research,” said Grace. Confocal microscopy involves scanning a focused laser beam across the sample to eliminate out-of-focus information.
Inside Chemical Reactions
Rudi Wehmschulte, associate professor of chemistry, earned a $400,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to study reactive materials, which may be used as novel catalysts in chemical reactions. The work may prove important in preparing organic compounds or pharmaceuticals.
“The compounds in question are very reactive. We are attempting to control and understand their reactivity to make them usable in chemical reactions,” said Wehmschulte. “Some potential applications include the formation of cyclic fluorescent compounds. Once formed, we can determine the potential of these compounds to react directly with chemicals, such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide or ethylene in precursors to plastics.
NSF Grant Enriches Interdisciplinary Training
A three-year National Science Foundation grant for $214,161 makes possible interdisciplinary training for undergraduates in biological and mathematical sciences in what will be known as the UBM program.
“This is a fertile field for both disciplines as results in one area can lead to advances in the other,” said Semen Koksal, professor of mathematical sciences.
Annually, six qualified mathematics and biology majors will be mentored by Koksal; Eugene Dshalalow, professor of mathematical sciences; and Robert van Woesik, Richard Sinden and David Carroll, department of biological sciences faculty members.
These faculty mentors will direct student research in such areas as molecular, cell and developmental biology and population ecology.
Galapagos Climate Change
Mark Bush, interim head of the biological sciences department, received a $135,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for climate change research in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
Using sediment cores raised by Bush’s team during 2005 and 2007 field work, the researchers will investigate stratigraphic (layering) patterns in the sediment and biological indicators of climate change. Fossil pollen and diatoms (algae) recovered from the sediment can provide precise data on past rainfall and temperature of this system.
“The Galapagos are very strongly influenced by the El Niño and La Niña weather patterns,” says Bush. “El Niño results in deluges of rain on the islands while La Niña prompts intense droughts. By detecting these oscillations in the fossil record, we can track the frequency and intensity of events, especially the phases over many decades.”
The grant will support doctoral students Alejandra Restrepo and Aaron Collins for two years of research.
Machine Learning Collaboration
Georgios Anagnostopoulos, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has earned a grant of more than $237,000 from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative project in machine learning. A grant for a similar amount was awarded to the University of Central Florida, which is a major partner in this effort.
Machine learning is traditionally considered a broad sub-field of artificial intelligence. The discipline draws concepts from other fields, including cognitive sciences, information theory, statistics, mathematics, physics, philosophy and biology.
The project builds upon a prior prototype effort of the two universities. Project leaders intend to create a large, community of scholars, researchers and learners by integrating research and education in machine learning.
Extragalactic Researcher
Eric Perlman, associate professor of physics and space sciences, earned $490,400 in funding over three years from NASA’s Longterm Space Astrophysics grant program.
He will conduct observational and theoretical work on jets, which are energetic outflows from the centers of some bright galaxies. “The jets are the largest, most powerful particle accelerators in the universe. They accelerate particles to energies many thousands of times greater than any particle accelerator here on Earth,” said Perlman.
His work will access the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, as well as other telescopes. These efforts may further understanding of the origin of cosmic rays, often created by jets and active galaxies, and affecting astronauts and satellites. |
The first autism conference put on by the School of Psychology almost had to turn away registrants. More than 240 people registered for the October conference, which featured international speakers. Pictured here, from left, are President Anthony J. Catanese; Anthony Bailey, M.D., the Cheryl and Reece Scott Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, UK; Linda Lotspeich, M.D., director of the Autism Spectrum Disorders Center at Kaiser Permanente in California; and Provost T. Dwayne McCay.
Officials broke ground for the Emil Buehler Center for Aviation Training and Research during Homecoming 2007. The center will be completed by fall 2008. See photo in Homecoming photos.
Robert van Woesik, associate professor of biological sciences, hosted a three-day workshop at Florida Tech for 12 faculty members from universities around the world, including the Philippines and Australia. They were part of the Coral Reef Targeted Research Program, funded by the World Bank and Global Environmental Facility and led by van Woesik to study coral bleaching.
The group brought together information and analyses from four global field sampling locations. These were in Zanzibar, Tanzania; Heron Island, Australia; the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico; and Bolinao, the Philippines.
“We are especially interested in understanding key ecological processes that regulate coral populations,” said van Woesik.
Richard A. Hynes, M.D., a Melbourne surgeon, envisioned an addition to air conditioner technology that could cut down on corrosion, save energy and increase the life of the appliance. Then he patented it.
Hynes turned to Florida Tech for the rest. Under an initial $170,000 in fellowship funding from Hynes, a graduate student in the College of Engineering and another in the College of Business began work last summer on his idea. One will create the low-cost device based on Hynes’ patent—a sprinkler system cleaning mechanism—and the other will investigate marketing and commercialization.
The graduate students are Jaemar Miller, College of Engineering, and Erin Gullickson, College of Business. Both earned Florida Tech bachelor’s degrees in May 2007. Hynes intends to continue funding the students’ work until it’s complete, which is projected for early 2009.
The Florida Tech Army ROTC cadet team competed among 19 universities in Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico last October to earn first place in the Sixth Brigade Ranger Challenge competition.
The annual event, held in Fort Stewart, Ga., comprised eight tests. They were physical fitness, land navigation, rope bridge, 10K rucksack march, hand grenade assault course, weapons disassembly and assembly, and rifle marksmanship. Back row, from left, are cadets John Tully, Sean Richardson, Joseph Sinkiewicz, William Wiseman and Billy Crish; front row, from left, are cadets Jeffrey Shadwick, Aric Jensen, Roger Hafford and Craig Wilkinson.
Florida Tech is a partner in the International Master of Environmental Science (IMES) degree program, sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of Education, Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education. The two-year curriculum, offered cooperatively by three United States and a trio of European universities, began in fall 2007. Some of the courses will be taught via distance learning.
The other U.S. partners are Arizona State University and the Baylor University Institute for Air Science. The European participants are University of Florence in Italy, The New University of Lisbon in Portugal and Aston University in the United Kingdom.
The program offers concentrations in bio-energy, air quality, air quality monitoring, climate change, basic principles of environmental sustainability, available technology and ongoing research and
development.
For more information, contact George Maul, head of the department of marine and environmental systems, at gmaul@fit.edu.
Florida Tech presents Beadwork and Fiber Arts from Cameroon and South Africa in the Crawford Textile Gallery, continuing through Jan. 25. The display is made possible through recent gifts from William D. and Norma Canelas Roth.
The gallery, the campus showcase for the Ruth Funk Textiles Collection, is located in Room 405 of the Crawford Building. Admission is free.
The exhibit will be open Monday and Wednesday,
10 a.m.–5 p.m. (closed noon–1:30 p.m.); Tuesday and Thursday,
8 a.m.–5 p.m. (closed 10:30 a.m.–1 p.m.); and Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m. (closed noon–1:30 p.m.) or special tours by appointment.
For more information, call Carla Funk at
(321) 674-6129.
A worker guides the crane in to the dome as parts of the new research telescope are assembled atop the F.W. Olin Physical Sciences Center. This is the largest research telescope in the state of Florida.
An international consortium of scientists, including Florida Tech astronomer Terry Oswalt, has discovered a planet similar to Earth that has survived a star’s red giant phase. This finding, and what it may mean for our own planet when the sun becomes a red giant a billion years from now, was detailed in the Sept. 13, 2007 issue of Nature.
Stars like the Earth’s own sun become red giants when the hydrogen in their cores runs out. As they expand, the inner planets are engulfed, meaning that Mercury and Venus will almost certainly be incinerated and become part of the sun. Earth is believed to lie just inside the maximum size the sun will reach when it becomes a red giant, so its future status was assumed to be the same as Mercury and Venus until this discovery.?
“This is the first planet to be discovered that almost certainly has survived being swallowed up during the red giant stage of its host star,” said Oswalt.
“One faculty member bought four plates!” exclaimed Ken Droscher, executive director of the alumni association. He said when she told him she needed a fourth for her boat trailer, he realized his boat trailer needed one, too, and bought his third plate.
Those purchases helped power Florida Tech license plate sales to the current 1,250 plates mark. Because the university receives $25 per plate bought or renewed, that’s about $31,250 in annual revenue. The money funds scholarships.
Droscher will also tell you that buying a plate can promote pride.
“One alumnus told me that the day after he had attached the plate to his car he was rear-ended,” said Droscher. “He said that his first thought was that he hoped the plate was OK. The car wasn’t so OK, but the plate was fine and the alumnus was relieved.”
Any driver in Florida can buy a panther plate at their local tag office, or they can order online at www.pointandpay.com/newweb/Dmv_smartcart.htm.
Alumni can give back to their university and new undergraduates can take the edge off their tuition cost through the Alumni Endorsement Program. About 1,500 newly admitted freshmen and
transfer students took advantage of the program in
its first year.
Each student who received a $1,000 grant for the 2007–2008 year is eligible to renew the grant for three more years for a total of $4,000 in grants.
National and international alumni may nominate as many students as they wish, though each student may be endorsed by just one alumnus. The prospective students must apply to become full-time Florida Tech undergraduates. They can either find an alumnus to endorse them or alumni can identify students. The Office of Undergraduate Admission also will help match alumni to students.
“In the program’s first year, 36 percent of 677 enrolled freshmen, or 244 students, were endorsed by alumni,” said Gary Hamme, vice provost for enrollment management. “It’s a good incentive.”
The endorsement form is available at www.fit.edu/alumni/documents/GrantForm.pdf. For more
information, contact Undergraduate Admission at (321) 674-8030.
Robert E. Niebuhr is the new dean of the College of Business. Niebuhr’s background includes more than 25 years of academic experience in teaching, research and administration. Part was spent as director of executive M.B.A. programs and department head at Auburn University in Alabama.
Among his professional roles in industry were national and international engineering and management positions.?An expert in managing technology companies, he holds engineering and business degrees from the Ohio State University.
Since 2001, Niebuhr was dean of the Tennessee Technological University College of Business in Cookeville.
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