Purdue News

Purdue News

February 21, 1997

NSF awards fund seven young faculty members

The 1996 Faculty Early Career Development Program grants, awarded by the National Science Foundation to junior-level university faculty, are designed to emphasize the importance of integrating research and educational activities in academic careers. The grants are awarded over three to five years and range from $30,000 to $300,000. The 1996 Purdue awardees are:

• Carol Anne Clayson, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, for research associated with the world's oceans. Her work focuses on cloud characteristics and high-frequency convective events and seasonal variability on the ocean mixed layer. She also will develop several new interdisciplinary courses and increase the use of computer-assisted instruction.

• Horacio D. Espinosa, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, for research that focuses on understanding dynamic friction and wear in nano-materials. His work will include studying deformation and fracture at the microscale. The results of his research may be used in industry in the design of turbine blade coatings, cutting tools, structural and electronic components, and pharmaceutical/medical systems.

• Dong Shaw, assistant professor of industrial engineering, for research on the design of telecommunications networks. His work examines models that will improve the transfer of vast amounts of data through telecommunications applications, such as interactive computer networks and television.

• Ness Shroff, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, for research on wireless and broadband communications networks. He conducts fundamental work on mathematically modeling, analyzing and designing these networks. He examines the transfer of video images and audio data over high-speed networks and studies how these various types of information interact with each other and how they affect the network.

• Elliot Slamovich, assistant professor of materials engineering, for research to develop new methods to process ceramic and composite materials for use in microelectronic devices. He examines the relationship between processing conditions and the materials' structure and properties using X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and other electronic characterization methods.

• Igal Szleifer, assistant professor of chemistry, for research on the molecular design of vesicles and liposomes, which have applications for drug delivery systems. His work includes studying how polymers behave at interfaces and how proteins and polymers adsorb, or collect, at surfaces.

• Xianfan Xu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, for research on laser-assisted processing and manufacturing of materials. His work focuses on understanding the energy transport mechanisms during the interaction between materials and laser light. He is developing experimental techniques for noncontact, nondestructive measurements of various physical properties and phenomena associated with laser-assisted materials processing.

  CONTACT: Amanda Siegfried, Purdue News Service, (765) 494-4709; e-mail, amanda_siegfried@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu

To the Purdue News and Photos Page