Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 1, Page 10
Fall 1991
Land, sea...and space grant, too

     The University of Delaware is now a space-grant institution, as
well as a land-grant and sea-grant campus.
     In February, Delaware received a four-year, $600,000 NASA grant,
which will support three graduate students and a post-doctoral fellow,
permit the purchase of state-of-the-art computer equipment, help
sponsor an outreach program and support faculty summer research. Only
13 states  received the NASA grants. Delaware's grant was supplemented
by the University's Bartol Research Institute to bring the total to
nearly $1 million.
     Norman F. Ness, president of Bartol, will direct the National
Space Grant fellowship program. "NASA has vast resources of
information that must be analyzed in a timely fashion," Ness said,
indicating that the students will be trained in the analysis and
interpretation of data from space-borne instruments.
     The three graduate students selected as first space fellows are
Tracey E. Obeda, who will work with Vic Klemas, professor of marine
studies, on remote sensing of wetlands biomass production and methane
gas emission; Philip H. Larson Jr., who will work with Jack Vinson, H.
Fletcher Brown Professor of Mechanical Engineering, on engineering
"smart" space structures; and Jason Tillett, who will work with James
MacDonald, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, on  nuclear
burning of neutron stars.
     A search is under way for a post-doctoral fellow in physics and
astronomy, who also will be supported by the program.
     As part of the space grant outreach program, an open house and
tours of Sharp Laboratory are planned this fall, and a lecture series
on astronomy, supported by the University and Mt. Cuba Observatory,
will be enlarged. Support will be given, as well, to the Delaware
Aerospace Academy and the Delaware Science Alliance. The academy
sponsors a summer program for junior high school students,  and the
Science Alliance, a volunteer teaching partnership made up of
representatives from industry, schools and the University, is expected
to include programs on space science.