Messenger - Vol. 2, No. 1, Page 21 Fall 1992 University attacts major federal, private support The University of Delaware has received several major grants totaling millions of dollars from a private foundation, federal agencies and the business world. Undergraduate science education received a major boost with a $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The five-year award will support efforts to attract undergraduate students to careers in the sciences, introduce new laboratories in life and health sciences and chemistry and biochemistry that take an interdisciplinary approach to biological problems, establish scholarships to provide laboratory experiences for juniors and seniors and create new laboratories open to all students dealing with the scientific process. Faculty and staff in mathematics education received a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to help redesign mathematics education in the First State. The Mathematical Sciences Teaching and Learning Center, the College of Education and the Department of Mathematical Sciences are working with the Delaware Department of Public Instruction and eight school districts to train teachers in different strategies for teaching math, using "real-life" mathematical problems. In August, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) designated the University of Delaware's Institute of Energy Conversion (IEC) as one of only two centers of excellence in photovoltaic research and education in the nation. Photovoltaic research, or research on the conversion of sunlight to electricity, is the focus of the Institute of Energy Conversion, a leading research facility in that field since 1972. This designation will stabilize funding for IEC at a total of about $5 million over the next four years. In making the announcement, J. Michael Davis, assistant secretary of conservation and renewable energy at DOE, said, "As one of the first laboratories in the U.S. to initiate a thin-film photovoltaic research effort, the Institute of Energy Conversion at Delaware has a prominent track record in PV research for over 20 years and is an outstanding choice for this new initiative." Four research programs at the University received grants totaling $7.8 million over the next five years from the Army Research Office. Under the University Research Initiative program, $3.8 million was given to the Center for Composite Materials for a multidisciplinary program in the manufacturing science of polymeric composites; $2.1 million was presented to the Center for Applied Coastal Research for a study of near-shore wave and circulation modeling; $1.6 million was awarded to Thomas B. Brill, chemistry and biochemistry, and Michael T. Klein, chemical engineering, for a study of reactions and reactor analysis involving high-temperature water, with the goal of achieving safe destruction of hazardous military chemical waste; and $275,000 from a grant awarded to Pennsylvania State University with Brill as co-principal investigator to model the ignition combustion and kinetics of energetic materials. A consortium involving the University's Center for Composite Materials, the state of Delaware and several industry leaders interested in the manufacture of composites received $5 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A consortium involving the University's Center for Composit Materials, the state of Delaware and several industry leaders interested in the manufacture of composites received $5 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Known as the Institute for Applied Composites Technology, the consortium has set as its first goal the rapid manufacture of intermediate and high-temperature composites, using sensor and computing technology and intelligent process controls.