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.