Recognition for promising young researchers
RESEARCH | Three assistant professors of engineering are among 12 young faculty members in the U.S. and China to received prestigious research grants from the DuPont Co.
The DuPont Young Professor grant program for original research, which began in 1967, is designed to provide unrestricted start-up assistance to talented research faculty working in areas of interest to DuPont’s long-term business.
The UD recipients are Xinqiao Jia and Matthew Doty, both in materials science and engineering, and Thomas H. Epps, III, in chemical engineering.
“The Young Professor grant program is a way to find promising researchers and promising science early in a new professor’s career,” says Uma Chowdhry, DuPont senior vice president and chief science and technology officer.
Jia’s primary focus is on the synthesis of functional biomaterials for drug delivery and tissue engineering applications. Her work on the development of elastin mimetic hybrid polymers for vocal fold repair and regeneration was highlighted in Chemical and Engineering News in September 2008.
Doty’s focus is on understanding and controlling nanostructured materials at the quantum mechanical level. Applications of his work include the design of coupled “quantum dot molecules” for next generation information processing devices and nanostructured photovoltaics with optimized energy absorption and transport.
Epps’ current research focuses on surface and interfacial interactions in nanostructured polymeric systems. He was awarded a Department of Defense Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2009.
