Several Hope College projects have received grants from the Michigan Space Grant Consortium.
A total of 10 projects from Hope received funding from the consortium through its 2006-07 grant period. The awards to Hope projects are in three categories: seven are fellowships for students conducting collaborative research with members of the college's faculty, two are "seed grants" for faculty research and one is through an initiative for pre-college education. They total $32,500, including $2,500 for each of the student fellowships, and $5,000 each for the other three projects.
The consortium awarded grants in the three categories to a total of 34 projects statewide, chosen from among 92 applications.
Hope will provide additional support for each of the projects, including stipends for the students as they conduct research during the summer, and matching funds for the faculty and pre-college education projects.
The students receiving fellowships were: sophomore Rebecca Baker of Lafayette, Colo., who will work on "Detecting Impact Damage in Carbon/Epoxy Composites Using Infrared Thermography" with Dr. Jeff Brown, assistant professor of engineering; sophomore Theresa O'Meara of Chicago, Ill., who will work on "Experimental Investigation of Antibiotic Adsorption in Sand-Iron Systems: Implications for Transport in Groundwater" with Dr. Jonathan Peterson, associate professor of environmental science and chairperson of the department; sophomore Amanda Runge of St. Joseph, who will work on "Equilibrium Property Predictions from Generalized Cubic Equations of State" with Dr. Michael Misovich, associate
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professor of engineering; junior Sarah Story of Glendale Heights, Ill., who will work on "Population synthesis study of normal-isolated and millisecond pulsars" with Dr. Peter Gonthier, professor of physics; junior Emily Timmons of Kalamazoo, who will work on "Ground-Penetrating Radar Study of Structures in Lake Michigan Coastal Dunes" with Dr. Edward Hansen, professor of geology and environmental science; junior Emily Wandell of Mason, who will work on "Analysis and Measurement of the Cooling Behavior of a Cryogenic System" with Dr. John Krupczak Jr., associate professor of engineering; and sophomore Joshua Warner of Huntertown, Ind., who will work on "Determining the Provenance of Dune Sand Using PIXE" with Drs. Graham Peaslee, associate professor of chemistry and geology/environmental science, Hansen and Paul DeYoung, who is the Kenneth G. Herrick Professor of Physics.
The two faculty seed grants were awarded to Dr. Miguel Abrahantes, assistant professor of engineering, for "Description, in real time, of the uncertainty for a nonlinear model's prediction" and Dr. Jeff Brown, assistant professor of engineering, for "Detecting Impact Damage in Carbon/Epoxy Composite Laminates Using Infrared Thermography." The grants are designed for junior faculty, to develop research expertise that will position them to earn support from other sources in the future.
The grant through the pre-college education program was awarded to Dr. Graham Peaslee, associate professor of chemistry and geology/environmental science and teacher Jennifer Soukhome of Zeeland West High School. They are collaborating on the project "Creation of Active Learning Curricular Materials for Earth Science Courses in Area High Schools," focusing on enabling high teachers to integrate the Lake Macatawa Watershed into their teaching.
The Michigan Space Grant Consortium seeks to foster awareness of, education in, and research on space-related science and technology in Michigan. Hope is the only undergraduate college that is a member of the consortium, which also includes Eastern Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, Oakland University, Saginaw Valley State University, Wayne State University and Western Michigan University.