WKU Faculty Members Win
Prestigious Research Awards
May 17, 2004
Bowling Green, Ky. - Two faculty members in Western Kentucky University's Ogden College of Science and Engineering have received research awards from Oak Ridge Associated Universities.
Dr. Andrew Wulff, assistant professor of geology, and Dr. Wayne Tarrant, assistant professor of mathematics, are among 25 recipients of 2004 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards.
The grants of $5,000 each are intended to provide "seed money" to allow faculty members in their first two years of tenure track at ORAU member institutions to enhance their research during the early stages of their careers. Each recipient's institution matches the ORAU award with an additional $5,000.
Dr. Wulff's proposal is part of a planned multidisciplinary project that will address when early humans (Homo erectus) first reached Java, Indonesia, and will explore the nature of the geological environment at the time of that arrival. Dr. Wulff will be examining the mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of volcanic layers bounding the stratigraphic horizons containing Homo erectus fossils. These data will significantly increase scientists' understanding of the terrestrial environments that received the earliest hominids.
Dr. Tarrant received his award to work on the rank conjecture on elliptic curves. The rank of an elliptic curve is the number of independent points in the group of rational points for the curve. The rank conjecture states that there ought to be elliptic curves with arbitrarily high rank. At present the largest known rank of an elliptic curve is 26, but Dr. Tarrant hopes to surpass that record. (Elliptic curves are used in several mathematical applications, the most notable of which may be crpytographic.) Dr. Tarrant, who also has received a Kentucky NSF EPSCoR Summer Research Program grant, will use the ORAU award to attend a numbers theory conference in Paris.
"Winning prestigious awards such as the Powe Award is further evidence of the quality faculty that Western is fortunate to have," said Dr. David Keeling, head of the Department of Geography and Geology. "Such awards help faculty to pursue research around the globe, and contribute in no small measure to enhancing the quality of classroom instruction and to motivating students to collaborate with faculty on research projects."
Oak Ridge Associated Universities is a university consortium leveraging the scientific strength of 91 major research institutions to advance science and education by partnering with national laboratories, government agencies and private industry. ORAU manages the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award program was named for Ralph E. Powe, who served as the ORAU Councilor from Mississippi State University for 16 years.
For information about the Powe Awards, contact the Department of Geography and Geology at (270) 745-4555, the Department of Mathematics at (270) 745-3651 or visit ORAU's website at http://www.orau.org
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