Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University's Hoffman Environmental Research Institute is honored to welcome Dr. Angél Fernández-Cortes, an expert in environmental monitoring from Almería, Spain, as a visiting scholar for the Fall 2005 semester.

Dr. Fernández received his Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Almería and was subsequently awarded a Post-Doctoral Fellowship by his university to fund his research program at WKU.

Dr. Fernández’s expertise in electronic computer data logging of field environmental parameters is proving to be especially useful in his work here, particularly at the Hoffman Institute’s field site at Cave Spring Caverns in northern Warren County.

That project, in collaboration with USDA Agricultural Research Service hydrologist Dr. Carl Bolster, is using this technology to make high resolution measurements of karst groundwater quality beneath actively farmed fields, to understand better farming practices ultimately designed to find a balance between protecting groundwater quality and enhancing the economic health of farmers on the landscape.

After investigating a variety of research programs at universities around the world, Dr. Fernández applied to work at WKU because of the type and quality of the university’s karst research efforts.

"Angél is a great addition to our research group this year, and interacts very well with everyone here," said Dr. Chris Groves, Dr. Fernández' supervisor and director of the Hoffman Institute within WKU’s Applied Research and Technology Program (ARTP).

In between his research work at WKU this summer, Dr. Fernández traveled with his WKU colleagues to the annual meeting of the National Speleological Society in Huntsville, Ala., and participated in a weeklong course in Natural Resource Management in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

He will also give a seminar at WKU on Sept. 16 about his work on Spain’s “giant geode,” a 30-foot long and 10-foot high void recently discovered in a mine whose walls are covered with gigantic ice-clear crystals, some as long as two feet. Dr. Fernández’s monitoring work in the void, which will be designated as a Spanish Natural Monument, showed that visits by three people for as short a period as 10 minutes raised the relative humidity enough to deteriorate the soluble gypsum crystals.

Dr. David Keeling, Geography and Geology Department Head, noted that “the fact that the department’s research programs are now attracting post-doc researchers speaks both to the level at which the research groups are operating, as well as, in this case, the growing international reputation of WKU’s karst programs.” In 2004, Dr. Ezat Raeisi, a noted karst scientist from Iran, studied at the Center for Cave and Karst Studies, also within the ARTP.

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Chris Groves at (270) 745-5974.