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The Graduate School

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Graduate School News Archive

Researchers Develop Alternative to Toxic Compounds in Semiconductor Nanocrystals
-- Posted by tfisher on Friday, December 16 2005

University of Arkansas researchers have used a technique known as "doping" to create semiconducting nanocrystals using zinc, opening up a new, non-toxic alternative to the current industry "workhorse," cadmium selenide. This technique creates a nanocrystal product that does not contain the carcinogenic cadmium element, and can be used for biomedical labeling, light emitting diodes, lasers and sensors.

Xiaogang Peng, Scharlau Professor of chemistry and biochemistry, Narayan Pradhan, postdoctoral associate, graduate student Jason Thessing all from the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and research scientist David Goorsey of NN-Labs, a start-up company at the university's technology incubator, report their findings in the current issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"Cadmium-based nanocrystals have a doubtful future because of their toxicity," Peng said. He and his group have been working on a way to replace the cadmium selenide with the non-toxic zinc selenide for several years. While zinc-based nanocrystals have none of the toxicity of cadmium-based ones, until now they proved less effective as a semiconducting nanocrystal emitters because the nanocrystals did not emit light through most of the visible spectrum.

To read the full release, please go to http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/6504.htm

Civil Engineering Student Honored as Mack-Blackwell Outstanding Student of the Year
-- Posted by tfisher on Monday, December 12 2005

Civil engineering student, Minh Le, will be honored at the 15th annual Outstanding Student of the Year awards ceremony. The ceremony will take place in conjunction with the Transportation Research Board's 85th annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in January 2006 as part of the Council of University Transportation Centers annual banquet.

For the past 14 years, the U.S. Department of Transportation has honored an outstanding student from each University Transportation Center at a special ceremony held during the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting. Each student receives $1,000 plus the cost of attendance at the meeting from the center, along with a certificate from the Department of Transportation. In addition, the banquet will feature a key speaker from the transportation field and provide its own awards for university transportation research and education.

Minh Le was brought by his parents to the United States when he was four years old. He received his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1997. He then began working for Metroplan, the central Arkansas metropolitan planning organization. His responsibilities at Metroplan have included developing short- and long-range transportation plans, modeling travel demand, conducting travel-time surveys, developing roadway cross section standards, reviewing roadway design plans, and estimating project costs.

To read more, please go to http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/6155.htm

UA Students Take Top Award at National Agronomy Meet
-- Posted by tfisher on Wednesday, December 7 2005

Students from the crop, soil and environmental sciences department at the University of Arkansas won first place in the student poster contest at a national meeting of the Agronomy Society of America. The meeting was held Nov. 6 - 9 in Salt Lake City.

Club sponsors Mary Savin and Pengyin Chen take a group of students to the ASA national meeting every fall. "Attendance at the meeting gives our students experience in presenting their activities and research as well as exposure to the latest developments in the field," said Savin.

The crop, soil and environmental sciences department helps each year with the students' travel expenses. "We are very proud of our students for taking first place this year," said Jim Barrentine, department head.

For more information, contact the CSES Student Club Sponsors: Mary Savin at msavin@uark.edu or Pengyin Chen at pchen@uark.edu

Researcher Awarded Humboldt Fellowship to Continue Studies in Germany
-- Posted by tfisher on Wednesday, December 7 2005

A University of Arkansas postdoctoral student has won a Humboldt Fellowship to continue his examination of the prehistoric environmental changes that led to the disappearance of great apes from Europe 9 million years ago.

Gildas Merceron received the research fellowship for his reconstruction of the habitat of a fossil ape in Central Europe.

"The Humboldt Fellowship is the most prestigious fellowship of its kind," said Peter Ungar, a professor of anthropology in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas.

Merceron's research project aims to characterize the environments and evolution of environments in Central Europe where Dryopithecus, a fossilized great ape, evolved between 12 and 9 million years ago. Understanding which environmental changes took place will hopefully explain why all fossil apes disappeared from Europe 9 million years ago.

To read more, go to http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/5921.htm

UA Center for Protein Structure and Function Receives $10.2 million from NIH
-- Posted by tfisher on Wednesday, December 7 2005

The University of Arkansas Center for Protein Structure and Function has received a $10.2 million award from The National Institutes of Health National Center for Research Resources. This new five-year grant, the largest competitive research grant ever received by the University of Arkansas, will provide funding to continue the center, which was established in October 2000 with a $9.6 million NIH grant.

This grant was written by faculty members in the departments of chemistry and biochemistry, and biological sciences on the Fayetteville campus, and the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Frank Millett is the principal investigator of the grant, and Roger Koeppe II is the co-principal investigator. Millett is a Distinguished Professor and Koeppe is a University Professor in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

"The receipt of this outstanding grant attests to the excellent research work in progress by University of Arkansas faculty," said Collis Geren, dean of the graduate school and vice provost for research. "Funding from public agencies is critical to advancing research projects and supporting centers and provides an attractive incentive when recruiting students and faculty. We're looking forward to watching the progress of the Center for Protein Structure and Function's work as it serves Arkansas and the world."

To read more, go to http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/5919.htm

Civil Engineering Student Honored as Mack-Blackwell Outstanding Student of the Year
-- Posted by tfisher on Friday, December 2 2005

Minh Le, a UA graduate student in civil engineering, has been named the Mack-Blackwell Outstanding Student of the Year. Le is currently conducting research funded by the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department and the Mack-Blackwell Transportation Center to examine correlations between factors that, if not taken into account, may skew or distort the analysis of the safety effects of various multilane roadway cross section designs. The findings are expected to help in comparing the relative safety of four-lane, five-lane and raised/depressed median arterial roadways. He is expected to complete his degree in 2006.

The 15th Annual Outstanding Student of the Year Awards ceremony will take place in conjunction with the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 85th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, in January 2006 as part of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) annual banquet. For the past 14 years, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has honored an outstanding student from each University Transportation Center (UTC) at a special ceremony held during the TRB Annual Meeting. Each student receives $1,000 plus the cost of attendance at TRB from his/her Center, along with a certificate from USDOT. In addition, the CUTC banquet features a key speaker from the transportation field and provides its own awards for university transportation research and education.

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