Mollohan, National Sciences director tour WVU
Get an eyeful of WVU research projects


This article appeared in the Dec. 4, 2007, edition of the Morgantown Dominion Post.



By Michael Janney
The Dominion Post

At the end of a two-hour tour, Arden Bement, director of the National Science Foundation, was surprised with how much science he’d seen at WVU Monday.

“We covered a lot of ground, and I didn’t even take an iris scan,” he said.

Bement, along with Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., toured WVU’s downtown and Evansdale campuses, looking at nanotechnology and biometrics research and how the two sciences relate to one another. The visit allowed Bement to see what progress WVU had made in NSF-funded research.

Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating small parts of matter, such as atoms, while biometrics refers to technology used for personal identification — such as iris scans.

Both WVU’s physics and engineering departments study nanotechnology, while the engineering department studies biometrics.

Bement didn’t take an iris scan, but talked with students who learned about iris identification and other techniques. Some students already are participating in research on the undergraduate level.

Cliff Luzier, Aglika Gyaourova and Nathan Kalka, all engineering students who’ve worked with biometrics, talked with Bement and Mollohan about their work in a biometrics lab at the Engineering Sciences Building.

Luzier said it was nice to meet with a public official like Bement who actually understood the specific sciences behind their work and research.

“He can actually talk with us and stuff,” Luzier said. “He has an idea about what we’re doing.”

Lawrence Hornak, engineering professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, said since his start at WVU in 1991, it was the first time the NSF director had visited WVU.

“It’s very rewarding, I think, to the faculty,” Hornak said. “It raises the visibility of our activity.”

Mollohan said the visit was a good way to continue funding the NSF supplies for research at WVU.

“It is always a good thing to facilitate dialogue and interaction between agencies that supply research generally with those who do the research,” Mollohan said. “Out of that dialogue will basically come relationships that will be positive in supporting research at WVU.”

Bement said the visit was not a check-up to see research progress, but a courtesy visit to observe the ideas that WVU faculty and students research.

“It was something that I’ve been trying to work into my schedule for some time,” Bement said. “The students are great, they communicate well, they know their subjects well, they are highly enthusiastic.”

Bement said the quality of research and education at WVU is high based on his visit Monday, and he was grateful that Mollohan’s efforts in Congress to support the NSF could benefit WVU.
Bement said the NSF gave WVU a little over $8 million in research funding in 2007.