Five Clemson University researchers have brought home some of the nation's top awards for junior faculty members and are helping make robots fly, develop new medicines, save buildings from the wrecking ball and create new ways to make fertilizer.
The university's College of Engineering and Science announced Monday that Feng Ding, Rachel Getman and Brandon Ross have won prestigious awards from the National Science Foundation, while Joseph Scott and Yue "Sophie" Wang have won top awards from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Five high-profile awards in two months is a milestone for a university that recently stepped up efforts to bolster its reputation for high-quality research. The awards bring more than $2.2 million in new research funding into the College of Engineering and Science.
Anand Gramopadhye, dean of the College of Engineering and Science, said the awards are a testament to the researchers' creativity, dedication and hard work.
"South Carolina deserves a world-class research university, and the awards confirm that these five Clemson University faculty members are the top young engineers and scientists in their disciplines," he said.
"Having five top award winners already this year speaks highly of Clemson's research environment, which bodes well for the entire state. Through research, we help create the jobs of the future, inspire a new generation of grand thinkers and conceive the innovations that overcome some of humankind's most complex challenges."
Ding, Getman and Ross won awards through the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Program, often called the NSF CAREER award.
Scott and Wang received awards through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program.
The awards were announced little more than a month after the university reached another key marker in research prominence.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education included Clemson in its R1 category for doctoral universities. The category is reserved for universities with the highest research activity.
Here are brief profiles of the award winners:
National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program Award (NSF CAREER Award):
Fact: With the three new awards, Clemson now has 22 faculty members doing research as part of the NSF CAREER program, representing nearly $8.5 million in funding.
Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Award:
Fact: Only 12 other institutions had multiple awards through the Air Force program this year, putting Clemson in the same club as Princeton University, the California Institute of Technology and North Carolina State University.
###