Meadville, Pa. – August 27, 2008 – Allegheny College has received a grant of $102,284 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support student summer research at the Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry David Statman will accompany the students to Hungary. While there, the students will work with Statman and with established scientists, graduate students, undergraduate students and technicians from Hungary, as well as other European Union (EU) and non-EU countries.
Allegheny students will have opportunities to learn new experimental techniques as they engage in experimental investigations studying the interaction between azo dyes and nematic liquid crystals with polymer surfaces and surfaces coated with nanotubes.
“This research has impact on new technologies in optical communications, where materials that respond to low light levels are required,” Professor Statman explained. “The interaction of dyes with liquid crystal samples is also of much interest in physics and chemistry.”
Allegheny is one of 40 colleges recognized in Loren Pope's book Colleges That Change Lives, where he writes that the college “has a long and distinguished record of producing … future scientists and scholars.”
Allegheny ranks in the top 5 percent of schools whose graduates go on to earn Ph.D.s in all fields, in the top 4 percent in the science disciplines, and in the top 2 percent for producing chemistry Ph.D.s., according to data from the Higher Education Data Sharing (HEDS) Consortium Study of the Doctorate Records File for the decade 1995-2004.
On a percentage basis, Allegheny produces twice as many scientists as the top rated research universities. During the past decade, about 30 percent of Allegheny's students have graduated with degrees in the sciences annually. The national average is 23 percent.
One hundred percent of the $102,284 cost of the project will be covered by federal funds through the NSF grant. Laboratory facilities will be provided both by Allegheny College and the Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics of the Hungarian Academy of Science.
