UNCA Receives $412,000 Grant from the National Science Foundation; Funds Will Establish a Center for Imaging and Nondestructive Chemical Analysis

UNC Asheville was recently awarded a $412,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a Center for Imaging and Nondestructive Chemical Analysis. It is the largest grant ever awarded to UNCA by the National Science Foundation. The Center will be anchored by a state-of-the-art environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM), an x-ray energy dispersive spectrometer and accompanying equipment. The Center is scheduled to open in fall 2004 on the UNCA campus.

UNCA students and faculty will use the new equipment for a wide range of research projects, including investigating historic and prehistoric artifacts, properties of nano-scale materials, regional bedrock, insects and tropical plants. The new ESEM has two important features: it keeps specimens from being damaged during an investigation, and it allows for repeated observation of the same sample at different stages of an experiment.

UNCA’s ESEM will be the first such high-tech instrument in the Asheville region available for use by qualified individuals and groups. Asheville-Buncombe primary and secondary teachers, with outreach to teachers at Cherokee, will be invited to ESEM workshops and to bring their classes to the Center to see demonstrations of the equipment in action. Though the Center will be used primarily by UNCA science programs and the Mossbauer Research Group, the Center also expects to collaborate with area universities, government agencies and industries.

"Collaborating with other area teachers is such a worthwhile enterprise," said Bill Miller, principal investigator for the grant. "We’re looking forward to hosting summer teacher workshops and demonstrations for students to expose them to this wonderful new instrument we have. Once teachers and students discover what can be done with this equipment, their eyes grow wide and they literally see a whole new world."

Co-principal investigators for the grant are David Clark, UNCA assistant professor of biology; Tim Forrest, UNCA associate professor of biology; Airat Khasanov, Mossbauer Effect Data Center research associate; and Kathy Whatley, UNCA physics professor and associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs for Natural Sciences Programs. Other participating faculty are John Stevens, professor of chemistry, and Jim Craig, emeritus professor of geology from Virginia Tech.

Media Contacts:

• Dr. Bill Miller, UNCA Environmental Studies Professor, 828/232-5182
• Jill Yarnall, UNCA Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526