Two MSU professors are were selected to receive grants from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
Farhad Jaberi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Aaron Odom, an assistant professor of chemistry, are among 26 scientists nationwide who will share $8 million in grants.
Each will receive $300,000 from the government agency as part of the Young Investor Program. The funding supports research by exceptional faculty at U.S. universities who have earned a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in the past five years.
“I’ll use it for support of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and other miscellaneous things like publication,” Jaberi said. “It will have significant impact on research. It will allow me to recruit the best graduate students. And basically, it also helps me to explore new ideas.”
Jaberi is focusing on building models for designing propulsion systems, and gas turbine engines.
“It is going to help me a lot, it could get us through many years,” Jaberi said. “This is a very prestigious and outstanding award. It leads to better recognition in the international community.”
Jaberi came to MSU last year from Kansas State University. He earned a doctorate from the Buffalo-State University of New York in in 1996.
Odom’s research is on the development of new molecular catalysts needed for air and fluid purification. Odom is excited about the prospects of the grant.
“We are going to try to use this for applications in a variety of areas,” Odom said. “We’ll use it for purification procedures and catalyst support. We are also thinking about using it for sensing applications.”
Odom has been a faculty member at MSU since 1999. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry in 1997.
Odom said MSU was one of only two schools in the nation to receive multiple awards.
“It was us and Stanford. That is a really nice thing for MSU and it really shows a great commitment by the university to science and engineering,” he said.
Ronald Rosenberg, chairman of the mechanical engineering department, said the grant reflects positively on MSU.
“It says that the university has been hiring people of a caliber that can compete in technical areas with those all over the country, and come out on the top,” Rosenberg said. “We have people who are of national caliber professionally.”
