Here KIZy KIZy

SU physics professor and department chair, Alan Armstrong received a $10,000 grant from the Keystone Innovation Transfer Network and the state Department of Community and Economic Development. The grant will be used to fund an optical chemical sensor based on in-plane interference from nanofabricated electrode structures.

The grants encourage and fund applied research by faculty who partner with local companies. Shippensburg was one of eight colleges and universities to receive KIZ funding.

Four-way split

Ship is one of four regional universities that received a $1 million grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation that is aimed at significantly increasing college enrollment and graduation rates among low-income high school and community college students. The four schools in the partnership will develop a college access network to provide one-on-one advising services to high school students in nine school districts in Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, and Mifflin counties.

The college access initiative will recruit and train college seniors to work as full-time advisors for one or two years following graduation. The goal is to combat the tide of college-qualified, low-income high school students who fail to earn undergraduate degrees with guidance in navigating admission and financial aid requirements.

“This grant is an example of …our collective commitment to the future of young Pennsylvanians,” said President Bill Ruud, who sees the funds as a way for targeted students to make their dreams a reality.

Pressure

NOAA’s SeaGrant project office in Maryland awarded SU assistant professor of geography-earth science Claire Jantz a $230,000 research grant to investigate how urbanization and population pressures influence water resources on the Delmarva Peninsula. Part of the end result will be a decision support system for local land use planners. The project is for two years.