Six faculty members were honored for their selection as this year’s University Scholars.

Now in year 20, the program provides $10,000 per year for three years to help enhance each scholar’s academic research.

Lawrence Mann, executive assistant vice president for academic affairs, said the University Scholars Program is based on the recognition of faculty excellence.

“It is designed to identify truly outstanding faculty members who are engaged is cutting-edge research and scholarship as well as excellence in teaching,” Mann said.

Nikolaos Sahinidis, professor in chemical and biomolecular Engineering, conducts his research on the optimization theory of applied mathematics and its applications in modern informatics problems.

“(Informatics applications) provide much needed insights for the development of general-purpose mathematical optimization algorithms that can be used across science and engineering,” Sahinidis said.

He said the grant will help pay for any unexpected expenses that he might face during his research.

Dorothy Espelage, associate professor in educational psychology, examines the factors that contribute to bullying among children.

“I adopt and test what we call a social-ecological model where we identify individual, family, peer and school factors (to) predict bullying perpetration,” Espelage said. “I am trying to develop research that will lead to empirically based prevention programs in schools and communities.”

Espelage said the grant would allow her to continue her studies in schools in the U.S. and to connect with other international scholars to bring an international focus to bullying.

Thomas Ginsburg, professor in Law, explores the structures of legal institutions ranging from political, economic and social.

“Recently I have been working on the transformation of legal systems in northeast Asia . (and) on the structure of international law and how it reflects the political interaction of states,” Ginsburg said. “(The grant) will allow me to travel to research a book on East Asian legal systems.”

Feng Sheng Hu, associate professor in plant biology and geology, works on exploring how the biosphere responds to climate change.

“We are looking at past climates and past ecosystems and trying to figure out how ecosystems (now) may respond to future climate changes,” Hu said. “(The grant) is a great thing to use when we go to conferences.”

Scott White, professor in aerospace engineering, is looking to develop materials that can perform multiple functions at one time and have the capability to repair themselves.

“(The funding) allows us to interact with people across the world that are doing similar types of research . and to begin to explore things that perhaps we cannot fund yet,” White said.

Susan Schantz, professor in veterinary biosciences, is interested in how drugs and chemicals from environmental containments like mercury affect the nervous system and the development of the fetus.

“We are interested in the developmental exposures . how is the child affected later on if the fetus is exposed to mercury during gestation?” Schantz said. “We already used some of (the grant) to do a preliminary study to generate some data that we use for the grant proposal that we submitted.”