Matthew Smylie, a junior physics major at Fairfield University, was awarded research funding from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, through the Grants-in-Aid of Research Program. He was among the less than 25 percent of 1,100 applicants from 50 states and 18 countries, many of them graduate students, to receive funding.

Matthew was awarded $1,750 for his research into the "Development of a Junction-Regulated Photoconductor." As part of the grant, Matthew collaborated with scientists this summer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley to make a new style of detector for far infrared light. These detectors are used for astronomy observations from space-based telescopes. It was an idea that Matthew developed while working at Fairfield University with Dr. Nancy Haegel. Matthew's research this year at Fairfield University will involve testing the new detectors that he helped design and manufacture.

John H. Gibbons, president of Sigma Xi, noted in his announcement of Matthew's award that, "Receiving a grant from this prestigious program is often one of the early steps in an accomplished career in science." The Grants-in-Aid of Research Program is administered by Sigma Xi and seeks to foster original investigation in all areas of science and engineering. Sigma Xi was founded in 1886 as an honor society for scientists and engineers and has more than 500 chapters in North America and around the world at colleges and universities, industrial research centers and government laboratories.

Posted On: 10-15-2001 09:10 AM

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