Commemorating King

By Nathan Robinson Members of Iota Phi Theta fraternity leave the Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center Jan. 21 to lead a march commemorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. on the observance of King's birthday. The march began at Ohio State and later joined up with a downtown march. Ohio State students also participated in a day of service, volunteering at 25 community sites, in honor of King's legacy.

Engineer wins presidential award, works to clean up toxic agents

President Bush has awarded an Ohio State engineer the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young researchers -- the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

The award honors Linda K. Weavers, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science, for her dual efforts to clean toxic agents from the environment and to recruit women engineers for one of the fastest-growing disciplines today.

Weavers will receive her PECASE award along with 59 other promising young scientists at an upcoming ceremony in Washington, D.C.

"We are delighted to congratulate Linda on this most prestigious honor," said Oliver McGee, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science. "We are especially proud that Linda has brought such high recognition to the sustained excellence we all achieve in our department."

The National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored Weavers for the award, which builds upon the NSF CAREER award she received in 2001. The agency is providing Weavers $375,000 in CAREER funding over five years.

Her research could prove critical in the near future, as the U.S. Army dismantles its chemical weapons stockpile. By law, the Army must dispose of more than 30,000 tons of chemical agents by 2007. The problem: Even the most environmentally friendly methods for destroying these agents still leave toxic byproducts behind.

Weavers and her students will test whether ultraviolet light and a chemical called periodate may degrade the byproducts produced when nerve gas and other toxic agents mix with water.

Periodate reacts with light to create molecules called free radicals, Weavers explained. Because free radicals are missing electrons, they will grab on to the electrons of other molecules -- including the toxic agents -- and trap them.

"We'll have to overcome certain challenges," Weavers said. "For instance, there are often other chemicals in water that snatch up free radicals, and they could stop our chemical reaction from even happening. So we're developing strategies to get around that problem."

One day, the same technique could even be used to treat polluted groundwater at hazardous waste sites or industrial wastewater in factories.

In the meantime, Weavers and two of her undergraduate students are preparing for the second half of her PECASE project -- a summer workshop that will encourage women to pursue a career in engineering.

Some 30 junior-high school girls from around central Ohio will join Weavers for a week during summer quarter to learn about her work and create some chemical reactions of their own. For example, they will use their knowledge of chemistry to mix up a tub of homemade ice cream. Using glue and other household chemicals, they will also create a batch of sticky play "slime."

Ohio State sophomores Kendra Schmies and Lindsey Saylor will coordinate the program and help teach the girls the science behind these fun chemical reactions.

Weavers credits the College of Engineering's Women in Engineering program for recruiting Schmies and Saylor. The two met when they became roommates for the program's annual summer workshop.

If any of this latest crop of summer students decide to follow Weavers into environmental engineering, they will enter a discipline experts think is becoming increasingly important to the U.S. economy.

In the Fall 2001 issue of its journal Occupational Outlook Quarterly, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that the job market for such engineers will continue to blossom through 2008. According to the report, U.S. population growth and tightening environmental regulations will intensify industry's need for engineers who can design new methods for cleaning up hazardous waste.

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