Bruker AXS announces two $5000 X-ray diffraction scholarships based on unique X-ray diffraction (XRD) experiments performed by university students
During the 2005 Materials Research Society Fall (autumn) Meeting now taking place at the Hynes Convention Centre, Bruker AXS announced the recipients of its 2005 Excellence in X-ray Diffraction (XRD) scholarships - based on unique experiments performed by university students.
Recognising academic achievement in X-ray diffraction, Bruker AXS has presented a US$5000 scholarship for unique applications in the category of nanotechnology and materials science and another $5000 scholarship for the category of geology and chemistry.
The winners were selected by an independent panel of judges: Tom Blanton from Eastman Kodak, Jim Kaduk from Innovene, president of the International Centre for Diffraction Data Chan Park from the College of Engineering, Seoul National University, National Research Council Canada research officer Pam Whitfield, and Scott Misture from Alfred University in New York.
Graduate student (PhD) Chris Long of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Center for Superconductivity Research, Department of Physics at the University of Maryland was awarded the 2005 Bruker AXS Excellence in X-ray Diffraction scholarship for unique applications in the category of nanotechnology and materials science for his paper titled 'Visualisation of X-ray diffraction spectra from combinatorial thin film libraries'.
The winner and his advisor, Ichiro Takeuchi, describe his work as "Mapping of diffraction data for composition spread wafers covering ternary phase diagrams using combinatorial XRD techniques".
Long will also present his work at the MRS meeting and has already published the work in Review of Scientific Instruments.
In the future, Long will continue his graduate work on data visualisation for combinatorial libraries and advanced microwave microscopy techniques.
The University of Maryland has one of the largest research efforts in combinatorial materials science.
Sasha Wilson at the University of British Columbia was awarded the Bruker AXS 2005 Excellence in X-ray diffraction scholarship for unique applications in the category of geology and chemistry.
Wilson received this award for work done as part of her MSc thesis titled 'Carbon sequestration in chrysotile mine tailings'.
Wilson has now completed her thesis under the joint supervision of Mati Raudsepp and Greg Dipple in the Earth and Ocean Sciences Department, and successfully defended it.
Wilson is pursuing a PhD with the same group and continuing the research.
Her paper submitted for the contest has already been accepted by American Mineralogy.
This department is one of the largest and most diverse departments of its kind in the world.
Its research and teaching interests span the history of the Earth and the evolution of its structure from core to stratosphere.
Honorable mention in the materials science category went to graduate student Jeong-Myeong Ha from the University of Minnesota's department of chemical engineering and materials science with his paper 'Application of X-ray microdiffraction to analyse nanocrystals embedded in nanoporous matrices'.
Honorable mention in the geology category went to Bernard Yeung from the University of Western Ontario's department of physics and astronomy.
The title of his work is 'Observing strain in minerals by micro X-ray diffraction (microXRD) with a two-dimensional detector'.
"We are very pleased to provide these scholarships to such outstanding students" said Uwe Preckwinkel, Bruker AXS Product manager for materials research.
"We are impressed by the quality of the XRD experiments these students performed, and the meaningful scientific results obtained" added Frank Burgaezy, executive vice president of Bruker AXS in charge of the company's global XRD and XRF business.
