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April 16, 1998 Contact Ross West (541) 346-2060 Source: Mark Lonergan (541) 346-4748
EUGENE--University of Oregon chemistry professor Mark Lonergan has received a Beckman Young Investigator award for his groundbreaking work using electrically active plastics. The award from the Beckman Foundation will provide $200,000 for Lonergan's work over a two-year period. The money will be used to support graduate students and postdoctoral fellows pursuing their education as well as to purchase laboratory equipment, Lonergan says. Lonergan's work with electrically active plastics recently led him to create a "tunable diode," a new tool for controlling currents in electronic circuitry, including computer chips. Lonergan's realization of the tunable diode relies on the special properties of a relatively new class of plastic materials known as conducting polymers. "The unique properties of this device should open new avenues in the design of circuitry for the control and manipulation of electrical energy," Lonergan says. "It will be a useful new addition to the electrical engineer's tool bag." Lonergan graduated summa cum laude from the UO with a B.S. degree in chemistry in 1990 and joined the UO faculty in 1996. Additional information about his research can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~chem/lonergan.html. The Beckman Young Investigator program is open to researchers early in their careers who have tenure-track appointments in academic and nonprofit institutions and conduct fundamental research in the chemical and life sciences. The foundation is interested in supporting projects that show promise of contributing to significant advances in these areas, especially those projects that demonstrate innovative departures in research rather than extensions or expansions of existing programs.
Additional information on the Beckman Foundation and on past recipients of its
Beckman Young Investigator Awards can be found on the World Wide Web at
-30- #G-7342/Local, OrSci
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