UA Engineering Professor Earns NSF Career Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. C. Heath Turner, Reichhold-Shumaker assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at The University of Alabama, has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. CAREER Awards are NSF’s most prestigious recognition of top-performing young scientists and engineers who are beginning their careers.

Turner has been awarded a five-year, $400,000 grant to perform simulation studies of nanometer-sized metal catalyst particles. The goal of the project is to use simulations to help understand how small metal particles behave on different support materials. This information can be used to significantly enhance future technologies, ranging from fuel cell components to the next-generation of microelectronics.

Turner has previously held visiting positions with NASA in Langley, Va., and with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining UA, Turner worked as an environmental consultant with Trinity Consultants in Atlanta, Ga. He has published 23 journal articles and has given more than 45 research presentations.

NSF established the Faculty Early Career Development Program in 1995 to help top performers, early in their careers, develop simultaneously their contributions and commitment to research and to education. According to the NSF Web site, the CAREER program supports the activities of those teacher-scholars who are “most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century.” CAREER award recipients are selected on the basis of creative, career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution.

In 1837, The University of Alabama became one of the first five universities in the nation to offer engineering classes. Today, UA’s fully accredited College of Engineering has about 1,900 students and nearly 100 faculty. In the last seven years, students in the College have been named USA Today All-USA College Academic Team members, Goldwater scholars, Hollings scholars and Portz scholars.