Purdue News Service

At the West Lafayette campus, the proposal calls for a $388 increase for resident students and a $1,394 increase for nonresident students. This translates into a 5 percent resident tuition increase and a 6 percent nonresident tuition increase for continuing students each of the next two academic years.

English professor appointed interim dean for College of Liberal Arts

Irwin "Bud" Weiser, professor and head of the Department of English, has been named the interim dean of Purdue University's College of Liberal Arts.

The appointment, effective Monday (July 6), was announced Thursday (July 2) by Randy Woodson, Purdue's executive vice president for academic affairs and provost.

**Scott D. Tingle**

A Purdue University alumnus is one of nine astronaut candidates selected by NASA this year out of more than 3,500 applicants, the space agency announced.

Scott D. Tingle, 43, of Hollywood, Md., will begin training in August at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The training takes about two years to complete, said NASA spokesperson Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters.

**Janna Beckerman**

There are hundreds of choices when picking a crabapple tree from the nursery, but a Purdue University expert says only a handful are resistant to a widespread fungus or other serious diseases.

After reviewing 33 years of data, Janna Beckerman, a Purdue assistant professor of botany and plant pathology, found that only five of 287 crabapple varieties had durable resistance to a serious disease of crabapple trees. The results of her study were published in the June issue of the journal HortScience.

Woohyun Kim, at right,
and James Braun

Engineers have developed a technique that saves energy and servicing costs by indicating when air conditioners are low on refrigerant, preventing the units from working overtime.

The new "virtual refrigerant charge sensor" is particularly practical for automotive air conditioners, which tend to leak refrigerant more than other types of units, and also for household central air conditioning units, said James Braun, a professor of mechanical engineering.

Complete atom-by-atom transistor simulation run in 15 minutes

A simulation of electrical current moving through a futuristic electronic transistor has been modeled atom-by-atom in less than 15 minutes by Purdue University researchers.

The work demonstrates that future electronic devices can be quickly simulated on advanced computers, opening the door to new nanoscale semiconductor components that are more powerful and use less energy.

Hermodson named interim director of ag research programs

Mark Hermodson, emeritus professor of biochemistry, has been named interim director of Purdue University's Office of Agricultural Research Programs (ARP) and associate dean of Purdue Agriculture. Also, Marshall Martin, ARP associate director, has been promoted to senior associate director and assistant dean.

Hermodson replaces Sonny Ramaswamy, who becomes the Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University on Aug. 1.

**Jeffrey Roberts**

Jeffrey Roberts, chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, has been named Purdue University's Frederick L. Hovde Dean of the College of Science.

The appointment, effective at the start of the fall semester in August, was announced Tuesday (June 16) by Randy Woodson, Purdue's executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, and is subject to approval by the university's board of trustees.

**Jessie Powell with robot**

Purdue University's 2008-2009 first-year engineering class inaugurated a new state-of-the-art learning lab that put students into smaller classes, gave them more hands-on experience and improved their chances for success.

During the two semesters the Ideas to Innovation Learning Laboratory (I2I) has been open, attendance for first-year engineering students jumped almost 20 percentage points to 98 percent. And the number of students withdrawing or earning non-passing grades fell from 10 percent to 5 percent.

Purdue-developed tool can get most pollution control for the money

There may be thousands of things large and small that can be done to better control pollution on even the smallest waterways, and a new tool developed at Purdue University may help sort out how to choose the best ones.

Indrajeet Chaubey, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering, combined a best management practices tool with a complex genetic algorithm that can search out the best solutions for non-point source pollution control in a watershed. By analyzing data from an area, in just a few hours the tool can compute the most cost-effective pollution-control strategies for water resources affected by agriculture, a process that currently takes weeks or months.

Purdue rural education program to welcome Woodrow Wilson Fellows

A new program starting at Purdue University next week eventually will send specially trained math and science teachers into rural schools in Indiana.

Eighteen Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellows will arrive on Purdue's campus Monday (June 15). The 18 are among the first-ever in the program, which is intended to help overhaul teacher education and encourage exceptionally able candidates to seek long-term careers teaching science, technology, engineering and math (the STEM fields) in high-need classrooms.

**Gebisa Ejeta**

Gebisa Ejeta, Distinguished Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University, on Thursday (June 11) was named the recipient of the World Food Prize for research leading to the increased production and availability of sorghum in his native Africa.

Ejeta, a plant breeder and geneticist, developed sorghum varieties resistant to drought and Striga, a parasitic weed. Sorghum is a major food crop for more than 500 million people on the African continent.

**Drew Brees visits with campers**

Even more children will benefit from Purdue University's award-winning Purdue Athletes Life Success Program this summer as the camp, its activities and its support keeps growing.

More than 400 children will attend the June 18 through July 17 program also known as PALS. Last year more than 350 children attended, and this year's program has a waiting list. The camp, for children 8-14, is free for the participants, who are selected based on referrals from local schools.

**Douglass Jacobs**

A Purdue University study shows that introducing a new hybrid of the American chestnut tree would not only bring back the all-but-extinct species, but also put a dent in the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere.

Douglass Jacobs, an associate professor of forestry and natural resources, found that American chestnuts grow much faster and larger than other hardwood species, allowing them to sequester more carbon than other trees over the same period. And since American chestnut trees are more often used for high-quality hardwood products such as furniture, they hold the carbon longer than wood used for paper or other low-grade materials.

**John Lumkes**

Those worried about a performance drop-off going from standard diesel fuel to the more environmentally friendly B20 biodiesel blend can ease their minds.

A new Purdue University study shows that there is almost no statistical performance difference in semitrailer trucks using B20, a 20-percent blend of biodiesel, and No. 2 ultra-low sulfur diesel, the current standard.

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