News briefs

McNair Scholarship application deadline Feb. 16

The Ronald E. McNair Scholarship has re-opened the application process for 2007. The new application deadline will be Friday, Feb. 16.

The McNair Scholarship is designed to assist juniors and seniors who would like to pursue Ph.D.’s. To qualify, applicants must be first-generation college students who have a low income or belong to a group generally underrepresented at universities.

If awarded the scholarship, students are introduced to the academic research skills and strategies for entering and completing Ph.D. programs. The program includes academic-year activities and a full-time research internship during the summer. The results of the research are presented at a McNair summer symposium and can be published in the McNair Journal.

Applications can be obtained by visiting the McNair program website at www.mcnair-program.pdx.edu.

-Eva Schifter

Professor receives $25,000 grant from Intel

Assistant Professor Dacian Daescu received a $25,000 Faculty Fellowship award from Intel in January. He received the award for “High Performance Computing in Applied Math Curriculum/Lab.”

Daescu, who has been at PSU since 2003, received his Ph.D. in applied math and computational sciences from the University of Iowa in 2001. He previously worked on a project funded by NASA and worked for both the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota before coming to PSU.

Intel, the multi-billion-dollar international software company, has facilities in nearby Hillsboro. This is not the first time Intel has awarded the fellowship to a PSU professor. Last year, David Sailor and Mark Faust from the School of Engineering received a grant from the same program.

-Eva Fitzsimons

Novelist Charles Johnson to deliver MLK tribute Feb. 19

Charles Johnson will deliver the keynote address at Portland State’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tribute event Feb. 19. Johnson is a nationally recognized novelist, essayist and political cartoonist who won the National Book Award in 1990 for Middle Passage. He is currently an English professor at the University of Washington.

Tickets cost $5 for the general public and admission is free for students with a valid student ID. The event starts at 7 p.m. in the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom, Room 355. Johnson was forced to miss the originally scheduled date due to inclement weather.

-Owen Smith