Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990 TAG: 9003242311
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"I'm still walking around on cloud nine," he said Thursday from his Stanford University office, where he is spending a spring-semester sabbatical using the school's linear accelerator.
Perhaps he'll use some of the money - which the university will receive in installments over the next three years to pay for his projects - to sponsor an international conference on molecular sieves at Mountain Lake, he said. Or maybe continue work with a linear accelerator, smashing high-energy photons into various materials to "see what comes out."
The Alan T. Waterman Award was established by Congress in 1975 to mark the 25th anniversary of the foundation and to honor its first director, who died in 1967. The prize recognizes an outstanding researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by the foundation.
Davis, the 15th recipient, is the first engineer to win the award as well as the first in Virginia.
Previous winners have been faculty members at such schools as Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Ohio State and two public schools in California.
Colleagues who knew of Davis' application for the award were skeptical, he said, because the Waterman traditionally had gone to physicists, chemists, biologists, mathemeticians and even one economist.
"The award says, `You've already proven you can do great things, so here's some money to see if you can do more great things,' " Davis said. But he values the recognition far more than the money.
Three years ago, Davis made public his invention of a new form of "molecular sieve," a honeycomb-like substance that can be used to strain crude oil and convert parts of it into gasoline.
Davis named the powder VPI-5, in honor of Tech's official name - Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
It was the fifth powder he produced before finding something better than existing molecular sieves, which oil companies have been using since the 1960s.
Experts hailed the discovery, saying the Tech professor had "hit the jackpot" and that he had "broken a barrier that has been standing for a long time." The Wall Street Journal reported that news of the findings was "sending shock waves through the petroleum and chemcial industries."
Wayne Clough, dean-elect of Tech's engineering college, called Davis' award a "very significant recognition," the kind that signals "the college has made significant progress."
It also suggests that "the university is providing an environment for people like Mark to grow and develop," he said, underscoring that the 34-year-old professor has spent his entire academic career on the Tech faculty.
The award gives Davis "a lot of freedom to not only continue to do the things he's been doing, but to diversify," Clough said.
Davis, who joined the Tech faculty in 1981 after receiving his doctorate from the University of Kentucky, has won other major awards, including the foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1984.
The Waterman award will be presented to Davis May 10 during the foundation's annual awards dinner at the State Department in Washington.
by CNB