Two young North Carolina research professors are among 17 from universities in the United States, China, Spain and India to receive the 2008 DuPont Young Professor grant.
You Lingchong, of Duke University, and You Wei, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are among the professors who each received a three-year grant for $25,000 or its equivalent in relevant currency. The grants may be used to obtain matching funds through the National Science Foundation or other organizations.
The DuPont program, which began in 1967, is designed to provide start-up assistance to promising young and untenured research faculty working in areas of interest to DuPont's long-term business. Lingchong's award is for reprogramming cellular behavior with synthetic gene circuits, and Wei's is for studying organic volatiles.
Professors are nominated by a member of the DuPont technical staff who agrees to serve as the liaison between the company and the faculty member. The DuPont Fellows Forum, which includes the company's top scientists, selects the award winners each year. Each grant recipient is invited to present a seminar on his or her work to the DuPont research community.