Brooks Keel, vice chancellor of Research and Economic Development, said with the hire of a National Academy of Sciences member, the University will soon become a magnet for other well-known scientists and students to come to campus.Keel, said E.W. Plummer’s national and international acclaim will significantly increase the University’s reputation.”He is a world-class scientist in his own right,” Keel said. “He will bring a tremendous amount of reputation instantly to LSU by the fact that he’s coming here.”Plummer, a physicist, was hired last week through the University’s Multidisciplinary Hiring Initiative to join a group of scientists to advance the college’s research in material sciences.Plummer said one of the things he can offer to the University community is the input he has as a member of the National Academy of Sciences and being involved in several committees that decide where funding goes.”The first thing is getting more LSU people involved in committees and nominated,” he said. “Always hiring the right people in the future and the best and the brightest you can.”Along with Plummer’s job as a professor and researcher, he will also be a “special assistant” to Keel.”He’ll help us bring the material science program up,” Keel said. “But he’ll also help us in being an adviser to other faculty hires”The National Academy of Sciences is a society of honored and distinguished scholars who are engaged in scientific and engineering research.Plummer is the first member of the academy to work at the University, according to a University news release.Keel said he considers being a member the highest honor a scientist can have in the country with the exception of the Nobel Prize.Material sciences tries to understand, develop and explore the behavior of materials to generate devices and materials to have a new functionality.Physicists Mark Jarrell, Rongying Jin, Juana Moreno, Shane Stadler and Jiandi Zhang were also hired last week as part of the material sciences Multidisciplinary Hiring Initiative.Plummer said this group has a variety of interests, but they will all be trying to create materials to have a new functionality or behavior that can be used in different applications.”The buzz word is designing materials,” Plummer said. “Our whole emphasis is making new materials or modifying existing materials by changing their shape.”Keel said material sciences can be used to develop new heavy-duty lightweight materials to construct airplanes and cars, magnetic materials for computers and data hardware or new forms of cell phone technology.Jarrell, who will become a physics professor in January, said one of the unique things about the University is the Center for Computation and Technology and its possibility of advancing material sciences.”There are very few universities in the nation trying to advance computational and materials sciences,” Jarrell said. “LSU is the leader in recognizing the importance of this area.”The new MHI project will help the University reach its goals set in the Flagship Agenda by hiring more faculty, Keel said.”But it’s a means of hiring really special faculty,” he said. “Faculty that are going to — in a very strategic way — significantly increase some of the research we are doing.”Keel said the University is using a different way of recruiting new researchers and scientists.”We have advertisements put out, but we’ve been focusing on calling some of the leading scientists across the country and asking them if they’d be interested in applying for a position,” he said.If they say no, the University asks for recommendations of up-and-coming scientists, Keel said.”It’s sort of a network of calling these world-class scientists and getting them to help us recruit other scientists,” he said.Plummer said he hopes this group can increase the quality of graduate and doctoral students.”The future of LSU will not be me,” he said. “It will be the young people that we’re hiring and teaching.”Material sciences is the fifth project of the University’s MHIs. Other projects include computational science, Atlantic studies, the Louisiana Poverty Initiative and the Arts, Visualization, Advanced Technologies and Research.All five MHI projects have a budget of about $5.5 million with the ability of hiring 30 to 35 more faculty members.Keel said MHIs are intended to expand the University’s strengths, not build something from scratch.”It’s a fantastic opportunity for us to expand,” Keel said. “It ramps us up and allows us to play in the big league.”- – – – Contact J.J. Alcantara at [email protected]