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Furman awarded nearly $500,000 for instrumentation in the sciences


Last updated April 3, 2017

By Tina Underwood

Furman University has been awarded a four-year, $497,183 grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation to purchase equipment that will support state-of-the-art imaging and analysis capabilities across multiple academic disciplines on campus.

A competitive award made through the Foundation’s Science Equipment Program (SEP), the grant funds the acquisition of three new instruments: 1) a confocal microscope, 2) a scanning electron microscope, and 3) an inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer (ICP-AES).

The instruments will be housed in interdisciplinary lab spaces located in Townes Science Center on campus, which permit shared access by students and faculty from multiple disciplines including Biology, Chemistry, and Earth and Environmental Sciences. The equipment will be available to support faculty-mentored undergraduate research as well as curricular instruction for both majors and non-majors.

The grant enables Furman to expand its multi-million-dollar labs, which draw not only Furman faculty and students, but also researchers from a host of other regional academic institutions.

Said John Wheeler, Furman’s Director of Integrative Research in the Sciences and the institutional coordinator for the application, “This generous gift provided by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation is a testament to the exciting efforts ongoing in our science programs led by Furman faculty who view their students as scientific colleagues both in the research lab and the classroom.

“The addition of this equipment fully complements and supports Furman’s institutional commitment to experiential learning afforded by The Furman Advantage, will promote interdisciplinary STEM scholarship at the highest levels, and will give Furman students hands-on access to scientific instrumentation comparable in quality to the best-equipped laboratories in the country,” added Wheeler.

For more information about the grant, contact John Wheeler, 864-294-3371, john.wheeler@furman.edu.  Or contact Furman’s News and Media Relations office at 864-294-3107.

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