The Arkansas Research Alliance, a group that recruits high-technology experts to the state, on Thursday announced two more research scholars, a scientist who specializes in energy storage and an engineer who studies experimental cardiovascular surgery.
Jie Xiao will be an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville when she begins work in January. Xiao's specialty is in developing new materials and chemicals that apply to batteries, said Dan Ferritor, interim chancellor at the university. She will earn $90,000 a year.
Morten Olgaard Jensen is an associate professor of biomedical engineering on the Fayetteville campus. The results from his research in cardiovascular surgery are being used in the Food and Drug Administration's guidelines for heart repair devices. His salary is $120,000.
Xiao has 17 patents, either awarded or pending, Ferritor said.
"[Xiao's] appointment will further bolster the groundbreaking research in new types of materials that's already taking place in the chemistry and biochemistry departments on our campus," Ferritor said.
Xiao was aware of the research being done at UA, and that figured into her decision to take the Fayetteville position, she said.
Right now, the mileage available for electric vehicles, such as ones built by Tesla Motors, is limited, Xiao said.
Improving a battery so it can propel a car longer distances is one focus of her research, she said.
Xiao is a senior scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where she led a team of researchers who developed a high-powered battery about the size of a grain of rice, Ferritor said.
She graduated from Wuhan University in China, with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and a Master of Science degree in electrochemistry. She received a Ph.D. in materials chemistry from State University of New York.
Jensen will help the UA's bioengineering curriculum, Ferritor said. Jensen also will introduce new courses in data-flow programming and cardiovascular biomechanics, Ferritor said.
He decided to move to Arkansas because of the opportunity it gave him to focus on his research, said Jensen.
"Combining the medical sciences with engineering is one of my great passions," said Jensen, who has a Ph.D., as well as a medical degree.
Before joining UA, Jensen worked six years with National Instruments Corp. in Austin, Texas, and 10 years at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery at University Hospital in Aarhus, Denmark. Immediately before coming to Arkansas, Jensen worked at Georgia Tech University.
The program is patterned after the Georgia Research Alliance, which has attracted more than 60 scholars and more than $2.6 billion since it was founded more than 20 years ago. The Georgia group has helped create more than 150 companies that support more than 5,500 jobs.
"I recognize the role that university-based research plays in job creation," Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. "It leads to applied science that can be put into the marketplace; new ideas that can create jobs. This is an important initiative because it is shared research, an alliance made up of our top quality research institutions in Arkansas."
Xiao and Jensen, who each will receive a $500,000 grant paid over three years from the research alliance, are the sixth and seventh scholars hired since the alliance began persuading knowledge-based researchers to come to Arkansas.
In 2010, the alliance recruited Daohong Zhou, an authority in stem-cell and cancer research, who works for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy; and Ranil Wickramasinghe, who works in bioenergy management at UA-Fayetteville. Peter Crooks, a former University of Kentucky professor who specializes in anti-cancer drugs and works at UAMS, came to Arkansas in 2011.
Last year, Dr. Gareth Morgan began work at UAMS as a specialist in molecular genetics in blood cell cancers, and Carolina Cruz-Neira joined the University of Arkansas at Little Rock working in computer virtual reality.
Business on 08/14/2015