9733068 Grady This EPSCoR co-funded CAREER award will use primarily X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) to examine responses in dynamics and structure at the glass transition. The glass transition is one of the most important phenomena in polymeric materials. The fundamental microscopic structural changes that occur with the glass transition are not well understood, and perhaps even more importantly, the fundamental reason that Tg occurs at the specific temperature it does for each polymer is not understood. Other techniques, including NMR spectroscopy and neutron scattering, show that local structural and dynamic changes occur at the glass transition. XAS will be used to obtain quantitative and precise structural information. Preliminary data show that XAS can be used to examine local changes at the glass transition. This proposal describes a broad range of experimentation which will examine the important changes occurring at the local level as a polymer progresses through its glass transition. These experiments will enable an evaluation of a Lindemann-type approach to the glass transition, an approach suggested by others and explored in this proposal. %%% The educational component of this project will involve the Minority Engineering Program (MEP). Almost 500 undergraduates at the University of Oklahoma are members of the MEP, which is limited to the historically underrepresented Black, Hispanic and American Indian ethnic minorities. One-on-one interactions between faculty and students are one of the keys to recruiting and retaining these students. The PI's association with the MEP program includes all facets of the undergraduate experience, from the recruiting process to graduation. It will involve travel to primarily minority high schools and talks designed to help with the recruiting process. ***
