Florida Tech Doctoral Candidate Wins JSPS Fellowship

MELBOURNE, FLA. — The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) has accepted Erik Casbeer to the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) 2009
Program in Japan. Casbeer is pursuing his doctoral degree in chemistry, with a concentration in analytical chemistry at Florida Institute of Technology.
His research on ferrate chemistry is under Virender Sharma, Florida Tech associate professor of chemistry.

Originally from Lawrenceville, Penn., Casbeer will be spending 10 weeks this summer at Konan University in Kobe, Japan. He will be conducting his doctoral
work in collaboration with Professor Satoshi Fujii.

Before entering Florida Tech, Casbeer was a student at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania where he also worked as a lab technician. His experiences
include infrared spectroscopy, atomic absorption, high performance liquid chromatography and stopped-flow kinetics.

The many functions of JSPS include nurturing young researchers, promoting international scientific cooperation, awarding Grants-in-Aid for Scientific
Research, supporting scientific cooperation between the academic community and industry, and collecting and distributing information on scientific research
activities.

The goals of EAPSI are to introduce U.S. graduate students to East Asia and Pacific science and engineering in the context of a research setting, and to
help students initiate scientific relationships that will better enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts. Selected students participate in
research experiences at host laboratories in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, or Taiwan. All institutes, except Japan, last
approximately eight weeks from June to August.