The Hoppe Research Professor Awards are made to SIUE faculty members in order to recognize and support individual programs of research or creative activities. These Awards recognize faculty members whose research or creative activities have the promise of making significant contributions to their fields of study. Recipients are expected to produce published scholarly works and externally sponsored grants.
All SIUE faculty on continuing, full-time appointments are eligible to apply for this award.
The Hoppe Research Professorship Awards are designed to support a significant and discrete portion of a faculty member's larger research agenda. The Hoppe Research Professor will be appointed for a two-year period, during which he or she will receive 50% assigned time for research each academic year (cost is shared with school/ college), the services of a one-quarter time graduate assistant (for nine months per year), and $1,000 in support lines. Recipients must wait one year after completion of the appointment before applying again for the Hoppe Research Professorship.
Applications for a Hoppe Research Professorship must be submitted through the applicant's School/College Research Committee. Each Committee will review the applications from its unit and submit to the Graduate School a narrative evaluation of the each application along with a ranking of the proposals. The proposals, along with the Committees' evaluations, will be reviewed by the Graduate School's RPAB Committee.
Complete applications are due in the school/college deans' office by January 27, 2012. The Committees' evaluations and the applications are due by 4:30 p.m. on March 2, 2012 in the Graduate School, Campus Box 1046, or Room 2202 in Rendleman Hall. School/College Committee Evaluation Form.
Applications must address the individual's overall agenda for research or creative activity and the proposed work and objectives for the two year award period. Each application must be supported by a narrative of no more than ten (10) pages (excluding Bibliography, Vitae, and Appendices) that addresses (a) the significance of the research or creative activities, (b) the potential for external funding , and (c) the specific role that a two-year appointment to a Hoppe Research Professorship could play in advancing the applicant's work on that agenda. The narrative should be written in a manner that is understandable to a non-specialist and should contain 1” margins and font at Times New Roman 11 or Ariel 10 or higher. Support for the narrative should include:
Hoppe Research Professor Cover Sheet 
- Problem Statement
- Define the overall goal and significance of the long-term research/creative activity
- State the specific scope of work and objectives of the two-year project within the broader research agenda
- Stronger proposals will address an audience of educated lay people from various University units.
- Related Literature
Outline the background literature related to your topic, contextualizing your project within existing literature. Stronger proposals will make an argument for the project’s significance based upon its potential contributions to the field within this larger context.- Procedures
- Describe the design and methodology of the specific study
- Describe special needs of the methodology, e.g. sources of data, equipment, facilities, travel, etc.
- State the timetable for completion of the study in the next two years and how this work will continue the overall research agenda.
- Bibliography
- CV or COS Expertise Profile
Please submit a copy of your curriculum vitae or your Community of Science (COS) Expertise Profile. (COS Profile strongly encouraged.) Curriculum vitae are limited to two pages. If you choose to submit a COS Profile, please ensure that your Profile is up-to-date. Reviewers will use your completed COS Expertise Profile instead of a traditional curriculum vitae. If you need assistance completing or updating your Profile, please contact Patience Graybill Condellone.- Appendices: Applicants may include supporting documents if they are necessary for understanding the success of the project. Such appendixes may include but are not limited to: letters of support from subcontractors; letters from supporting facilities; letters of support from foreign contacts and institutions; letters of support from library or archive administrators.
The Graduate School's RPAB Committee will make its recommendation for the Hoppe Research Professorship recipient to the Graduate Dean. The focus of the selection process will be on identifying the applicant for whom a Hoppe Research Professorship could make the most significant contribution in furthering research or creative activities in the applicant's discipline. The RPAB Committee's evaluation will include, but is not limited to, consideration of the following factors:
Research is broadly defined as all creative, critical, scholarly, and/or empirical activity that expands, clarifies, reorganizes, or develops knowledge or artistic perception. This definition of research includes the demonstration, implementation, application, and dissemination of research results and those grants designated as research by the granting agency. This definition of research does not include departmental curriculum development, faculty development (learning an established technique, a language, or a methodology; dissertation research), institutional research (studies related directly to the operation of the University), and public service and consulting activities.
Under no circumstances will the Graduate School consider requests to use GA funds or other budget items for any other purpose than to support the proposed project.
Recipients must submit a progress report at the end of the first Academic Year of the appointment. The second year's appointment is contingent upon satisfactory progress.
A Final Report is required within ninety (90) days after the completion of the appointment. Recipients of the award are expected to produce published scholarly works and externally sponsored proposals. Recipients will not be eligible for additional support from the Graduate School until these conditions are satisfied.
Current Guidelines
Hoppe Cover Sheet
School/Unit Evaluation Form
2009-11 : George Pelekanos
2008-2010: Allison Thomasen
The Hoppe Research Professor Awards are made to SIUE faculty members in order to recognize and support individual programs of research or creative activities. These awards recognize faculty members whose research or creative activities have the promise of making significant contributions to their fields of study. The Hoppe Research Professorship supports a significant and discrete portion of a faculty member's larger research agenda for a two-year period.
Dr. O’Brien will use the Hoppe award to work on a project titled “High Resolution Fourier Transform Spectroscopy.” The project is based in molecular spectroscopy, the study of the absorption and/or emission of light by molecules. Dr. O’Brien’s observations of the physical properties of molecules in the gas phase have previously been conducted using either an intracavity laser spectrometer (ILS) or a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS). Dr. O’Brien, in conjunction with Dr. James O’Brien of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has recently received NSF funding that brings an FTS to the St. Louis area. Part of O’Brien’s project involves coupling the FTS with the ILS, creating the first instrument of its kind in the U.S. and only the sixth such instrument in the world. The coupled instruments provide greater resolution, accuracy, and detection range than either piece of equipment can provide alone. Information gathered from O’Brien’s studies about the physical properties of molecules can be used for benchmarks for more complicated systems and for comparison with advancing theory. Through spectral analyses, many new parameters are obtained, increasing the amount of data known about specific molecules. Much of the information Dr. O’Brien has gathered (and will continue to gather) has not previously been observed by others in her field. Her spectroscopy work in emission studies of metal-containing diatomic molecules is expected to reveal new properties and energy parameters of these molecules.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Leah O’Brien as the 2012 Hoppe Research Professor!
