Junior Faculty Award winner announced

An assistant professor of mathematics and statistics is this year's selection for a top Oak Ridge Associated Universities honor that memorializes the late Ralph Powe.

Michael Y. Li (r) receives the Ralph Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from Robert A. Altenkirch, vice president for research.

Michael Y. Li is receiving a $10,000 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award in the mathematics/computer science category. A mathematical modeling researcher in biology and epidemiology, he currently holds a National Science Foundation research grant in this area.

Oak Ridge Associated Universities is a national consortium of 88 doctoral-granting institutions and eight associate members working to develop collaborative research efforts among its members, federal facilities and private industry. ORAU member schools grant more than 25 percent of all United States doctoral degrees in science and engineering.

Given annually, the Powe awards provide research seed money to young faculty members at ORAU member institutions. They honor Mississippi State's longtime research vice president who headed the organization's Council of Sponsoring Institutions. Powe died in 1996 after a lengthy illness.

The Powe award is a "testimony to the promise of Dr. Li's research career," said Robert A. Altenkirch, MSU's current research vice president.

A faculty member since 1995, Li holds a doctoral degree in applied mathematics from the University of Alberta, Canada. His bachelor's and master's degrees were completed at Jilin University in the People's Republic of China.

Prior to coming to Mississippi, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Dynamical Systems and Nonlinear Studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology.