University Research Professors

University Research Professor, a designation above the rank of professor, is the most prestigious award the university gives for research. The title goes to faculty who have demonstrated a consistently high level of scholarship and whose research is of truly international stature. The designation carries with it a $4,000 research grant each year for five years and a reduced teaching schedule.

Dr. Maynard Clouter

Imagine going to work every day charged with the responsibility of thinking esoterically and then proving your results.

Dr. Maynard Clouter has been doing just that, and his 31-year career was honoured this year with the designation of University Research Professor.

"I’m motivated by the basic scientific instinct, to find things out," the professor said. "But being an experimentalist means I’m also highly interested in instrumentation, which keeps me in contact with industry."

A native of Elliston, Trinity Bay, Dr. Clouter received his master’s in science from MUN in 1962 and his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1968, specializing in high-resolution measurements of laser light when scattered from liquids and solids at low temperatures. Well known within the Physics Department for his skill in the design of experimental apparatus and instrumentation, the quality of the professor’s work is also internationally recognized, documented in 102 refereed journal articles and 31 supervised theses.

In his studies, Dr. Clouter researched near-critical fluids, using a then-novel method of spectroscopy to determine for the first time the way in which local fluid density – essentially, distribution of cluster sizes – changed when close to liquid-vapour critical point. Dr. Clouter’s findings have played an important, if unexpected role in a number of areas, not the least of which has been NASA’s research into the climate and surface conditions of the outer planets.

However, unlike those who keep their cards close to their chest, Dr. Clouter enjoys learning that other researchers are utilizing his ideas and innovating from them.

Dr. Clouter says his designation as University Research Professor is special because it recognizes sustained effort over time. The professor plans to use the research funding prize money towards a number of projects, and has no plans to retire anytime soon because he still enjoys his teaching responsibilities.

"I think that as a university faculty member you have to do both [teaching and research]; teaching consolidates your knowledge of the subject, and research keeps you abreast of new developments which, in turn, feed back into the teaching process."

Dr. Danny Summers

This is the millennium of the magnetosphere," said Dr. Danny Summers, a mathematician whose research interests are in plasma dynamics and theoretical space physics.

The magnetosphere is important to every living creature on Earth because it acts as a bubble or barrier that protects us from the solar wind, a stream of ionized gas and magnetic fields that flow from the sun. The existence of the solar wind was predicted in the late 1950s and confirmed by space instruments in the 1960s.

"Although space science is old, space physics is really only about 40 years old," said Dr. Summers, who does mathematical modelling in space physics. "Space weather is a new kind of science that is getting people’s attention because when the power goes out, people want to know why. Electrical conditions in the atmosphere are controlled by the solar wind and intense activity on the sun, like solar flares, reach the Earth a day or two later and calculations can be made about the effects."

For Dr. Summers, the joy of mathematics is applying it to real situations. At one time his main interest was plasma motion in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, but recently he is more interested in research on the Earth’s magnetosphere and the behaviours of electrons in the planet’s magnetic field. Geomagnetic storms can produce highly energetic electrons lasting for several days, constituting a potential danger to orbiting satellites, space stations and astronauts as well as causing power outages.

Dr. Summers was educated at Queen Mary College, University of London in the United Kingdom, where he received a bachelor of science(honours) degree in mathematics in 1967 and a PhD degree in magnetohydrodymanics in 1970. He was appointed to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Memorial in 1971 and promoted to professor in 1983. He carries the title University Research Professor for the period of 2000-2008.

Dr. Summers has published about 100 research papers and has held many visiting positions including the University of California at Los Angeles; Kyoto University, Japan; the Max-Planck-Institut fur Aeronomie, Germany; and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado. He is a member of the AmericanGeophysical Union and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in the United Kingdom.