University Research Professors

University Research Professors have acquired a designation above the rank of professor. The title is the most prestigious award the university gives for research, and 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. Tran Gien, Physics

Dr. Tran Gien

Physics has always been Dr. Tran Gien's overriding passion in life. In high school in Vietnam he was drawn to the subject, and it was a natural fit for him to study physics at the University of Saigon. He excelled in his studies and won the National Prize in Physics; he was then sent abroad to pursue his studies in the United States.

In 1966 he accepted an associate professorship at Memorial University: since then he and his wife, Dr. Lan Gien, Nursing, have made St. John's their home. Dr. Gien was promoted to full professor in 1974. A quiet, unassuming man, Dr. Gien's enthusiasm for his work is evident when asked what he does for relaxation - he talks about the joy of physics.

Dr. Gien is a theoretical physicist whose current research field is mainly concerned with atomic scattering theory and calculations. He is recognized internationally for his contributions to the development of theoretical methods in the area of atomic collisions, which are critical to progress in such diverse areas as the planning and understanding of accelerator experiments, the interpretation of astrophysical observations, and the design of high precision instrumentation including lasers and atomic clocks. Scattering phenomena are also relevant to some medical imaging technologies such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET).

Dr. Gien's contributions to the solution of quantum mechanical equations in closed forms are in the intermediate-energy range. He is most famous for his development of the Modified Glauber Method to deal with atomic collisions in this area. Experimental physicists at Wayne State University, Detroit, are now completing measurements on many of the collision systems that Dr. Gien has investigated theoretically.

There is no doubt that Dr. Gien is a prolific researcher, and other physicists are particularly impressed that most of his extensive list of publications are single-authored.

"It is very hard work to write an article by yourself," he concedes. "It requires, among other efforts, a lot of computations."

While computers are of assistance, Dr. Gien said that they really only come into play in the final stages of solving a problem. He still relies on his own brain to get him to the stage of writing the computer codes. He admits that he can get so lost in thinking about a problem that he forgets about everyday things like dinner.

Dr. Gien organized an International Symposium on Atomic Physics in Hanoi in 1999, and notes that in the small international world of physics research "everyone knows everyone else's work." His own research has been supported by external grants during his career at Memorial.

Dr. Ronald Rompkey, English

enter caption here

Biographer, arts advocate and English professor Ronald Rompkey views the designation of university research professor as a "thrilling" endorsement, not only of his own work, but also the Memorial University mission in general.

"It's a bit like a fantasy to have a university say to you 'we're going to allocate a certain chunk of your academic year to doing research.'

"Memorial is being very progressive and forward thinking in doing this because not every university would make this time available. To have a university that sets aside two positions like this once a year is very impressive."

A St. John's native, Dr. Rompkey was educated at Memorial (BA '65, B.Ed. '66, MA '68) and completed his PhD at the University of London (King's College). He taught English Literature in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan before returning to MUN in 1984. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a past two-term director of the J. R. Smallwood Foundation for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies.

Dr. Rompkey has published six books, including Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission; Labrador Odyssey: The Journals and Photographs of Eliot Curwen on the Second Voyage of Wilfred Grenfell; and Grenfell of Labrador: A Biography. His latest work is an edition of a Labrador memoir written by Dr. Harry Paddon.

It was as an undergraduate at Memorial that Dr. Rompkey began to hone one of his best known research specialties: Northern Newfoundland. Today, his notable work on Sir Wilfred Grenfell attracts readers and lecture audiences across Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.

A university research professorship will allow Dr. Rompkey to further his most recent area of interest: the 19th-century French presence on the Northern Peninsula. A large body of travel literature exists about this region and period. Dr. Rompkey will be editing, annotating and interpreting these original French language texts.

As he looks forward to the next few years' labours, Dr. Rompkey once again emphasizes that the ultimate aim of his professorship - indeed all of his research activity - is unfailingly supported by the university he has been a part of for nearly two decades.

"The Department of English at Memorial has been working on various parts of our cultural heritage since the time we became a university after Confederation. The results help explain who we are as a people, said Dr. Rompkey.

"Part of the business of a university is to ask questions. The more reliable the texts we have to reflect who we are, the better."