Three professors receive career awards

Three university professors have earned 1995 Faculty Early Career Development Awards from the National Science Foundation.

The awards recognize the teaching and research of Dr. Lesia Crumpton of industrial engineering, Dr. Tyler Jarvis of mathematics and statistics, and Dr. Anthony Skjellum of computer science.

Crumpton will earn $200,000 over the next four years to support her research in workplace designs for the disabled.

Jarvis will receive more than $42,000 to study the geometry of algebraic curves, along with a number of theoretical properties.

Skjellum is receiving $95,000 over three years to develop complex computer software for parallel processing.

Crumpton is working with a local industry to show that disabled workers can perform basic tasks with no loss of efficiency.

She also established a laboratory at Mississippi State to study improved designs that will allow the full employment of disabled workers.

Jarvis' mathematical research is in the areas of number theory and geometry, as well as other mathematical problems.

In the educational component, Jarvis has two projects. He will study the effect of class size on students in introductory calculus and will develop a new abstract algebra course for junior-level students.

Skjellum is continuing work that he began with funding from the National Science Foundation/Mississippi State Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation.

He is building the infrastructure for computer programs that will direct from 10 to 1,000 processors working simultaneously on large-scale problems.

Crumpton holds bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University.

Jarvis received bachelor's and master's degrees from Brigham Young University, and a master's degree and a doctorate from Princeton University.

Skjellum earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the California Institute of Technology.