Pitt-Bradford Prof Receives NSF Grant

Lawrence R. Lawson, a computational sciences professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, received a $1,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to attend an international conference at the University of Washington, Seattle, beginning June 25.

The conference will bring mathematicians up to date on what is happening in environmental statistics, a field that deals with patterns related to natural history and climate— such as weather, rivers, and plant growth.

The conference is co-sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“I’m excited about attending this conference,” Lawson said, “because the topic of environmental statistics seems apropos to the new environmental studies major at Pitt-Bradford and the college’s Allegheny Institute of Natural History.”

Lawson has taught at Pitt-Bradford since 1998 and has had an interest in random spatial patterns for many years. He has published a number of works on applications of probability and random geometry and has, for the purpose of analysis, made a collection of photographs of random patterns associated with rocks and living things in the Bradford area.

Lawson earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Charter Oak State College in Connecticut, and his master’s degree in materials engineering and his doctorate degree in materials science from Northwestern University.

—Pat Frantz Cercone