AMES, Iowa – Franciszek “Franek” Hasiuk, assistant professor in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, has been named the second holder of the David Morehouse Faculty Fellowship in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. Hasiuk joins Alan Wanamaker, assistant professor in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, who was named the first holder last year.
Franek HasiukThe fellowship will provide Hasiuk with supplemental annual funds for his teaching and research efforts. The funds can be used to support students, purchase additional equipment and supplies and provide travel to professional meetings or for professional development.
A Charles City, Iowa, native, Morehouse earned an M.S. in geology with a minor in economics from Iowa State in 1970. He recently retired after 37 years of federal civil service, the first four with the Planning and Special Projects Division in the Federal Power Commission’s Bureau of Natural Gas. He spent the remainder of his service in a series of supervisory petroleum geologist and senior petroleum geologist positions at the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Morehouse established the fellowship to assist geological and atmospheric sciences to hire new faculty and give an early boost to their careers.
“I’ve always been grateful for the outstanding instruction and guidance I received from the entire Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences faculty,” Morehouse said. “Fortunately I’m now able to give back by helping to advance the research and teaching of a clearly promising early-career faculty member.”
Hasiuk joined the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty this fall. He is developing a research program around the study of limestone both as a record of climate changes and as a reservoir rock for water, oil and natural gas. This work will be carried out in two laboratories he is building: the Foram Farm and the Sedimentary Technology Laboratory.
On the Foram Farm, his research group will raise microbes called foraminifera and investigate how changing chemistry and temperatures will affect these single-celled organisms.
“From these experiments, we hope to produce a record of ocean temperature and glacial ice volume from the greenhouse climate of 100 million years ago when crocodiles lived in the Arctic to the modern icehouse climate when they are conspicuously absent from the Arctic,” Hasiuk said.
In the Sedimentary Technology Laboratory, his research group will investigate new and important problems related to limestone reservoirs: developing mathematical models for porous materials, understanding the growth and distribution of non-carbonate reservoir cements (like sulfates and bitumen), and how to apply concepts from the study of limestone to natural gas-rich shales.
Hasiuk said monies from the Morehouse Faculty Fellowship will help purchase a research-grade petrographic microscope with digital camera and image analysis software to aid in the studies at the Sedimentary Technology Laboratory.
- 30 –
NEWS RELEASE College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Iowa State University www.las.iastate.edu
Contacts: Franek Hasiuk, Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, (515) 294-6610 (franek@iastate.edu) Laura Wille, Liberal Arts & Sciences Communications, (515) 294-7742 (lge@iastate.edu)