ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 8, 2002 -- Whitaker investigator Rebecca Richards-Kortum of the University of Texas at Austin has been named a "million-dollar" professor by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

HHMI named Richards-Kortum and 19 other scientists HHMI Professors, awarding each $1 million over four years to apply the energy and creativity they have shown in the laboratory to improving undergraduate science education. The professorship program is designed to encourage closer ties between research and education and improve undergraduate science education.

Richards-Kortum's research seeks to identify cancer in very early stages when the disease can be more effectively treated. She received a Whitaker young investigator grant in 1991 and a Cost-Reducing Health Care Technologies grant in 1994 to support her work in this area.

With the HHMI funding, she plans to develop a course for engineering majors majors that will enable them to apply biomedical imaging technologies to problems in human health. This will include such exercises as designing a human clinical trial and writing a grant proposal.

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