Three UNT researchers in linguistics, physics and mathematics were awarded more than $1.5 million total in grant money through the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Program. Their wins, coupled with electrical engineering assistant professor Ifana Mahbub's CAREER award earlier this year, marks a record for UNT.

Alexis Palmer, a computational linguist in the Department of Linguistics, received $550,000 for her work in the development of natural language processing tools for low-resourced or endangered languages. Oliviero Andreussi, a computational scientist in the Department of Physics, received $600,000 to develop and apply new tools that help characterize chemical processes at solid-liquid interfaces. Nam Trang, an assistant professor with the Department of Mathematics, will use his $400,000 grant to conduct research in theoretical mathematics that can potentially lead to a better understanding of the foundation of mathematics as it relates to science.

As part of the grant, the researchers also will develop educational programs for UNT students.