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I.  Activities over the past year

During the past academic year, I was on sabbatical leave from my home institution of George Fox University.  Therefore, I was not active in the title project during that time.  I did not supervise any undergraduate students nor did I receive a summer stipend myself.  On the advice of a PRF Program Manager, I will be requesting a one-year no-cost extension and take students and a faculty stipend in the fourth year.

II.  Student Activities

The students who had worked on the project during the previous year had two opportunities to present their results.  The first was at a regional undergraduate research meeting.  The second presentation that the undergraduate students made was at the Fall National meeting of the American Chemical Society.  Each student presented a poster at each of these meetings for a total of four presentations.

III.  Relevance of sabbatical activities to the project

While on leave from George Fox University, I was collaborating with Dr. T. Peter Rakitzis at the Foundation for Research and Technology---Hellas (FORTH).  We were developing cavity-enhanced ellipsometric methods for studying the dynamics near interfaces.  Although the work was not directly relevant (nor financially underwritten) by the current project, the apparatus was very similar (the only essential difference being the angle of one polarizer), and much of the theory I learned on that project will be useful in interpreting results of the funded project over the next two years.