Richard Keiter, a chemistry professor, has been awarded a grant that will both contribute to industrial companies and Eastern students.

The $159,000 grant was awarded by The National Science Foundation for Keiter’s research project, “Phosphine Exchange in Metal Carbonyls.” The money will pay for research tools and stipends over the next three years.

Keiter and his students will look at how fast certain molecules tumble from metals. While he expects the findings will produce more cost efficient ways for medicinal and petroleum industries to produce their products, he said research assistants will reap the most benefits.

“There are more and more examples at Eastern of people being funded at a significant level,” he said. “The real focus here is what it does for the undergraduates involved. It’s quite an opportunity for them and quite a significant one.”

Keiter started his research last summer with two undergraduates and two graduate students, and the grant will provide stipends for a total of six undergraduates and two graduate students to work with him over the next three years. The chosen students will have the opportunity to become co-authors and present their findings at national meetings.

“It gives them the opportunity to experience first hand what it’s like to do original chemistry,” he said.

“Undergraduate research and Eastern has become an important part of the education experience,” he said. “(Employers) are always looking for people who have that kind of experience.”

The grant was approved after an Eastern undergraduate discovered in the mid-1990s that molecules were in fact tumbling from certain metals instead of dangling as earlier hypothesis determined.

“(That was) a singular discovery that surprised everyone,” Keiter said.

Brian Bellott, a junior chemistry major, has been working with Keiter on the same research since last spring and agrees that the grant is beneficial to students involved.

“I get real life experience that I don’t get anywhere else,” he said. “It’s better than a research lab.”

In research labs, he said, experiments are already set up for him, and the answers are usually figured out. However, in his research with Keiter, no one knows the answers, making it more exciting and beneficial.

“Things don’t always turn out (the way) you think,” he said.

Edwin May, director of grant and research, said Keiter’s past work has proven him worthy of the grant, and he hopes students will further benefit from his guidance.

“Richard is one of our best researchers and has been for sometime,” he said. “The guy has done a lot of good work at (Eastern).”