FULLERTON : 4 CSUF Professors Win Study Funding

Four Cal State Fullerton professors have snared grants and contracts totaling nearly $70,000 for studies ranging from the health effects of air pollution to the relationship of fruit-eating fish and fig trees in Costa Rica, university officials announced.

Economics professor Jane V. Hall was awarded a $24,249 contract by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to study how adverse health effects caused by air pollution are distributed in society. She will study whether there is a correlation between the harmful effects of pollution, ethnic background and income level.

Hall’s new study will build on her 1989 work on the economic impact of air pollution.

Zoology professor Michael H. Horn won a $25,080 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the ecological relationship between a type of fig tree and a fruit-eating fish found in the rain forests of Costa Rica.

Horn said the fish-tree interaction appears to be one of the most important survival relationships in the Amazon flood plain. Understanding how they interact may be “crucial for the preservation and wide economic use of . . . biological diversity” in the Amazon region, Horn said.

The forests of Southern and Baja California are the focus of a $16,003 study by biological science professor Jack H. Burk. Burk will examine how the ecosystem can be understood and managed, yet still allow the public to enjoy them. The study is being funded by UC Davis, UC Riverside, the state Parks Department and the Mexican government.

Western State University College of Law has commissioned Cal State Fullerton’s Social Science Research Center to analyze students’ performance by grade-point average, scores on the LSAT entry test and whether they are full-time or part-time students. The $2,415 study, directed by professor Richard T. Serpe, will focus on students attending the law school from 1984 through 1989.