Biology prof on discovery path gets prestigious grant to buy high-tech “headwear”

In the future some Whitman College students might be spotted on campus sporting headgear of metal, lenses and dangling cameras as if they had just walked out of their optometrist’s office and had forgotten to leave the equipment. But, no worries, the students are probably just on research duty with Whitman’s Thomas Knight, assistant professor of biology, who recently was awarded a prestigious $46,500 grant for his head/eye movement research.

Knight, recipient of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust grant, says that seemingly simple movements such as reading sentences or looking both ways before crossing a street are actually extremely complex physiological processes, involving a combination of rapid eye and head movements that the brain has to precisely coordinate so images aren’t blurred.

Knight and his student research assistants are attempting to discover the underlying mechanisms that enable the brain to coordinate these actions. Figuring that out has evaded the science community in part because of a “lack of comfortable, accurate, high-speed measuring equipment,” he said.

But now the Murdock grant will enable Knight, who has been using mice in experiments, to buy specialized equipment for humans.

“The innovative EyeSeeCam developed at the University of Munich is cutting edge and makes difficult work accessible to undergraduate student researchers,” he said.

Knight said they will use the portable, non-invasive equipment “to examine eye-head gaze movements in natural and controlled contexts to test whether consistent and fundamental elements underlie all strategies.”

“You’re likely to see students wearing it around campus,” he said.

Knight said the project is exciting because the more investigation into how human movement works, “the more we can help prevent or rehabilitate from dysfunction.”

The grant, along with $19,500 in matching grants from Whitman, will fully fund two research students for summer 2010 and two for summer 2011.

Rachna Sinnott, Whitman’s director of foundation and corporate relations, said Whitman has received other types of Murdock grants, but this is the first Murdock faculty research grant the college has received in many years.

“(It’s) a great accomplishment for Tom and the college,” she said.

The Murdock Trust looks for projects that have as a main objective the acquisition of new knowledge, according to the Murdock Web site.  The training of students in conducting research is another important consideration. Knight’s students are involved in his work.

Last October, Whitman had 25 science students present their work at the 18th annual Conference on Undergraduate Research of the Murdock College Science Research Program hosted by Gonzaga University.

The M. J. Murdock Trust was created by the will of the late Melvin J. (Jack) Murdock, a Vancouver, Wash. resident and co-founder of Tektronix, Inc. “…(who) believed in science as a main source of knowledge, and knowledge as a key ingredient to addressing and solving the world’s issues and challenges,” according to the Murdock Web site.

- Virginia Grantier