Release Date: September 17, 2002

WASHINGTON, DC - Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today announced that the Department of Energy's 2002 Homer H. Lowry Award will go to a Brigham Young University professor whose research into the computer modeling of fuel combustion has led to groundbreaking insights into the formation and prevention of air pollutants.

	L. Douglas Smoot

L. Douglas Smoot, who will retire at the end of the year from being a full time faculty member of BYU's College of Engineering and Technology, will receive the 2002 award, the highest honor given by the Energy Department for outstanding contributions to fossil energy science and technology.

Secretary Abraham will present the award and $25,000 to Dr. Smoot at an awards ceremony in Washington DC on October 9.

Previous Lowry Award Winners Dr. Irving Wender University of Pittsburgh     (1988) Dr. William E. Brigham     Stanford University     (1989) Dr. Henry R. Linden     Illinois Institute of     Technology     (1991) Dr. Heinz Heinemann     Lawrence Berkeley     National Laboratory     (1993) Dr. Adel F. Sarofim     University of Utah     (1995)

"Dr. Smoot has championed the use of computational fluid dynamics to understand better the complex chemistry that occurs when fossil fuels burn," said Secretary Abraham. "Today, throughout the world, industrial and academic institutions are using the computer programs he helped develop. From his research has come a much better understanding of how pollutants such as nitrogen oxides are created when coal and other fuels burn, and equally important, how new technologies can reduce or prevent their formation."

"In short, Americans are breathing cleaner air today due in large part to the brilliance of Dr. Smoot's computer models and his advocacy of computer modeling throughout the fossil fuel industry," Abraham said.

Dr. Smoot is a chemical engineer who earned dual bachelor degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering in 1957 from Brigham Young University and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Washington in 1960. After serving as an assistant professor at BYU for three years, he joined Lockheed Propulsion Company before rejoining BYU in 1967.

Since then, he has served as chairman of the Chemical Engineering Department for seven years and dean of the College of Engineering and Technology for 17 years. He was the founding director of the Advanced Combustion Engineering Research Center at BYU and the University of Utah.

This is the sixth time the Energy Department has presented the Lowry Award since it was established in 1985. The award is named for Dr. Homer H. Lowry, an internationally known chemist who founded the Carnegie Institute of Technology's Coal Research Laboratories and who edited Chemistry of Coal Utilization, first published in 1945, which became the standard work of reference for coal scientists and technologists.

The Energy Department invited nominations for the award from the energy industry, academic institutions, and the public in February. Nominees were screened by a panel of private sector experts from both industry and universities. A Department of Energy Award Committee reviewed the panel's recommendations and forwarded the name of its recommended candidate to the Secretary of Energy.