SPRINGFIELD, Ohio -A collaborative Educational Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing Directorate (AFRL/ML) located at Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) and Wittenberg University will begin Sept. 19, creating mutually beneficial opportunities for sharing personnel and technology in various ways.

The agreement will be signed at 5:20 p.m. in the atrium of Wittenberg's new Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center. The Air Force will be represented by Col. Tim Sakulich, Deputy Director, AFRL/ML Wittenberg President Baird Tipson will sign for the university.

The ceremony will take place just after the Dedication Convocation for the Kuss Science Center, a $23 million, and 47,000 square-foot expansion of Wittenberg's science facility.

In recent years Wittenberg has augmented its science offerings with new majors in biochemistry, molecular biology and a new minor in computational science. The relationship with AFRL/ML is expected to immediately enhance Wittenberg's capability in the area of computational science.

The new arrangement will facilitate the use of Wittenberg faculty expertise at the Air Force lab. It is also expected to provide access to AFRL/ML instruments for faculty and student research projects. Access to Wright Patterson facilities will offer Wittenberg students the opportunity to work with technologies in a research and development environment that would not be otherwise possible.

The Materials and Manufacturing Directorate will benefit from the opportunity to work with Wittenberg faculty members on research of mutual interest, and especially to involve Wittenberg's talented and motivated students in the research activities in facilities at Wright-Patterson AFB.

"Access to such cutting edge technologies as the Air Force can provide will be of inestimable value to our students and our science programs," said President Tipson. "I look forward to a long and productive relationship between Wittenberg and the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing Directorate."

The relationship began with a casual conversation between Ruth Pachter, a senior scientist at the base, and Jim Noyes, professor of computer science, who served as a civilian mathematician and operations research analyst at Wright Patterson before joining the Wittenberg faculty.

Discussions leading up to this agreement began last November when Pachter and AFRL/ML Chief Scientist Barry Farmer met at Wittenberg with President Tipson, and science faculty and students.

The arrangement acknowledges that both parties have a lot to offer each other. The umbrella agreement will allow close collaboration of various sorts as the relationship, and needs, develop.