February 6, 2007 :: No. 123

The award is given each year by the Measurement Science Conference, which helps to set standards of measurement worldwide so that there is consistency across the globe in all units of measurement, such as volts and meters.
Cupp won the award for Cal State Fullerton this year in large part for the work he has done with Prasada Rao, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Cupp and Rao have been working on the Water Hazard Mitigation Research Project for two years. The project is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and was prompted by hometown security efforts, a component of Homeland Security.

The purpose of the research is to develop methods and devices that can quickly detect any harmful substances in drinking water delivery systems and automatically shut down pipes if contaminants are discovered. With current technology, it can take hours or days to confirm that toxic substances at harmful levels are in the drinking water, then more time to shut down the system.

With algorithms developed by Cupp and Rao, substances that before were detectable in parts per million are now detectable in parts per billion, and they can be detected in seconds. The goal, said Rao, is to detect them in parts per trillion “or, at least, in only a few parts per billion.” In addition, the algorithms screen out the “background noise” of chemicals, such as chlorine and sodium, which are always found in treated drinking water “so that we don’t have any false alarms.”

Used in the project for experimental purposes are arsenic, cyanide, benzene, and common herbicides and pesticides. Once the algorithms have been refined, they can be used as models for algorithms to detect any substance from which drinking water should be guarded.

Also contributing to winning the award was Cupp’s geophysical studies with torsion pendulums — highly sensitive devices that have been used to measure such phenomena as microseismic events.

“This award is very exciting,” Cupp said. “The scholarship will certainly help, of course, but this is also good for all forthcoming students at Cal State Fullerton. It is a confirmation of the internationally competitive program the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Cal State Fullerton offers students.”

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