W. Robert Carper is capping off his 35-year career with quite an honor – serving as a visiting professor at the University of Aachen in Germany.

Carper, a chemistry professor at WSU since 1967, is part of the first group of visiting professors sponsored by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany’s central funding organization for academic research. It’s similar to the National Science Foundation in the United States.

The program, which is allowing Carper and his wife Mary Ann to spend a year in Germany practically expense free, enables universities in Germany to invite highly qualified scientists and scholars from abroad.

According to online information about the program, the guest professors should "provide a visible accent of quality in the host university’s activities" and "contribute significantly to the research activities of the university," as well as train graduate students.

The program also aims to contribute to the "internationalization of higher education and research in Germany."

Carper was handpicked for the honor because of his publishing record and expertise in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance, the technology used in the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) medical test.

His approach is unique because he combines this process with molecular modeling, which is working out the structures of large molecules. He uses the technology to determine how to remove pollutants from the environment and how the body metabolizes glucose.

During the summer of 2000, he will teach part of a graduate course. The remainder of the year, during the fall 2000 and spring 2001 semesters, he will train graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, lecture at other German universities and attend a national meeting of German chemists.

Carper looks forward to sharing his expertise with scientists who are slightly "behind the technology curve" in the United States, although he expects their equipment to be more developed than what he works with here.

"The students will be well trained; they are all involved in advanced training, so it’s quite an honor for me to be able to go," he says.

After his professorship, Carper plans to enter the phased retirement program, scaling back his teaching and research hours over a five-year period. He hopes to continue writing grant proposals and papers and conduct research.

Although this will be Carper’s first overseas visiting professorship, he has participated in others with the Frank J. Seiler Research Laboratory at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado and with the University of South Florida.

He has generated more than $1 million in grants and fellowships – including $150,000 from the NSF and $125,000 (with chemistry department chair Paul Rillema) from Wichita’s Vulcan Chemicals for the NMR laboratory – and more than 100 publications during his distinguished career at WSU. He established the biochemistry program at WSU, and last year he received WSU’s Excellence in Research Award.