Kennesaw State University may want to send the National Science Foundation a nice Christmas card this year.

The federal agency awarded research grants to Kennesaw State on four consecutive days last month, a first for the Cobb County institution. The grants totaled nearly $840,000.

“Surreal,” is how Jonathan McMurry, associate vice president for research and professor of chemistry, described it.

The first grant, $118,840, went to Michael Van Dyke, an associate biochemistry professor.

The second grant, $160,453, went to Sigurdur Greipsson, associate biology professor, to remove lead from polluted soils by improving the use of high-biomass producing crops through chemical manipulations.

The third grant, $390,940, was awared to Paola Spoletini, assistant chair of KSU’s software engineering and game development, to develop better system software.

The fourth grant, $169,496, went to computer science professor Kai Qian, for his work to improve Secure Mobile Software Development.

In other Education news:

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