The Ohio State University Board of Trustees will meet at 10:30 a.m. today at the Longaberger Alumni House on Olentangy River Road.

The Academic Affairs Committee will hear a presentation on the Denman Research Student Awards. Three of this year’s first place winners will each give a short presentation to the committee.

“Every year the Board of Trustees asks to hear from three Denman winners about how their research has enhanced their undergraduate education and where it will be taking them in the future,” said Ben Parrot, a senior in German.

Parrot won first place in the Humanities/Business category for his project titled “The Devil’s Arithmetic: Math Textbooks in Nazi Germany.”

“I know it’s a rather unusual topic, but it’s also been really fascinating. Most people assume that you can’t make math political, but the Nazis certainly found a way to do it to great effect,” said Parrot.

Presenting their projects to the board members helps those members gauge the importance of undergraduate research at Ohio State, said Parrot. Ben Cipriany, first place winner in engineering, and Obiageli Ntukogu, first place winner in health professions, will join Parrot in presenting to the board members.

Linda Harlow, associate provost for honors and scholars, will introduce the students to the board and briefly outline what the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum does at OSU.

“Each will briefly describe their research project, comment on their hypotheses, the significance of the project and implications, and how completing the research project and presenting at the Denman Forum has changed their OSU experience,” Harlow said.

At the main board meeting, the three winners of the Distinguished University Professor Awards will be presented. Professors Kevin Cox, department of geography, Brian Joseph, department of linguistics, and Eric Herbst, departments of physics, astronomy and chemistry, are this year’s winners of the award.

Herbst is doing work with interstellar clouds, which are giant accumulations of gas and dust that exist among stars.

“With my co-workers and students, I have uncovered the basic types of chemical processes that occur in interstellar clouds and used these processes to develop computer simulations of the chemistry that allow us to predict the concentrations of molecules and to estimate how big these molecules can become,” Herbst said.

The Distinguished University Professor title is awarded to no more than three faculty members each year. The award recognizes accomplishments in research, scholarly or creative work, teaching, and service that are both distinguished and distinctive. Award winners receive an annual budget of $10,000 for three years from the Office of Academic Affairs to support their academic work.

“It is a great honor to win it. Since coming to Ohio State from Duke 12 years ago, I have prospered in my research and teaching activities far more than I did at my previous institution,” Herbst said.

The academic affairs committee will receive a report on the greek community from Bill Hall, vice president for student affairs. The fiscal affairs committee will hear its regular monthly budgetary updates and will consider several amendments to the Transportation and Parking regulations.

Although it is still May, this will count as the board’s June meeting. The Academic Affairs Committee and the Fiscal Affairs Committee will meet before the general board meeting.

This month’s meeting will be the first in which Zuheir Sofia and Tami Longaberger will serve in their new position as chair and vice-chair.