The Wayne State University Academy of Scholars has elected three new members to be admitted to the academy in the fall semester, announced Academy President Melvin Small. They are professors Martin Newcomb, Barry Rosen and Charles Stivale.

Founded in 1979, the Academy of Scholars recognizes excellence in scholarship and creative achievements by faculty members of WSU. Over the past 21 years, 58 members have been accepted into the Academy. Thirty-eight are currently on-campus active members. Membership is for life.

Dr. Newcomb, a resident of Dearborn, was described by his colleagues in the chemistry department who recommended his selection as "a leading scientist in the area of physical organic chemistry" and "a world leader in free radical chemistry."

A professor of chemistry at Wayne State since 1991, Newcomb recently was honored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) for his work in ultra fast chemical reactions, such as those that process fats in the body. He received the ACS James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry. It's his second major ACS honor. In 1994 he received one of the ten Arthur C. Scope Scholar Awards given out nationally.

The chemical reactions he studies use free radicals to attach, clip or convert one molecule into another. These compounds form during the fleeting, intermediate steps of radical reactions where the lifetime is counted in millionths of seconds. One reaction Newcomb studies and writes about involves an enzyme that breaks down drugs and fats, makes cancer-causing compounds, and performs a host of other functions.

Dr. Rosen, a resident of Troy, also joined Wayne State in 1991 and is chairman of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology. An active researcher, he is described by one of his nominators as "the foremost authority on the mechanism that bacteria use to evade poisoning by heavy metals."

His work has unlocked secrets of transport systems in Salmonella and various parasites that escape destruction by drugs through the use of internal pumps.

The author of some 130 publications, Rosen has an international reputation and is in constant demand as a writer of review articles in the field. His research receives federal support from the National Institutes of Health and he is a recipient of a half-dozen awards, including the Maryland Distinguished Young Scientist Award and the Josiah Macy, Jr. Faculty Scholar Award.

Dr. Stivale, a resident of Ferndale, is chairman of the department of Romance languages and literatures in the College of Liberal Arts. One of his colleagues says, "In the last 10 years, Professor Stivale has published four books and numerous articles, and each one of his books constitutes a benchmark in the investigation of French literature of the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries."

One of his recent books, The Art of Rupture: Narrative Desire and Duplicity in the Tales of Guy de Maupassant, published by the University of Michigan Press, has been called "a superlative example of literary scholarship and interpretation.

His more recent book on The Two-Fold Thought of Deleuze and Guattari: Intersections and Animations received a 1998 Award from the American Library Association -- the Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award.