In budget talks, professors’ workloads become an issue

Tom Ebaugh, working toward a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, says Radenka Maric is the reason he’s doing it at the University of Connecticut. “I wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t,” said Ebaugh, 24, wearing plastic gloves and protective glasses at a fuel cell energy laboratory, part of UConn’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering. Originally from Pennsylvania, he is among a handful of graduate students working under Maric, who is not only a professor in sustainable energy, but as of July, vice president of academic research at Connecticut’s flagship university.