SHRIMP SCIENTIST SNARES GIANT GRANTS.

Byline: DIANA PEYTON Community columnist

Oak Park resident Jody Martin has helped secure $3.1 million in grants from the National Science Foundation over the past three years for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, where he is a curator.

Martin, curator of crustacea at the museum, said there is no secret formula to acquiring support.

``I think mostly it's our past productivity. We've been fairly accountable. We've published a lot of papers and taught a lot of students. And, of course, there's always luck,'' Martin said.

Martin has written or helped draft applications for eight different grants, including one for $1.3 million awarded to the museum in September for a project focusing on the evolution and relationships of arthropods, including insects, shrimp and centipedes.

Martin and Regina Wetzer jointly secured a $280,000 grant in January for a two-year study on the relationships of isopods - the ocean version of a roly-poly bug.

A $750,000 grant supports three graduate students in a joint science program of the museum and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Martin, a scientist for 23 years and a curator at the museum since 1988, also teaches a new after-school program on arthropods for high school students. Classes will start March 12 and May 7. Call [phone].

The Lois Hampson Library was dedicated Tuesday at Tulsa Street Elementary School in Granada Hills in honor of the 77-year-old woman who has been a neighbor, friend and school librarian over the past 10 years.

Hampson loves her job, saying she has found the career she has always wanted.

``This is where I should have been all of my life. There's nothing like the children. At this age they are still so innocent, so loving in return,'' Hampson said.

Hampson recalled once receiving an outpouring of support from the kids after she had been sick.

``I received hundreds of letters from the children, and when I came back - it must have been lunchtime; all the children were outside ... - one little boy came to the fence and yelled out, 'Mrs. Hampson, Mrs. Hampson.' Then suddenly they were all at the fence calling my name,'' she said. Hampson spent five years as a volunteer at the school and is now a district employee in the library for three hours a day.

The library, renovated through the Wonder of Reading Program, was stocked with $10,000 worth of new books and has a new decor as well as a new name.

Laurie Pabros, a teacher coordinator at the school, said Hampson organized book clubs for the children, and every year she donates some of her own money to the library.

Pabros said she hopes Hampson realizes she is appreciated. ``We want her to know her time, energy and dedication are appreciated.''

Hampson described the renovated facility, with its blue interior and reading corner for the kids, but joked that she might not be using the new seating cushions for the kids.

``Well, I think I might pull up a chair,'' she said.

Good cooks are hard to find, but 10-year-old Katherine Weisbrod of Chatsworth has shown for a second time that she has the winning recipe.

The Germaine Street Elementary fourth-grader baked from her own recipe, which she calls Easy Cinnamon Cocoa Danish, in the Albertson's/Pillsbury Kids Bake Off Contest, and she was chosen as runner-up in the Los Angeles competition.

In 2000, she was a finalist in Southern Magazine's cooking contest for kids, and she won the Most Fired-Up Award.

Two local men have taken on new positions in their careers.

Chris Maslyk from Studio City has been named director of project planning at R.D. Olson Construction.

Jeffrey Kightlinger from La Canada Flintridge was named general counsel for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.