草榴社区 Faculty Members Earn Research Proposal Development Grants
Tue, 05/11/2021 - 10:32am | By: Van Arnold
Eight faculty members at The University of 草榴社区 Mississippi were recently awarded proposal development grants as part of an ongoing initiative administered by the Office of Vice President for Research.
The grant program is designed for faculty to facilitate planning, writing and submitting extramural proposals to support research and scholarly activities. The program provides up to $2,000 to be used for any activity, travel expense or commodity that helps faculty prepare and submit extramural proposals.
Proposals to facilitate interdisciplinary efforts across departmental or college lines are considered with higher priority. Requests to collaborate with faculty at other institutions to prepare competitive proposals also are considered.
Dr. Gordon Cannon, Vice President for Research at 草榴社区, notes that it is vital that the University fund proposals for faculty interested in exploring more extensive research opportunities through the annual proposal development grant program.
鈥淭his year we received the largest group of proposals that we have seen in recent years, spanning from concussion identification to a new species of mosquitos to financial infidelity. We are excited to support these faculty members by providing the financial resources to aid them in taking their research to the next level,鈥� said Cannon.
Added Associate Vice President for Research Marcia Landen: 鈥淎ll funded research starts with a good idea. Sometimes that idea needs to be developed a bit before it鈥檚 ready to be presented to a funding agency. These small grants allow researchers to gather preliminary data or do a pilot study that will provide the basis for a larger research project of interest to a federal agency, foundation, or even a business.鈥�
The proposal development grants are one-year awards that each faculty recipient will use in preparation for possible submission of full project proposals to the following funding agencies:
- National Institutes of Health
- National Science Foundation
- Institute of Education Sciences
- National Endowment for Financial Education Grants
- National Athletic Trainers鈥� Association Research and Education Foundation
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Canadian Government鈥檚 Social Science and Humanities Research Council 鈥� Insight Grant
- Society of Simulation in Healthcare鈥檚 Novice Research Program
Faculty honorees include:
Dr. Alex Smith
Assistant Professor, School of Education, College of Education and Human Sciences
Title: Motivating Writing: Integrating Behavior and Early Writing Assessment to Power-Up Writing Performance
Summary: This project will work with teachers to integrate behavior and early writing assessment in order to improve students鈥� performance and motivation in writing, especially reluctant and struggling writers.
Dr. Donald Yee
Professor, School of Biological, Environmental, and Earth Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences
Title: Bionomics and ecology of a new exotic mosquito in the Americas, Aedes vittatus
Summary: During 2020 a new exotic species of mosquito, Aedes vittatus, appeared on two Caribbean islands, with the potential to spread to others and to the mainland United States. This proposed work will examine how this new species will affect existing species like Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito) and Aedes aegypti (yellow fever mosquito), all three of which can vector pathogens that cause dengue and Zika.
Dr. Hans Stadthagen-Gonzalez
Associate Professor, School of Psychology, College of Education and Human Sciences
Title: Developing a Scale to Study Financial Infidelity
Summary: In this project we will gather information from focus groups and surveys to better understand how people define, interpret, and react to financial infidelity. We will also explore how financial literacy and financial infidelity interact with each other, as well as individual characteristics that may influence the incidence of financial infidelity.
Dr. Katie Howie
Assistant Professor, School of Marketing, College of Business and Economic Development
Title: Unpacking the Piling on: An Exploration of Cancel Culture
Summary: Cancel culture, the practice of calling out individuals for a perceived moral wrongdoing and attempting to remove their power or prominence presents unique challenges for public figures, higher education organizations, companies, and others. This project examines what factors motivate people to engage in cancellations and will improve our understanding around the drivers of cancel culture.
Dr. Melissa Kay
Assistant Professor, School of Health Professions, College of Nursing and Health Professions
Title: Understanding Responsibility for Concussion Identification and Disclosure using a Public Health Framework
Summary: This project uses a public health framework to identify factors impacting concussion disclosure and explore the concept of who is and/or should be responsible for concussion disclosure within collegiate athletics.
Dr. Stephanie Parks
Assistant Professor, Nurse Anesthesia Program, College of Nursing and Health Professions
Title: Mobile Device Application in Education
Summary: Students learn differently in 2021 so we developed a way to cross the education gap through mobile device applications. The School of Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice is using mobile technology to teach and simulate clinical skills in today鈥檚 nursing students. Log in and Learn On!
Dr. Mac Alford
Professor and Curator of the Herbarium, School of Biological, Environmental, and Earth Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences
Title: Phylogenetic Relationships and Morphological Evolution in the Willow Family of Flowering Plants (Salicaceae) Using Whole Plastome Data
Summary: Funds from the proposal development grant will be used to sequence the entire genomes of plastids (chloroplasts) in 35 species of tropical plants related to willows and cottonwoods. This DNA data (about 155,000 base-pairs in each plastid) will be analyzed to determine relationships among the plants and to infer how the sepal-less, petal-less, and unisexual flowers of willows and cottonwoods evolved from "normal" flowers.
Dr. Zibei Chen
Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, College of Education and Human Sciences
Title: How finances intersect health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional examination on Mississippian residents.
Summary: This project aims to develop a proposal that closely examines the intersection of health and finances, with an emphasis on income and racial disparities in financial access and health outcomes in the state of Mississippi. It intends to yield findings that would inform and identify effective interventions that remove barriers to financial stability and foster better health outcomes.