Arts & Sciences researchers recently won awards from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and others.
Andrew C. Butler, chair and associate professor in the Department of Education in Arts & Sciences, and collaborator Gary Ritter, dean and professor in the School of Education at Saint Louis University, won a $3.5 million award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF) to support a joint postdoctoral training program. The new program, Saint Louis Translational Fellowships in Education, will be funded for six years and support six postdoctoral fellows per year. Read more from the Ampersand.
Manel Errando, assistant professor of physics, won a $932,578 grant from NASA for work on “Polymer Actuators for High-Resolution X-ray Optics.”
Henric Krawczynski, chair and professor of physics, was awarded $592,218 by NASA to support the development of a 511 keV gamma-ray camera.
Li Yang, professor of physics, was awarded $450,000 by the National Science Foundation for his project titled “Accelerated Discovery of Artificial Multiferroics with Enhanced Magnetoelectric Coupling.”
Yajie Yuan, assistant professor of physics, received a $367,989 award from the National Science Foundation to support collaborative research on multimessenger plasma physics.
Soumendra Lahiri, the Stanley A. Sawyer Professor in Mathematics and Statistics, received a $333,763 award from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative research project titled “Prediction and Uncertainty Quantification of Non-Gaussian Spatial Processes with Applications to Large-scale Flooding in Urban Areas.”
Xiang Tang, professor of mathematics and statistics, has been elected to the 2023 class of fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS). One of 39 fellows in the 2023 cohort, Tang was selected for notable contributions to mathematics research in noncommutative geometry and Poisson geometry, and for his service to the profession. Read more from the Ampersand.
Soumendra Lahiri, the Stanley A. Sawyer Professor in Mathematics and Statistics; Manel Errando, assistant professor of physics; Yajie Yuan, assistant professor of physics; and Alex Chen, research assistant professor of physics, won a $299,131 early-concept grant for exploratory research (EAGER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their time-domain study of the dynamics of relativistic jets. The project is part of NSF’s Advancing Discovery with AI-Powered Tools (ADAPT) initiative in the mathematical and physical sciences.
Ryan Ogliore, assistant professor of physics, won a $163,389 grant from NASA to support his work on a database of online gigapixel compositional maps of primitive meteorites.
Anuradhika Puri, a postdoctoral research associate working with Meredith Jackrel in the Department of Chemistry, won the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association’s Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Fellowship. The $150,000 award supports her work on applying the human disaggregase, HtrA1, to counter amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Physicists Alex Chen, Saori Pastore, Maria Piarulli, and Yajie Yuan were allocated supercomputer access to complete high-impact computational science projects in 2023 through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. Read more from the Source.
Mark McDaniel, professor of psychological and brain sciences, won a $60,164 grant from the National Science Foundation for “Coaching to Learn: A Peer-to-Peer Intervention to Help College Students Apply and Transfer Effective Learning Strategies across STEM Courses.” The project aimed at improving undergraduate STEM education is in collaboration with Margaret L. Usdansky at Syracuse University.
Melissa Ritchey, a graduate student working with Xinyi Liu in the Department of Anthropology, received a $27,127 doctoral dissertation improvement award from the National Science Foundation to support her project on “Community Organization and Lithic Production.”
Luisa Madrigal Marroquín, a graduate student working with Rebecca Lester in the Department of Anthropology, received a $5,460 grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to support dissertation research titled “Growing Children to Grow the Economy: Corporate Philanthropy and the Prevention of Childhood Stunting in Guatemala.”
Arts & Sciences has selected the second cohort of winners of internal Seeding Projects for Enabling Excellence & Distinction (SPEED) grants. The SPEED program awards grants of up to $50,000 to spur novel and impactful research, scholarship, and creative practice initiatives led by tenure-track and research faculty. See the full list of fall 2022 winners and project descriptions in the Ampersand.
The Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures (ITF), a signature initiative of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan, announced its first round of funded projects. These nine multiyear clusters and five yearlong programmatic grants bring together faculty across all seven schools to collaborate on new transdisciplinary research. Read more about the ITF's funded projects in the Ampersand.
The McDonnell International Scholars Academy announced the recipients of the 2022 Global Incubator Seed Grants. The program aims to stimulate high-impact research initiatives linking WashU faculty and international collaborators. This year's winners include Jonathan Losos, the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor; Lori Markson, professor of psychological and brain sciences; E.A. Quinn, associate professor of biological anthropology; and Renee Thompson, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences.
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