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Research Council Grants awarded. Two recipients were Yerina Ranjit and Noah Heringman.

Yerina Ranjit, assistant professor in the Department of Communication, and Noah Heringman, Curators' Distinguished Professor of English, both received Research Council Grants this year.

In April, the University of Missouri Division of Research, Innovation and Impact awarded the final round of Research Council grants for the 2023-24 academic year.

These internal grants of up to $15,000 supported 44 faculty projects and activities leading to book contracts, juried performances, art exhibits, peer-reviewed articles, the generation of pilot data for grant proposals and more. Since 2019, MU has invested more than $2 million in grants to advance 195 projects. 

Assistant Professor Dan London, a hand and microvascular surgeon, received a $15,000 grant last year for his research program focused on patient-reported treatment results. The funding supported the hiring of clinical research assistants to help collect patient outcomes.

"Ultimately, it is how patients perceive they are doing that should determine whether a treatment outcome is successful or not," London says. "Research Council grants are a great mechanism to start pilot studies, with a great turnaround time. They provide seed funding to begin to get results to then use as supportive data when applying for larger foundation and federal grants."

Research Council grant applications will be accepted again during the fall semester. More details will be available soon. Please contact Internal Funding staff with questions.
 

Fourth round of funded projects 

Chosen from Research Council grant proposals submitted in March 2024. 
 

ARTS, HUMANITIES, SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
InvestigatorProject Title
David Crespy
Professor, Playwriting, Acting, Dramatic Literature and Theatre History
Edward Albee Archival Research
Julia Gaines
Professor, Percussion
Completion of Method Book and Video Series for Four-Mallet Marimba
Noah Heringman
Curators' Distinguished Professor of English
The Letters of Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Michael Marlo
Associate Professor, English
Linguistic Description of the Meru Dialect Cluster in Kenya
Yerina Ranjit
Assistant Professor, Communication
Mobile Health and Access to HIV/STI Prevention Among LGBTQ+ Migrants in Italy: An Exploratory Study

 

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS
InvestigatorProject Title
Xiao Heng
Associate Professor, Biochemistry
Development of a Critical Module of a Self-Tunable mRNA Circuit to Control Cellular Protein Levels
Jacqueline Limberg
Associate Professor, Nutrition and Exercise Physiology
Impact of Menopause on the Vascular Response to Hypoxia and the Role of β-Adrenergic Receptors
Kylee Rucinski
Assistant Research Professor, Orthopaedic Surgery
Comprehensive Orthopaedic Surgery Pain Management Program


Additional funded projects, 2023-24 academic year


ARTS, HUMANITIES, SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
InvestigatorProject Title
Claire Altman
Associate Professor, Health Sciences
Climates of Exclusion and Immigrants' Occupational Health
Katina Bitsicas
Assistant Professor, Digital Storytelling
Glyphosate Dreams
Tasha Childs 
Assistant Professor, Social Work
Exploring Teacher Motivators and Detractors to Participation in PK-12 Teacher Racial Bias Interventions
Aileen Garcia 
Assistant Professor, Human Development and Family Science; State Extension Specialist, Early Childhood Education, Development and Care 
Applying the Job Demands-Resources Theory in Examining the Job Satisfaction of Home-Based Child Care Providers in Missouri
Bill Horner 
Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor, Government and Public Affairs
Tim Miller and the Politics of Performance
Jennie Ikuta
Assistant Professor, Government and Public Affairs
White Losses: Moral Psychology and the Demands of Racial Justice
Stephen Karian
Professor and Catherine Paine Middlebush Chair, English
English Digital Images for Oxford Pope Poems Edition
Antoinette Landor
Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Science; Millsap Professor of Diversity and Multicultural Studies
Understanding Skin Lightening and the Range of Colorism Experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa
Trudy Lewis
Professor, English
FestZero: A Novel-in-Progress, Travel to Monteagle/Sewanee, Tennessee
Brian MacNeel
Assistant Teaching Professor, Film Studies
Angel Hair
Laura Morett
Assistant Professor, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Illuminating the Neural Substrates of Abnormal Gesture-Speech Integration and Social Communication in ASD: An fNIRS Pilot Study
Moshe Naveh-Benjamin
Professor, Psychological Sciences
Temporal Dynamics in Young and Older Adults’ Encoding and Retrieving of Different Memory Representations
Hannah Paul
Assistant Professor, Government and Public Affairs
Does Intergroup Empathy Bias Influence How Race Affects Support for Resettled Refugees?
Nancy West
Professor, English
Moviemade Girl
Andrea Wycoff
Assistant Professor, Clinical Psychiatry    
Effects of Cannabis Use on Alcohol Processes in Adults Seeking Alcohol Treatment
Minseok Yang 
Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis    
Demystifying Pathways to Principalships: Certification Acquisition, Job Application and Hiring Results of Principal Applicants

 

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS
InvestigatorProject Title
Lesa Beamer
Professor, Biochemistry
Obtaining Preliminary Data on Enzyme Structure for CryoEM Studies
Wesley Bernskoetter
Professor of Chemistry    
Catalysts for Sustainable Acrylate Chemicals
Anand Chandrasekhar
Professor, Biological Sciences    
To Eat or Not? Modulation of Motor Behavior in a Vertebrate Neural Circuit
Libby Cowgill 
Associate Professor, Anthropology; Director of Graduate Studies
Ancestral Effects on Human Thermoregulation
Mark Daniels
Associate Professor, Surgery and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
The Role of the Scaffold Molecule POSH in B Cells
Richard Ferrieri
Research Professor, Chemistry
Validating a New Grafting Approach for Maize Using Radiotracer Imaging and Nuclear Counting Techniques at MURR
Diana Gil Pagés
Associate Professor, Surgery, Bioengineering and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Development and Characterization of a Novel Murine Model of Canine Osteosarcoma to Study Performance of T Cell-Targeted Immuno-Therapeutics
Samniqueka Halsey
Assistant Professor, Natural Resources
Identifying Tick-Borne Pathogen Prevalence Among Prairies in Central Missouri
Kun-Eek Kil
Assistant Research Professor, Radiochemistry and Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry
Collaborative Research for the Development of Carbon-11 PET Radiotracers for Mu-Opioid Receptors
Kimberly Laffey
Assistant Research Professor, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Differential Gene Expression Programs Activated by Early αβ TCR Signaling in Development and Leukemia
Jian Lin
Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
4D Printing of Personalized Left Atrial Appendage Occluders for Atrial Embolism Patients
Hyeong Suk Na
Assistant Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering
Optimal Deployment of Capacitated Fast-Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles on a Directed Highway Network
Shramik Sengupta 
Associate Professor, Biological and Biomedical Engineering
Microfluidic Platform for On-Demand High Throughput Capture and Release of Circulating Tumor Cells
Neekun Sharma    
Assistant Research Professor, Endocrinology
The Role of Endothelial Cell Estrogen Receptor Alpha in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
Patrick Shiu
Professor, Biological Sciences
Identification of Silencing-Deficient Mutants in Neurospora
Emma Teixeiro-Pernas
Associate Professor, Surgery and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Identifying Novel Factors That Control Long-Term Immunity Against Respiratory Infections
Steven Van Doren
Professor, Biochemistry    
Enzyme Controlling Synthesis of Oils and Biofuel in Crops: Validation of Structural Models
Carissa White 
Assistant Professor, Clinical Radiology
ScanBright: A Transformative Mobile App for Radiology Education
Yao Zhai 
Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Exploration of Optical Metamaterials for Sustainable  
Food-Energy-Water Nexus
Zipei Zhang
Assistant Professor, Food Science
Development of Novel Biofilm Inactivation Adjuvants to Enhance Food Safety