The National Science Foundation (NSF) approved $55,000 to fund rising sophomores at Davidson College who are interested in careers in science or medicine through the Research in Science Experience (RISE) program, headed by RISE program director and Assistant Professor of Biology, Mark Barsoum. The reallocation award was issued as a “Diversity for STEM Education” broader impact of “Collaborative Research: RUI: Broadening the Application of Programmed Evolution for Metabolic Engineering” award (1613203), held by Kimbrough Professor of Mathematics and Chair of Genomics, Laurie Heyer, and Herman Brown Professor of Biology, A. Malcolm Campbell.

The RISE program focuses on students from groups historically underrepresented in science, including minority, first-generation, and low-wealth students. To prepare the rising sophomores for more extensive academic-year and future summer research experiences, students engage in a four-week, closely mentored research internship program which will culminate in the students’ presenting the results of their research at the Davidson College Summer Research Symposium in October. Funding from NSF enabled RISE to meet the demand of 49 qualified first year student applicants this summer, a 100% increase from previous years.

James G. Martin Professor of Chemistry, Erland Stevens has received funding from Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc. (NIBR).

The collaboration between Professor Stevens and NIBR will produce a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in drug discovery for use by biomedical and pharma personnel worldwide. The $40,000 award will be used to create instructional videos, printable lecture summaries, problem sets, lab activities built upon online tools and interviews with pharma professionals. The MOOC will present up to-date information on how drugs are safely and effectively developed for the treatment and prevention of disease, bridging an important gap by updating the training of chemists and biologists in drug discovery. The online delivery provides universal access in a concise and self-paced manner that adapts to the busy schedules of advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional scientists seeking to expand their knowledge in drug discovery. 

Previous online courses produced by Professor Stevens include Drug Discovery & Medicinal Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry: The Molecular Basis of Drug Discovery, on edX.  

The project invites collaboration from faculty across ACS member institutions and academic divisions to “create opportunities in their courses for students to productively engage with one another on difficult and contentious issues facing our society.” Professors Bullock and Layman will offer a year-long program of collaborative activities to guide participating faculty in developing “deliberation-involved” courses, activities and learning outcomes. The DeeP Collaborative includes participants from ACS member schools: Furman University, Rollins College, Spelman College, Morehouse College and Southwestern University.  

The Associated Colleges of the South “strengthens and showcases liberal arts education through collaboration’ sponsoring professional and curricular development across it’s sixteen member institutions.” Read more about Davidson’s Deliberative Citizenship Initiative (DCI), funded by The Duke Endowment, here.

Funding for the project “Before #MeToo: How Women Historically Navigated Higher Education at the ACS Schools,” was awarded to the faculty and archivist collaborative team representing five ACS schools: Centenary College of Louisiana, Centre College, Davidson College, University of Richmond and Rollins College, to focus on the historical experiences of women on their campuses. Learn more about Inclusive Histories of Davidson College here.

Grant project outcomes include developing courses which engage student archival research and presentations; contribute to or develop digital archives and oral history; publishing research findings, pedagogy, and outcomes of archives – department partnerships.

The ACS “strengthens and showcases liberal arts education through collaboration” sponsoring professional and curricular development, and shared equipment and service purchases across it’s sixteen member institutions.

Professor Stremlau’s grant activity includes: Native Foodways; and Mellon Visiting Professor of Justice, Equality, and Community in Anthropology, Courtney Lewis, both funded by the Davidson College Justice, Equality and Community initiative; Stories Yet to be Told: Race, Racism and Accountability on Campus, funded by Stories Yet to be Told: Race, Racism and Accountability Davidson College initiative; the OpEd Project; and Memory Chairs project, each funded by Faculty of the Future, Davidson College initiative. 

Jessica Cottle’s grant activity culminated in the creation of the Justice, Equality and Community (JEC) Initiative archive, funded by the Justice, Equality and Community Davidson College initiative.

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Latin American Studies, and Chair of Africana Studies, Devyn Spence Benson on a Presidential Authority grant from the Russell Sage Foundation.

The $50,000 Race, Ethnicity and Immigration program grant funds the project “Black Migration in a White City: Power, Privilege, and Exclusion in Cuban America.” Professor Benson, with collaborator Danielle Clealand of the University of Texas at Austin, will analyze oral histories, census, and archival data from Afro-Cubans to examine their socioeconomic status, educational trajectories, political attitudes, and voting behaviors.

Noting that “much of the literature in the social sciences and humanities treats Latinos as not only racially homogenous, but victims of exclusion and social and economic inequality.  Our book urges scholars to recognize that white privilege is relevant for Latino communities and that race matters for socioeconomic outcomes.” 

This prestigious award follows Professor Benson’s 2019 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, book-length study of Afro-Cuban intellectual life during the 1970’s, “Black Consciousness in Cuba:  The Untold Revolution, 1968 – 1978.” We congratulate Professor Benson on these prestigious awards for her research.

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Assistant Professor of Educational Studies, Chris Marsicano on a grant from the Education Credit Management Corporation Foundation.

The $75,000 grant supports the “College Crisis Initiative (C2I)” data dashboard project, reporting and tracking the response of higher education institutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant supports a team of student researchers, including programmers and data scientists from Professor Laurie Heyer’s Project PRONTO++ (PRoductive ONline TOols) data solutions team. Read more about the initiative here.

Professor Marsicano has also received a Resource Legacy Fund – Student Borrower Protection Center grant.

The $9,815 grant funds the “Student Loan Law Initiative” project. Professor Marsicano with collaborators Daniel A. Collier, Ph.D., W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Dan Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., University of Michigan will investigate if enrollment in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans influence participants’ financial behavior and living arrangements.  The project team will present their research in upcoming academic journals and conferences, and directly to policymakers.

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Professor of Sociology, Gerardo Martí on a Thriving Congregations Initiative 2020 grant (2020 0696) from the Lilly Endowment Inc.

The $999,968 grant supports the proposal “Churches that THRIVE for Racial Justice: The Alliance of Baptists in Partnership with Sociologists of Race and Religion.” Professor Martí will collaborate with Paula Clayton Dempsey, Director of Partnership Relations with the Alliance of Baptists, Professor Mark Mulder of Calvin University and Professor Kevin Dougherty of Baylor University. The partnership joins in a mission to focus on racial justice and grow faith communities of inclusion. The five-year program will build  learning community models in nearly twenty Alliance churches across the U.S. and Canada to collaborate and share experiences. Read more in an interview with Professor Martí here.

The Lilly Endowment Inc. funded 92 out of 800 proposal received for this highly competitive grant, and we commend Professor Martí and collaborators on this achievement. Professor Martí’s accomplishment is especially notable since it is his second Lilly Endowment Inc. grant (2013 0553-000) awarded within the last seven years.  

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, Takiyah Harper-Shipman, on a Centennial Center Research Grant from the American Political Science Association (APSA).

The $4,500 collaborative grant will fund the project entitled “Overcoming Barriers: Transnational Black Womxn Scholars of African Politics Network.” Collaborating with Professor Harper-Shipman are Professors Kira Tait, University of Massachusetts; Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, University of California at Irvine; and Robin Turner of Butler University. The US-based scholars aim to build a transnational network co-led by Africa-based womxn scholars to identify and challenge shared and distinct barriers that Black womxn scholars face in writing on African politics.

With Centennial Center funding, the collaborators will establish and host four pre-conference events at the 2021 National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS), to facilitate networking and mentoring for Black womxn African politics scholars at various points in their careers.  At the conclusion of the pre-conference, participants will be invited to join the Transnational Black Womxn Scholars of African Politics network and to participate in subsequent virtual gatherings and pre-conferences in the US and Africa that build strong ties among Black womxn scholars, support scholarship, and identify and challenge the barriers faced.

Professor Harper-Shipman’s additional grants include the collaborative “Sapelo Island Summer Fellowship” and “Farming as Resistance: Reading and Service Collective” projects, engaging student research and community experience, both funded by the Justice, Equality and Community – Davidson College initiative.

Registration is required for each session. If a session has reached capacity for the Zoom webinar, you may stream the presentation on YouTube Live. Please visit the registration webpage on the session date for the YouTube Live link. All webinars will be recorded and made available on the NSF Resource Center webpage following the event.

Contact the Office of Grants and Contracts to discuss proposal planning and research funding opportunities.

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Assistant Professor of Physics, Michelle Kuchera, and Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Raghu Ramanujan, on a National Science Foundation Research in Undergraduate Institutions – RUI grant (2012865).

The three-year project titled, “Machine Learning Approaches for Accelerating Scientific Discovery in Nuclear Physics,” enables collaboration between theoretical and experimental nuclear physicists and computer scientists to aid in scientific discoveries using state-of-the-art machine learning methods at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Argonne National Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and the upcoming Electron Ion Collider.

The grant provides Davidson students who have an interest in physics, computer science, or mathematics with the opportunity to make significant contributions to national efforts which investigate fundamental properties of matter. To accomplish this, they work closely with world-renowned scientists at large-scale research facilities, which complements the experiences students enjoy at a small liberal arts institution. The students also have the opportunity to visit these laboratories and to present their work to a national audience at professional scientific conferences.

This NSF-funded project will be an integral part of the ALPhA group (Algorithms for Learning in Physics Applications), an ongoing research collaboration headed by Professors Kuchera and Ramanujan and driven by Davidson students. In addition to providing interdisciplinary research experiences that bridge nuclear physics, artificial intelligence, and data science, the project seeks to create an environment where students from different backgrounds – including women and students from traditionally underrepresented groups – can explore and launch their careers in scientific research.

We are very proud of this national recognition and support for the research conducted by the ALPhA group, under the leadership of Professors Kuchera and Ramanujan.