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.

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.

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.

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Tabitha Peck, on a National Science Foundation CAREER award (1942146).

The $549,997 grant will support the project titled “Virtual Body Ownership Illusions for Bias Reduction and Fostering Inclusivity in STEM Classrooms.”  The goal of this 5-year project is to create an environment where STEM education is available for all students and that no student has to face prohibitive barriers to major in a STEM discipline.

One of the outcomes of the project will be a publicly accessible open-source VR application that can be inexpensively deployed on commercially available VR hardware with curriculum guidelines for distribution across the world. The research will involve collaborations with UNC Charlotte and Alamance Community College and will fund the participation of 15 undergraduate research students from Davidson who will develop VR applications, run experiments, write research papers, attend international research conferences, and present research findings.

Additionally, Professor Peck has assembled a robust advisory board consisting of Dr. Robert Bodenheimer of Vanderbilt University, Dr. Benjamin Lok of the University of Florida, and Drs. Jess Good, Barbara Lom, Fuji Lozada and Kristi Multhaup of Davidson College.

The CAREER is NSF’s most prestigious research award, with the vast majority of awardees being at large research-intensive universities.  Professor Peck’s accomplishment is especially notable since it follows her successful collaboration with North Carolina State University on the 2018 NSF grant (1760831) “Pre-service Educators Reimagining Core Experiences in Physics Teaching,” featured here.

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Heather Smith, on two grant awards from the American Mathematical Society (AMS). 

The AMS Mathematics Research Communities (MRC) has funded “Trees in Many Contexts,” a week-long summer 2021 workshop on graph theoretic trees with a focus on applications to biology and chemistry.  Along with collaborators Miklos Bona, Eva Czabarka, Stephan Wagner and Hua Wang, Professor Smith will engage 40 early career mathematicians in research problems in a context that develops collaborative research skills while networking and receiving mentoring.

Professor Smith has additionally received an AMS-Simons Foundation Travel Grant for research-related travel through June 2021.  The AMS-Simons Travel Grants Program acknowledges the importance of research interaction and collaboration in mathematics, particularly for early career mathematicians. The program also includes a structured mentoring component.