2019-2020 Collaborative Research Grant Awards

Eight Collaborative Research Grants were recently awarded to faculty members at Mason, and they are taking the lead in furthering important research concepts—from utilizing student ambassadors to support dementia patients, to privacy controls for smart home devices, to species resilience in tropical rainforests.

“These research grants are a key element of our 4-VA mission,” explains Janette Kenner Muir, Campus Coordinator for 4-VA at Mason.  “Through this program, we identify important and promising research possibilities and provide the seed money to get them off the ground.  From there, many of our awardees go on to receive further funding from the likes of National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation.  We’re proud of the role that 4-VA has played in advancing research of consequence.”

One important element of the Collaborative Research projects is a focus on the partnerships formed between Mason faculty and the other 4-VA partner institutions – James Madison, Old Dominion, Virginia Commonwealth, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia.  This important element aligns with the 4-VA mission “To promote collaborations that leverage the strengths of each partner university and improve efficiencies in higher education across the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Grant recipients and project titles awarded for the 19-20 cycle
  • Broeckelman-Post, Melissa (College Of Humanities And Social Sciences)
    • Communication Across the Curriculum: Creating Faculty Resources for Building Communication Skills in the Discipline
  • Couch, Robin (College of Science)
    • Developing a Blood Test to Support Treatment of Surgically Induced Type I Diabetes
  • Luther, David (College of Science)
    • Species richness resilience to habitat fragmentation and restoration in tropical rainforests
  • Moran, Jeffrey (Volgenau School of Engineering)
    • Toward T Shaped Graduates A Joint Capstone Program at the Nexus of Mechanical Engineering
  • Motti, Vivian G (Volgenau School of Engineering)
    • Human-Centric Privacy-Preserving Controls for Smart Home Devices
  • Tompkins, Catherine J (College of Health and Human Services)
    • The Implementation and Evaluation of a Student Ambassador Program for a Music & Memory Intervention
  • Van Aken, Benoit (College of Science)
    • Molecular Biology Methods for Understanding Aerobic Granulation in Wastewater Treatment Systems
  • Van Hoek, Monique (College of Science)
    • Secreted Proteins of Francisella – a new understanding