The following provides a list of past recipients of Research, Discovery & Innovation Research Advancement grants. Year indicates the Academic & Fiscal Year (July 1 to June 30) that the award was received. 

JUMP TO LINKS:

Accelerate for Success
Start for Success
International Research & Program Development
Student Team Awards: Interdisciplinary Link and Industry Engagement
Faculty Seed Grant
Equipment Enhancement Fund
Core Facilities Pilot Project

Accelerate for Success

2018

• Samuel Campos, Medicine-Tucson, Viral Inhibition of Cellular Senescence and Interferon Responses via Antagonism of the cGAS/STING Pathway
• Eugene Chang, Medicine-Tucson, CLOSE SHAVE: Hybrid-reality Surgical Simulation
• Rongguang Liang, Optical Sciences, IR laser-assisted additive manufacturing of precision glass optics
• Raina Maier, Agriculture & Life Sciences, The Arid Soil Microbiome: Connecting Functional Health to Phylogenetic Diversity
• Joanna Masel, Science, Transforming STEM education by engaging more research-oriented faculty
• Luke McGuire, Science, From source to sink: identifying hot spots for debris flow hazards and soil carbon sequestration following wildfire
• Julie Miller, Science, Identifying Gene Targets for Progressive Speech Deficits in Parkinson's Disease
• Janko Nikolich-Zugich, Medicine-Tucson, UA Older Americans Independence Center (UA-OAIC)
• Jon Njardarson, Science, Rational Design of novel PP1-selective Inhibitors
• Robert Norwood, Optical Sciences, Sustainable Growth of the Cloud
• Joyce Schroeder, Science, Mechanisms of Cancer Drug Resistance and Sensitivity in Breast Cancer Metastasis
• Gayatri Vedantam, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Precision Healthcare: A Novel, Rapid Diagnostic Test for Clostridium difficile Infection that Addresses Unmet Treatment and Infection Control Needs
• Anne Wertheimer, BIO5, Novel Antimicrobial Matrix Development and Validation

2017

• Kobus Barnard, Science, Building capacity for inferring facial communication from video data
• Greg Barron-Gafford, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Dryland Agrivoltaics: A Novel Ecosystems Approach to the Food-Water-Energy Nexus
• Steven Goldman, Medicine, Cardiotoxicity Assay Platform (CTAP)
• Michael Hammer, Science, From Pathophysiology to Therapeutics in Childhood Epilepsy: A translational approach using an SCN8A mouse model and human induced pluripotent stem cells
• Christopher Hulme, Pharmacy, Simultaneous targeting of both major Alzheimer’s pathologies through DYRK1A Inhibition.
• Natalia Ignatenko, Medicine, Kallikrein-6 Activity Probe for Image-Guided Resection of Brain Tumor
• Douglas A. Loy, Engineering, Lithe Integrative Additive Manufacturing (LIAM)
• Laura Meredith, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Soil ecosystem genomics: novel methods to link microbial genes, communities, and function in the face of soil system complexity
• Robert Norwood, Optical Sciences, Magneto-optic Polymer Magnetic Field Sensors
• Linda Powers, Engineering, Real-Time On-Chip Processing and Encryption of Biomedical Images
• Barry Pryor, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Advancing mycoculture for enhanced nutritional and nutraceutical resources
• Magdalene So, Medicine, Model for persistent, asymptomatic colonization by commensal bacteria
• S. Patricia Stock, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Bioprospecting of secondary metabolites from Photorhabdus bacteria and their application in pest management
• Michelle Strout, Science, Bringing Science Up To Par by Automatically Parallelizing Scripting Languages
• Peter Troch, Science, Revisioning landscape evolution: The role of pore-scale microbial life in landscape-scale hydro-bio-geochemical processes
• Rod Wing, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Upgrading the 11-genome Oryza data package and de novo assembly of the O. granulata genome to help solve the 10-billion people question

Start for Success

2018

• Joseph Blankinship, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Using Biochar to Sequester Carbon and Promote Sustainability in Arizona
• Kerry Cooper, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Establishing a Model to Simulate Post-Infectious Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Bellal Joseph, Medicine-Tucson, A Proposal Development Conference to Establish the First National Geriatric Trauma Research Center 
• John Benjamin (Ben) McMahan, Institute of the Environment, Innovative Visualization & Analysis Tools for the North American Monsoon – Connecting Citizen Science Data and Observations for Research, Policy, and Decision Support
• Martin Reimann, Eller, Cancer Prevention from a New Viewpoint: Why visits to the beach are like monetary losses but visits to the doctor are like monetary gains
• Jekan Thangavelautham, Engineering, Large/Complex Support

2017

• James Field, Engineering, Role of Manganese Oxide in the Halogenation of Natural Organic Matte
• Matthew Mars, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Biological Ecosystem Analysis 
• Barbara Mills, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Deep Time Perspectives on the Dynamics of Coupled Human and Natural Systems
• Janet Roveda, Engineering, Stream Health Service to Growing Up in Place
• Sonia Shiri, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Building a UA-wide Center for Language and Innovation
• Larry Venable, Science, Thirty generations of climate change: adaptation and evolutionary drag in a long-term ecological study

International Research & Program Development

2018

• Kevin Anchukaitis, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Stable and Radiogenic isotope approach to paleoclimate dynamics in Central America (Track 1)
• Roman Lysecky, Engineering, Formal Models and Self-Adaptive Techniques to Automatically Mitigate Privacy and Security Threats in Life-Critical Systems (Track 1)
• John Streicher, Medicine-Tucson, Determining the Side Effect Profile and Chronic Pain Efficacy of the MACE Series of Fluorinated Cyclic Biphalin Analogs (Track 1)
• William Simmons, Social & Behavioral Sciences,  Curricular and Strategic Litigation Partnerships between the UA Online Graduate Program in Human Rights Practice and Two Russian-Language Universities (Track 2)
• Carol Brochin, Education, Crossing Borders through Books/Cruzando fronteras con Libros (Track 3)
• Christopher Cokinos, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Crafting the Long Tomorrow: Difficult Conversations Across Science and Humanities Boundaries As the Global Emergency Worsens (Track 3)
• Margaret Evans, Tree Ring Laboratory, Jump-starting the continental-scale assimilation of tree-ring and forest inventory data for carbon cycle science (Track 3)
• Katherine Snyder, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Integrating ecosystem services into development planning (IES) (Track 3)

2017

• Chris Gniady, Science, CATS patient evaluation and monitoring after heart surgery
• John Kemeny, Engineering, Transnational and Transdisciplinarity Research: Imaging in Mining Geomechanics
• Henrietta Kralovec, UA South, Digital Border Dialogues: Identity, Interculturality and educational empowerment
• Anna O'Leary, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Shared Populations: A Multi-Sited Research Collaboration with Mexico
• Ramzi Touchan, Science, U.S.-Russia Dendrohydrology of Complex River Systems
• Mary Voyatzis, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Paleomobility in the Late Bronze Age Peloponnese, Greece, as seen through the lens of the Sanctuary of Zeus on Mt. Lykaion
• Albert Welter, Humanities, The Hangzhou Region and the Chinese Creation of an East Asian Buddhism

Student Team Awards: Interdisciplinary Link and Industry Engagement

2018

• Pierre Blanche, Optical Sciences, Volume Hologram for Non-Mechanical Beam Steering (Track 1)
• Laird Close, Science, Developing The Ultimate Protoplanet Discovery Camera (Track 1)
• Lloyd LaComb, Optical Sciences, Development of a portable fiber optic magnetoencephalography system for a use in unshielded environment (Track 1)
• Zheshen Zhang, Engineering, Development of Quantum Covert Sensing Prototype (Track 2)
• Xiushan Zhu, Optical Sciences, GHz Repetition Rate Mode-Locked Fiber Lasers at 2 micron (Track 1)

2017

• Pierre-Alexandre Blanche, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Holographic Switch for Data Center
• Arturo Chavez-Pirson, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Magnetic Gradiometer based on Ultra-high Verdet constant MO polymers
• Andrew Gillette, Science, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Numerical Methods for Gravitational Wave Science
• Chris Gniady, Science, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Patient evaluation pre and post heart surgery
• Khanh Kieu, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, High Power Fiber-based Laser Sources in the Mid-Infrared
• Daniel Kilper, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Optical Networks for 5G Wireless
• Lloyd LaComb, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Development of a portable fiber optic magnetoencephalography system
• Rongguang Liang, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Quantitative polarization and phase techniques for cell and tissue imaging
• Pierre Lucas, Engineering, Track 2 - Industry Engagement, Industry-University Partnership on Infrared Fibers
• Sumit Mazumdar, Science, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Enhanced Performance of Organic Solar Cells: Singlet Fission
• Robert Norwood, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Magneto-optic Materials and Devices for Sensing
• Michelle Perfect, Education, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Interdisciplinary Mentorship to Advance Pediatric Sleep Research in Youth with Type 1 Diabetes
• Nasser Peyghambarian, Optical Sciences, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, All-Fiber Compact Multiphoton Endoscope for Early Cancer Diagnosis and Cancer Margin Determination during Surgery
• Jeffrey Pyun, Science, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Mechanically Reinforced Composites from Chalcogenide Hybrid Inorganic/Organic Polymers (CHIPs) for Infrared Thermal Imaging
• Erin Ratcliff, Engineering, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Creating High-Conductivity Plastic Electrodes for Ultralight-Weight Electronics
• Janet Roveda, Engineering, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Subthreshold based VLSI Design for Low Power Iterative Graphical inference application
• Shane Snyder, Engineering, Track 2 - Industry Engagement, Ceramic Membrane and Ozone for Water Reuse: Synergy for Fouling Control and Organic Contaminant Oxidation
• Guang Yao, Science, Track 1 - Interdisciplinary Link, Heterogeneous cell invasion and colonization in metastatic breast cancer microenvironment

Faculty Seed Grant

2018

• Craig Aspinwall, Science, Novel tissue graft platforms for in vivo evaluation of parathyroid function (Track 1)
• Sama Alshaibi, Fine Arts, Unlawful Present (Track 2)
• Jennifer Carlson, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Killed but Not Murdered: Negligent Homicide, Justifiable Homicide & the New Politics of Trauma (Track 2)
• Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Religious Diversity and Shared Churches in Early Modern Europe (Track 2)
• Phyllis Taoua, Humanities, Documenting African Freedom: Digital Archive and Film (Track 2)
• Walter Betancourt, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Detection of waterborne adenoviruses by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry based magnetic immunoassay with gold nanoparticles labeling (Track 3)
• Susan Brewer-Osorio, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Sealing the Peace Deal? Assessing the Disarmament and Reintegration of Ex-Combatants in Colombia (Track 3)
• David Christianson, Agriculture & Life Sciences, New Technologies for safe, effective, and informative wildlife surveys (Track 3)
• Yong Ge, Eller, Mining Career, Education and Job Data to Bridge the Gap between Talent Demand and Supply (Track 3)
• Thomas Gianetti, Science, Transition Metal Complexes Stabilized by Carbocation Based Ligands (Track 3)
• Euan McLeod, Optical Sciences, 3D Assembly of Multi-Component Nanophotonic Materials and Devices (Track 3)
• Erin Ratcliff, Engineering, Polymer/Ionic Liquid Interfaces for Energy Storage (Track 3)
• Blaine Smith, Education, Examining Adolescents’ Spatial Thinking through Community-Based Multimodal StoryMaps (Track 3)
• George Sutphin, Science, Pharmaceutical elevation of systemic 3-hydroxyanthranilic acid (3HAA) to treat age-associated disease (Track 3)
• Koenraad Van Doorslaer, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Towards understanding viral dynamics associated with Sonoran Desert fauna (Track 3)

2017

• Richard Amini, Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Track 3: Early Career, Transcranial Ultrasound in Traumatic Brain Injury
• Jessica Braithwaite, Social & Behavioral Sciences, School of Government & Public Policy, Track 1: International, The Anatomy of Resistance Campaigns
• Pearce Paul Creasman, Science, Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, Track 3: Early Career, Archaeological and Contemporary Perspectives on Climate Change, Urbanization, and their Effects on the Genetic Diversity of an Ecologically and Culturally Significant Tree
• Courtney Crosson, Architecture Planning and Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Track 2: Arts Humanities & Culture, Rainwater as Historic Resource for Native Food Systems in Tucson’s Food Desert Communities
• Christina Diaz, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Sociology, Track 3: Early Career, Declining Ethnic Distinction: Immigrants, Natives, and Changes in the American Mainstream
• Katherine Ellingson, Public Health, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Track 3: Early Career, Results-oriented Antibiotic Stewardship in Long-term Care Facilities
• Rachel Gallery, Science, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Track 1: International, Climate responses of soil microbiomes in high elevation tropical wetlands
• Matthew Grilli, Science, Psychology, Track 3: Early Career, Detecting the Earliest Signs of Alzheimer's Disease: A Novel Cognitive Neuroscience Approach
• Vasiliki Karanikola, Engineering, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Track 3: Early Career, Uranium and Arsenic removal through solar nanofiltration
• Aneta Kielar, Science, Speech Language & Hearing Science, Track 3: Early Career, Neural Correlates of Grammatical Deficit in Stroke-Related Aphasia: Role of Word Sound and Meaning
• Samy Missoum, Engineering, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, Track 1: International, A New Generation of Materials for Shock and Vibration Mitigation based on Nonlinear Energy Sinks
• Rebecca Mosher, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Track 1: International, Brassica rapa transformation: building molecular tools for a new model plant
• Yue Niu, Science, Mathematics, Track 3: Early Career, Normalization and Segmentation for Hi-C Data
• Charlotte Pearson, Science, Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, Track 3: Early Career, Time capsules of climatic change: Bristlecone pine tree-ring isotopes and the 4.2 ka event
• John Purdy, Medicine, Immunobiology, Track 3: Early Career, Cytomegalovirus and Zika Virus Hijacking of Host Lipid Metabolism
• Armin Sorooshian, Engineering, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Track 3: Early Career, Understanding why some particles shrink in the air upon humidification
• Shelley Staples, Social & Behavioral Sciences, English, Track 3: Early Career, Understanding writing development and identifying needs for second language STEM writers: from first year writing to engineering writing
• Russell Toomey, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Family & Consumer Sciences, Track 2: Arts Humanities & Culture, Mapping Q: Examining the Effectiveness of an Arts-Based Suicide Prevention Program for SGM Youth
• Koenraad Van Doorslaer, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Animal & Comparative Biomedical Science, Track 3: Early Career, Determine the role of recombination in Papillomavirus evolution
• Robert Wilson, Science, Psychology, Track 3: Early Career, The Neural Substrates of Exploration and Exploitation
• Junming Yin, Eller, Management Information Systems, Track 3: Early Career, Identifying Topic-specific Influential Users and Likely Adopters in Large Social Networks: A Scalable Machine Learning Approach
• Katharine Zeiders, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Family & Consumer Sciences, Track 3: Early Career, Immigrant Families’ Stress During the 2016 Presidential Election

 Equipment Enhancement Fund

2018-2019

• Pascale Charest, Science, Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Illumination Module Upgrade for the Spinning Disk Confocal Microscope to Enable High-Resolution Suface Imaging in the Keck Center
• Nancy Horton, Science, Shared Avestin EmulsiFlex-C3 for Cell Lysis
• Urs Utzinger, Engineering, Refurbishing of Titanium: Sapphire Laser for Advanced Intravital Microscope
• Donata Vercelli, Medicine-Tucson, Enabling lung function measurements in experimental asthma models
• Jean Wilson, Medicine-Tucson, Upgrades of Leica DMI6000 Microscope

2017-2018

• Maryia Fedzechkina, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Eye movement tracking in language processing research
• Nancy Horton, Science, Enhancments to the Life Science North Imaging Core
• Anita Koshy, Medicine-Tucson, Expanding the imaging capabilities of the Marley core multiphoton microscope
• Pierre Lucas, Engineering, Broadening the user base of the confocal Raman spectrometer in the Kuiper Facility
• Ronald Lynch, Medicine-Tucson, Leica Bond RXm: Enhanced Tissue Staining Throughput and Efficiency for TACMASR
• David Moore, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Understanding Global Carbon and Water Cycles: New florescence measurement capability to take advantage of forthcoming NASA missions
• Marc Orbach, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Automated Fluorescence Digital Imaging System for Shared-User, Multi-Agent Keating BSL3 Laboratory
• Wolfgang Peti, Science, Purchase of a shared Nanotemper Monolith.N115Pico Instrument
• Barry Pryor, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Enhancing sterilization capacity for quality assurance in biosystems research
• John Purdy, Medicine-Tucson, Tools to Maximize the Mass Spectrometry Facility's Omics Research
• Protul Shrikant, Medicine-Tucson, Seahorse XFe 96 Analyzer for Developing Human Immune Monitoring Facility at UACC
• Thomas Zega, Science, Enhancement of Sample Preparation and TEM Capabilities for the Kuiper Materials Imaging and Characterization Facility

Core Facilities Pilot Project

• Scott Boitano, Medicine, Development of high-capacity cell signaling assays for drug discovery
• Andrew Capaldi, Science, TORC1 Dependent Regulation of Amino Acid Metabolism
• James Galligan, Pharmacy, Lactoylation of Lys Residues is a Novel Modification Regulated by SIRT2
• Nancy Horton, Science, Discovery of Potent Inhibitors of NS1, the Main Replicative Protein of Human Parovirus B19
• Martha Hunter, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Symbiosis visualized: Confocal microscopy training for insight into insect-bacterial symbioses
• Jun Isoe, Science, Proteomic analysis of mosquito eggshell proteins
• Aneta Kielar, Science, Development of Individualized Neuromodulation Protocol for Treatment of Language Deficits in Stroke Aphasia
• Tally Largent-Milnes, Medicine, Optimizing detection of brain endocannabinoids by LC/MS
• Laura Meredith, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Microbial community composition, gene content, and expression of the Biosphere 2 Tropical Rainforest soil and plant microbiomes
• Helena Morrison, Nursing, Investigating the diversity of microglia forms and functions and relevance to brain region, sex and age
• Lisa Nagy, Science, Mechanisms driving tissue elongation: Undergraduate involvment
• Gregory Rogers, Medicine, Visualizing a new intracellular structure: the distal centriole cartwheel
• Magdalene So, Medicine, CLASI-FISH as a tool to evaluate Neisseria community development in the gut
• Malak Tfaily, Agriculture & Life Sciences, Quantifying biotic and abiotic controls on dissolved organic matter dynamics in watersheds
• Thomas Tomasiak, Science, Life Sciences North Imaging Facility Workshop
• Elisa Tomat, Science, Impact of iron sequestration on the toxicity of FDA-approved drugs in cancer cells presenting sustained NRF2 activation
• Daniela Zarnescu, Science, Training new students to use confocal microscopes and SIM