Office of Research Awards Summer Research Grants

February 02, 2012

Old Dominion University's Office of Research has awarded 2012 summer research grants totaling nearly $165,000 to 18 projects proposed by 22 ODU faculty members.

The grants, awarded in two categories - Summer Experience Enhancing Collaborative Research (SEECR) and Summer Research Fellowship Program (SRFP) - were announced Feb. 2 by Mohammad Karim, vice president for research.

The winners of the SEECR grants, who will share awards of $66,520, are:

Jin Wang, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, and Gene Hou, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering: "New Formulation and Algorithm for Fluid-Structure Interaction Study."

Tom Chapman, assistant professor of geography, and Cherng-Jyh Yen, assistant professor of educational foundations and leadership: "School Performance in Context: A Geospatial Framework for Understanding the Influence of Community Factors on Educational Achievement in Hampton Roads."

Miguel Padilla, assistant professor of psychology, and Rao Chaganty, professor of mathematics and statistics: "Correcting Measurement Error in Psychometric Models via Multiple Imputation."

Wu He, assistant professor of information technology and decision sciences, and Silvana Watson, associate professor of communication disorders and special education: "Tracking Pre-Service Special Education Teachers' Field Experience."

Winners of the SRFP grants, who will share $97,000 in awards, are:

Peter Eudenbach, associate professor of art: "To Arrive Where We Started."

Austin Jersild, associate professor of history: "Advising the Chinese: The Socialist Bloc and Revolutionary China in the Era of Internationalism, 1945-1960."

Kimberly Martin, assistant professor of sociology: "Examining the Effects of Victim Characteristics, Organizational Resources and Community Social Climate on Prosecutors' Decisions to File Sexual Assault Charges."

Benjamin Neimark, assistant professor of political science and geography: "The Human Dimensions of Environmental Change and Biofuel Energy Production in Madagascar."

John Weber, assistant professor of history: "Texas Is Everywhere South of the Canadian Border: Citizenship Rights, the Politics of Mobility, and the Evolution of Modern American Labor Relations."

Kathleen Winters, assistant professor of political science: "Legitimacy on the U.S. Supreme Court: Individual Responsiveness to the Collective Goal."

Elizabeth Zanoni, assistant professor of history: "Triangular Links Between Italian Consumers and Products in the Atlantic Economy During the 1920s and 1930s."

Nana Amoah, assistant professor of accounting: "What is Fraud in SEC 10b-5 Litigation?"

Daniel Russell, assistant professor of physical therapy: "Use of a Virtual Environment to Regulate Walking in Individuals with Parkinson's Disease."

Chung-Hao Chen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering: "A Video-Based Drowning Detection System for the Safety of Swimmers at Beaches."

ManWo Ng, assistant professor of modeling, simulation and visualization engineering: "Modeling Maritime Transportation Chains: A Quantitative Planning Model."

Jennifer Georgen, assistant professor of ocean, earth and atmospheric sciences: "Marine Geophysics Mantle Flow Models: Implications for Geological Activity Offshore the Northwestern U.S."

Shuiwang Ji, assistant professor of computer science: "Computational Analysis of the Mouse Brain Atlas."

Angela Eckhoff, assistant professor of teaching and learning: "Teachers and Docents Learning in the Museum."

SEECR is a program that funds pilot projects involving collaboration of two ODU faculty members from different colleges. The goal of the program is to inspire greater numbers of collaborations among faculty and to assist pairs of faculty in obtaining pilot data as background for submission of proposals to federal funding agencies.

Faculty may be in either full-time tenured or tenure-track positions. Faculty members are funded in pairs, and funding is based upon both the merit of the proposed project and cross-disciplinary breadth. The only constraints are that the project must constitute a new collaboration and that it must be multidisciplinary.

The award includes a stipend of $6,000 for the summer effort. In addition, up to $5,000 will be available to the pair for supplies, equipment or part-time assistance (such as a graduate or undergraduate student assistant).

The SRFP is for returning full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty. The awards are designed to facilitate activities that will ultimately attract outside funding. Each award recipient will be expected to devote full time to his/her research for a continuous eight-week period during the summer. This program is sponsored by the Office of Research in collaboration with the Faculty Senate.

The award includes a stipend of $6,000 and up to $1,000 for justified expenses. These expenses may include travel to complete research during the period of the award. An additional $500 may be requested for post-award travel upon completion of the summer research.