2019 Grants and Funding

Department of Biological Sciences

Dr. Emerson Keith Bowers, assistant professor in Biological Sciences, was awarded $1,046 from the Tennessee Ornithological

Institute for Intelligent Systems

Phil Pavlik (PI) and Andrew Olney (Co-PI) have been awarded a $1.24 million grant from the National Center for Education Research, a center at the Institute for Education Sciences. Their project will further develop and refine Phil's online system, Mobile Fact and Concept Training System (MoFaCTS), to help students at Southwest Tennessee Community College in introductory anatomy and physiology courses better understand and remember course content.

More information can be found on the Institute for Education Sciences website.

Department of Mathematical Sciences

Dr. Béla Bollobás, chair and professor of the Department of Mathematical Sciences, was awarded $405,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his project "Apps of Probabilistic Combinatorial."

Dr. Manohar Aggarwal, instructor in Mathematical Sciences was awarded $10,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and $14,982 from the National Security Agency (NSA) for his project "International Conference on Design of Experiments 2019."

Department of Psychology

Dr. Elizabeth Meisinger, associate professor in the Department of Psychology, was awarded $6,924 from Lexplore, Inc. for her project "Human Versus Automated Oral Reading Fluency Assessment."

Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI)

Dr. Charles Langston, professor and director for the CERI, was awarded $184,000 from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for his project "Seismotectonics and Seismic Potential of Three Intraplate Seismic Zones."

Department of Social Work

Dr. Elena Delavega, associate professor in the Department of Social Work, was awarded $60,000 from the Church Health Center of Memphis for her project "Improving Behavioral Healthcare for the Latinx Community in Memphis."

Department of City and Regional Planning

Dr. Charles Santo, professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, was awarded $38,499 from the Town of Somerville for his project "Somerville Town Center Redevelopment Plan."

Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration (PADM)

Dr. Erin Nelson, assistant professor in the PADM, was awarded $25,605 from United Way of Greater Memphis in collaboration with the Momentum Nonprofit Partners for her project "Mapping the Memphis Nonprofit Infrastructure."

Department of Anthropology

Dr. Michael Perez, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, was awarded $21,890 from Templeton Religion Trust in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame Global Religions Research Initiative for his project "Beyond Diaspora Islam: Transnational Network and the Localization of Islam in Chile and Argentina." Society for his project "Parental Investment in Relation to Mate Quality: An Experimental Test."

Research Awards Announced

Data Science Research Cluster

The FedEx Institute of Technology's Data Science Research Cluster announced their recently funded projects. The Institute is pleased to welcome the following PI researchers to the Data Science Research Community:

Development of Fully Automated Software Systems for Large Data Acquisition and Real Time Data Analysis, PI: Dr. Thang Hoang