RIT faculty members win seed funding for research

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The seed funding award recipients were recognized at a reception earlier this month presented by RIT’s Office of Sponsored Research Services.

Twenty-five Rochester Institute of Technology faculty members are on their way to having their research ideas come to fruition thanks in part to financial awards presented at the annual Grant Writers’ Boot Camp event.

Hosted by Sponsored Research Services and The Wallace Center’s Teaching and Learning Services, the interactive, two-day workshop helps principal investigators successfully propose and manage externally funded projects by focusing on the art of persuasive grant writing.

All boot-camp participants prepared draft proposals in advance of the workshop and provided feedback to each other on their proposals throughout the event. Proposals were reviewed by a panel including past seed-funding winners, with the best proposals earning seed-funding awards of $5,000 each, intended to be used for one-year projects to develop a foundation for external funding.

The winners — grouped by college — and their proposals were:

College of Liberal Arts

• Irshad Altheimer, assistant professor of criminal justice: “Neighborhood Characteristics, Individual Risk Factors and Gun Victimization among African Americans and Latinos”
• Tamar Carroll, assistant professor of history: “Transforming Geographies: Mapping Activism in Western New York”
• Lance Cooper, instruction faculty in science, technology and society/public policy: “Green Building Certification and Technology Diffusion”
• Eric Hittinger, assistant professor of science, technology and society/public policy: “The Energy and Environmental Implications of Cloud Services”
• Ammina Kothari, assistant professor of communication: “Communicating Health Information with Cellular Technology”
• Kelly Norris Martin, assistant professor of communication: “Necessity for Visual Communication Literacy Across the Curriculum”
• Tina Sutton, assistant professor of psychology: “Attentional Bias to Emotional Stimuli in Deaf Users of American Sign Language”

College of Applied Science and Technology

• Carlos Diaz-Acosta, assistant professor of manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology/packaging science: “Multilayer Foamed Plastic Films”
• Sungyoung Kim, assistant professor of electrical, computer, telecommunications engineering technology: “Developing an Electro-Acoustic System Assisting Performance of Players in a Medium Size Rehearsal Room”
• Alan Raisanen, director of technology, IT Collaboratory: “Inexpensive Radio Frequency MEMS Technology for Monitoring Integrity of Food Packaging”

B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

• Deborah Gears, associate professor of information sciences and technology: “A Role-Motivation-Interaction Framework for Collaborative Research”
• Andy Meneely, assistant professor of software engineering: “Leveraging Developer Knowledge Transfer via Empirical Study of Code Reviews”
• Brian O’Keefe, visiting assistant professor of information sciences and technology: “Brick City Tours: Evaluating Mobile Experiences with Prospective RIT Students Before, During and After Campus Visits”

National Technical Institute for the Deaf

• Karen Beiter, instructional faculty in information and computing studies: “Automatic Motion Tracking Cameras: Enhancing Video Recording Options for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students”
• Patricia Iglesias Victoria, assistant professor of engineering studies: “Designing and Building a Smart Cane Prototype for People Who are Blind – Phase 1”
• Cynthia Sanders, associate professor of American Sign Language and Interpreting Education: “OH-I-SEE: Indirect Messages in American Sign Language”

College of Science

• Feng Cui, assistant professor of life sciences: “SEED: Exploring the Role of Chromatin in p53-Mediated Regulation of Transcription”
• Nathan Eddingsaas, assistant professor of chemistry and material sciences: “Development of a Spectroscopic Method for the Detection of Atmospheric Oxidation Products”
• Erin Ontiveros, associate scientist in Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science: “Evaluation of Various Image Modalities to Improve Search and Rescue Operations”
• John-David Rocha, assistant professor of chemistry and material sciences: “Study of the Synergy Between Carbon and Boron-Based Nanomaterials through the Development of an Undergraduate Computational Chemistry Course”
• Paul Wenger, assistant professor of mathematical sciences: “Toward a Unified View of Saturated Graphs”

Kate Gleason College of Engineering

• Thomas Gaborski, assistant professor of biomedical engineering: “Feasibility of Heterogeneity Screens for Induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) Cells”
• Behnaz Ghoraani, assistant professor of biomedical engineering: “Detection of Electrophysiological Perturbations in the Human Heart to Improve the Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation”
• Blanca Lapizco-Encinas, associate professor of biomedical engineering: “ Effect Insulating Structures Geometry on Particle Concentration in Microfluidic Devices for Insulator-Based Dielectrophoresis”
• Reginald Rogers, assistant professor of chemical engineering: “Selective Absorption of Organic Compounds from Aqueous Systems Using Semiconducting and Metallic Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes”

The seed funding award recipients were recognized at a reception earlier this month presented by RIT’s Office of Sponsored Research Services.