News by Topic: Grants

Karin Wuertz-Kozak described her lab test equipment as a gym for cells. Stretching and compressions tests using bioreactors—her lab equipment—can make a difference in understanding how cells respond to mechanical cues and how that affects disease progression, specifically for spinal disc degeneration, common to millions of Americans.

Microsystems engineering Ph.D. student Katelynn Fleming is hard at work making new discoveries on the moon. But her ultimate goal is to use technology to help all of us on Earth. Fleming recently won a 2022 NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity (NSTGRO) award and will work at NASA centers as part of the visiting technologist experiences.

Plug Power Inc., a leading provider of turnkey hydrogen solutions for the global green hydrogen economy, is partnering with RIT to provide scholarship support to a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in engineering, sustainability, and the sciences. The first Plug Graduate Scholarship was awarded this year to Mamta Choudhary, an industrial and systems engineering MS student from India.

Essential emergency services play a key role in saving lives when snowstorms blanket the Northeast or a wildfire erupts out West. However, many communities are still being left out and face communication barriers during emergencies. At NTID, a team of researchers is studying how to identify and bridge gaps in emergency management resources and services for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community.

RIT’s College of Liberal Arts plans to introduce new and revamped philosophy and communication curricula to help students across the university enhance their expressive and analytic communication skills. This was made possible by a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Teagle Foundation.

Professor S. Jay Yang sees collaboration as the key to combating international cybersecurity threats. That’s why the director of global outreach for RIT’s ESL Global Cybersecurity Institute is helping lead an alliance of cybersecurity researchers from the U.S., Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland.

RIT received funding from the U.S. Department of Education to continue offering three federal TRIO programs for supporting underrepresented students. RIT earned competitive grants anticipated to total more than $4 million over the next five years to support its McNair Scholars, Upward Bound, and Veterans Upward Bound programs.

The National Science Foundation has awarded RIT $1.2 million for a cohort of four postdoctoral fellows to conduct STEM discipline-based education research. Each fellow will work with two mentors, encouraging cutting-edge research at the interface of traditional disciplines.

A $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of State will fund a two-year project led by RIT professors Clyde Hull and Eric Williams to help the Southeast Asian region establish entrepreneurships based on the circular economy.

More collagen in the human body is not always good, and Professor Karin Wuertz-Kozak is investigating how disease progresses because of the increase in this important protein.

RIT behavioral health researchers are providing remote mental health care and addiction therapy to rural communities in New York and New Hampshire and training for therapists to deploy the digital treatments at their clinics.

James Albano, a researcher/engineer at RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, has launched a project funded by the Department of Energy to develop remote sensing technology that could have applications ranging from assessing earthquake damage to determining soil moisture for predicting crop yield.