FUNDED PROPOSALS: (12/1/2011 – 1/31/2012)
CONGRATULATIONS!
The following UTC faculty and staff recently attracted $577,377 in external grant and contract awards:
Ms. Dianne Cox, Director of Financial Aid, attracted $27,900 from the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation to continue the High School Peer Counseling Program in 2012. Ms. Cox and her staff will train several UTC students to serve as peer counselors in local high schools, assisting high school students as they learn about and apply for state and federal student aid.
Dr. Lucien Ellington, UC Foundation Professor of Education and Co-Director of the UTC Asia Program, acquired $69,198 from the Association for Asian Studies to continue the publication of the Education About Asia Journal in 2012. This journal, founded in 1996, is published three times per year and features issues in Asian studies ranging from ancient cultures and literatures to current events. Dr. Ellington also secured $24,497 from the Freeman Foundation for teacher professional development programs in 2012.
Dr. Leroy Fanning, UC Foundation Professor and Department Head of Health and Human Performance, secured $7,500 from the Hamilton County Government to fund a graduate student internship at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department’s Wellness Center during the spring 2012 semester.
Ms. Anne Gamble, Director of Project Ready for School, secured $100,187 from United Way of Chattanooga to continue the work of Project Ready for School in 2012. Project Ready for School works to ensure that children enter school with the skills necessary to be successful. The project serves children and their families in Hamilton and Marion Counties in Tennessee and Catoosa, Dade, and Walker Counties in Georgia.
Dr. Richard Jackson, Professor of English, attracted $1,700 from Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga to conduct the Meacham Writers Workshops in the 2011-2012 academic year. Occurring biannually, the workshops are free and open to the public and consist of readings, discussion sessions, and group conferences.
Ms. Meg Kiessling, Lecturer for UTC’s Mathematics Department, secured $71,555 from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission for an Improving Teacher Quality Grant Program that will provide professional development for thirty middle school mathematics teachers. The workshop will focus on the Common Core Standards for Mathematics and will provide a pre-workshop meeting with teachers to determine their needs and expectations, a one week summer workshop, and a follow-up workshop in the fall.
Ms. Theresa Liedtka, Dean of Lupton Library, attracted $1,530 from the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga to help create and catalogue digital images of the water color paintings of local artist, William Crutchfield, for the Library’s Special Collections and Archive. Mr. Crutchfield was a Chattanooga architect and artist who began creating water color paintings of indigenous plants and wildflowers at the height of the Great Depression.
Ms. Cynthia Wallace Long, Director of UTC’s Educational Opportunity Center, secured $40,000 from the Tennessee College Access and Success Network (TCASN) for UTC’s Educational Opportunity Center. The EOC serves low-income, potential first generation college attendees in Hamilton, Marion, Sequatchie, Bledsoe, and Grundy counties. TCASN funding will be used to expand current services and provide targeted services to homeless youth, youth in foster care, and military connected families.
Dr. Gretchen Potts, UC Foundation Associate Professor of Chemistry, attracted $3,500 from the UT Research Foundation to perform analyses that will help the UT Health Science Center (UTHSC) develop a method to deliver essential trace elements through the skin. UTHSC and UTC teamed up to submit the proposal, with UTHSC serving as the lead applicant.
Dr. Will Sutton, Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and Ms. Christa Mannarino, Director of Development for Major Gifts, secured equipment valued at $229,810 from OMICRON Electronics Corporation to be used in the College of Engineering and Computer Science’s Power Lab. This lab is a state-of-the-art learning environment used to prepare undergraduate and graduate students for the workforce.
SUBMITTED PROPOSALS: (12/1/2011 – 1/31/2012)
GOOD LUCK!
The following UTC faculty and staff members submitted proposals with the potential to generate over $5,107,668 in external funding, if awarded:
Dr. Jennifer Boyd (Biology, Geology and Environmental Sciences), with Drs. Stylianos Chatzimanolis, Joey Shaw, Henry Spratt, Hill Craddock, Tom Wilson (Biology, Geology and Environmental Sciences), and Dr. Gretchen Potts (Chemistry), requested $208,485 from the National Science Foundation to acquire growth chambers for global change biology research and teaching at UTC. The proposed growth chambers will enable the seven research scientists and their research teams to extensively investigate the biology of global change.
Ms. Belinda Brownlee (Upward Bound) requested $1,511,355 from the U.S. Department of Education to continue the work of Upward Bound – a program that provides supplemental academic assistance, educational and career guidance, and cultural enrichment activities to help participating students develop the skills necessary to succeed in high school and college.
Dr. Yu Cao (Engineering and Computer Science) submitted two proposals requesting a total of $617,744 from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Cao partnered with colleagues from California State University at Fresno and the University of Texas at Dallas to develop a collaborative research proposal. The team will investigate innovative approaches to increase the data reliability and operational speed of networks that receive data from wearable body sensors. The second proposal requested funds for a high performance computing infrastructure to support biomedical informatics research.
Ms. Sandy Cole (Center for Community Career Education) requested $19,883 from the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga to continue and expand the Postsecondary Awareness With Success (PAWS) program in 2012 and 2013. CCCE staff and student mentors will work with youth to improve their academic success and enhance their awareness of college.
Dr. Chris Cunningham (Psychology) collaborated with the UT College of Medicine – Chattanooga to request $14,933 from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for a program to address and prevent stress, fatigue, and burnout in Health Care Providers. The program will train medical residents in personal recovery management, cultural awareness and personal patient-centered care practice, and observation of the needs and challenges faced by patients.
Dr. Jennifer Ellis (School of Education) teamed with colleagues from American and Syracuse Universities to request a total of $259,839 from the National Science Foundation for two projects, both centered on making cyberlearning more accessible to people with disabilities. The first project will develop and disseminate a generalizable, integrated model of accessible cyberlearning. The second project will design and model an innovative research and evaluation approach for evaluating complex cyberlearning projects.
Dr. Ignatius Fomunung (Civil Engineering) collaborated with faculty from the University of Georgia to request $192,896 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The project will analyze the use of bananas and banana stems as a feedstock for the production of alternative energy for use in transportation.
Dr. Cherry Guinn and Ms. Lilly Fotiadis (Nursing) requested $9,955 from the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga for a program that will assist adult Hispanic patients at high risk for Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 assume responsibility for self-management of their risk using a community health worker model.
Dr. Loren Hayes (Biology, Geology and Environmental Sciences) submitted a preliminary proposal to the National Science Foundation to further his current research, which focuses on the degu – a small rodent that is endemic to central Chile. Dr. Hayes uses the degu as a model organism to examine various aspects of plural breeding and communal care of offspring.
Dr. Hope Klug (Biology, Geology and Environmental Sciences) submitted a preliminary proposal to the National Science Foundation to research the operation of sexual selection – one of the central questions in current evolutionary ecology. This research project offers unique opportunities to develop theoretical tools and apply them directly to an experimental system.
Dr. John McCormack (WUTC) requested $286,000 from the Knight Foundation for the African American Broadcast Journalism Academy – a program that will train African American informational programming producers for careers in broadcast and Internet media outlets. The radio station will partner with UTC’s academic programs, Girls Inc. of Chattanooga, and other community organizations.
Ms. Laurie Melnik (Southeast Center for Education in the Arts) requested $850 from The Arts Council, Inc. to provide three one-hour sessions during the Art of Creative Teaching Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama in February.
Ms. Kristina Montague (College of Business) and Ms. Caroline von Kessler (Development) requested $25,000 from the Disabled American Veterans Charitable Trust to support the establishment of a Veterans Entrepreneurial Program (VEP) within UTC’s College of Business. The mission of the VEP is to foster the creation of successful, profitable ventures and to advance the growth and commercial competitiveness of local and regional veteran-owned small business enterprises through education and services.
Dr. Abdul Ofoli (Electrical Engineering) requested $174,753 from the National Science Foundation to develop an innovative integrated solar and energy storage and management system to support solar energy. The proposed research will impact the energy systems field and also the automotive industry because of its rapid electrification by developing advanced management and controls for new and advanced energy storage systems.
Dr. Mina Sartipi (Computer Science and Engineering) requested $416,235 from the National Science Foundation for a project that will focus on efficient data processing in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The objective of the proposed project is to address challenges with various WSN constraints by developing fundamentally new practical and theoretical approaches for the communication scheme in WSNs.
Dr. Will Sutton (Engineering and Computer Science) and UTC’s SimCenter requested $791,550 from the U.S. Department of Education for graduate student resources to support growth in computational engineering. Grant funds will support six PhD students and help the Graduate School of Computational Engineering extend its research to a range of real-world critical energy utilization and advanced manufacturing applications.
Ms. Caroline von Kessler (Development) and Ms. Kristina Montague (Business) requested $19,980 from the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga to introduce the Veterans Entrepreneurial Program in 2012. The UTC College of Business is developing a comprehensive, progressive, experiential-based training program in entrepreneurship and small business management specifically designed for veterans.
Mr. Kim Wheetley (Southeast Center for Education in the Arts) requested $5,000 from the Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC) for the SCEA’s sixth National Arts and Education Forum in 2013. TAC funding is for honorariums for nationally known experts in education, integration, and professional development who will help plan, present keynotes and panel presentations, and facilitate participants’ discussions.
Dr. Gary Wilkerson (Health and Human Performance) requested $353,210 from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute for a project that will facilitate the delivery of patient-centered and high-value clinical services. The primary objective will be an exploratory, statistical analysis of a growing dataset which will lead to the realization of an optimal treatment outcome for differing patient preferences, characteristics, and circumstances.
Dr. Li Yang, Dr. Joseph Kizza, and Ms. Kathy Winters (Computer Science and Engineering) requested $200,000 from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative research project with faculty from Syracuse University and North Carolina A&T State University. The project will focus on building a Community for Hands-on Security Education with the goal of increasing the use of hands-on labs and case studies in Information Assurance Education.
Dr. Jonathan Yeager (Philosophy and Religion) submitted a proposal to the Wabash Center for funds that will enable him to participate in a Teaching and Learning Workshop for Pre-Tenure Religion Faculty in Colleges in Universities. These workshops provide insight from a variety of teaching perspectives, sharpen faculty members’ skills, and encourage participants to integrate new ideas and techniques into their classrooms.