This summer, a number of CAS faculty have received grants to fund exciting research and scholarship. Check out these newly funded projects.
Susan Johnson, Professor of Political Science, received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for her proposal, “Analyzing Language in Comparative Courts: A Multi-User Database of Judgment Texts in Appellate Courts.” Positing “language matters in the rule of law,” Johnson’s project offers a new theory of judicial behavior by exploring language, writing styles, and communicative elements used in court opinions of three foreign High Courts. Her work will produce a full-text searchable database containing 50 years of written opinions from these High Courts, enabling scholars to better understand judicial behavior, legal language, and the rule of law in democracies. Read the full abstract.
Shabnam Hematian, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, received two grants from federal programs that support early career researchers. Her proposal, “Nature-Derived Materials for Redox Flow Batteries,” garnered an $875,000 award from the Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. The National Institutes of Health awarded her a $1.7M R35 “MIRA” grant for Early-Career Researchers for her proposal, “Multinuclear Dioxygen-Utilizing Copper Enzymes: Diverse Roles for Aromatic Redox Active Amino Acids.”
Gideon Wasserberg, Professor of Biology, received a $283,000 award through the NSF’s Mid-Career Advancement Program for his proposal “Physiology-based mechanistic models of vector fitness to forecast species responses to coarse- and fine scale anthropogenic environmental change.” In addition to furthering his research into sandflies and other vectors of infectious disease, the grant provides time away from UNCG for intensive training. Wasserberg will work with a colleague at Virginia Tech, where he will develop skills in ecological niche modeling and spatial analysis to enhance his ongoing research and teaching. Read the full abstract.
Thomas Weighill, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, along with four other Math faculty colleagues, received a $50,000 NSF conference grant to host the “UNCG Regional Mathematics and Statistics Conference” annually through 2025. The conference, which draws researchers and students from across North Carolina and neighboring states, is free to all participants. The 2023 event is planned for November 10-11. Learn more at the conference website: http://mathstats.uncg.edu/rmsc/.
Minjeong Kim, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, was awarded an NIH R25 research training grant for the proposal, “Promoting Collaborative Research on Human Connectome Analysis for Substance Use Disorders.” The project is a collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, and Wake Forest University. Kim will lead the project at UNCG, involving junior investigators and students in efforts to develop easy-to-use computational tools for connectome reconstruction, visualization, and statistical analysis of brain network data.
Ratnasingham Shivaji, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, received a $260,000 NSF award for his proposal, “Mathematical and experimental analysis of the interaction between competitors and a shared predator – from patches to landscapes.” By integrating experimental and mathematical analyses to investigate impacts of habitat fragmentation, interspecific competition, and predation on coexistence of species, this research will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the complex relationships that drive ecological systems and contribute to the development of effective conservation strategies. Read the full abstract.
