The Pitt Momentum Fund grants, created during the 2019-20 school year, have been announced for this year. They include two scaling grants of up to $400,000 over two years and four teaming grants of up to $60,000.
The awards were created by Senior Vice Chancellor for Research Rob Rutenbar and Provost Ann Cudd. This year’s funding cycle, with additional support from the office of Senior Vice Chancellor for the Health Sciences Anantha Shekhar, called specifically for projects investigating the social determinants of health.
All awardees will be celebrated at a funding showcase titled “Fueling our Future,” which will be held in early September.
Scaling grants
Scaling Grants, for a two-year term with an award cap of $400,000, enable multi-disciplinary teams to competitively scale their research efforts in targeted pursuit of large-scale external funding. The grants support the detailed project planning, gathering of proof-of-concept results, and reduction of technical risk so that teams can competitively pursue large, complex extramural funding.
Center for Text Analytic Methods in Legal Studies: Kevin Ashley, School of Law with School of Computing & Information Science colleagues Daqing He, Diane Litman, and Rebecca Hwa; and James Anderson, RAND. This project is aligned with the themes of the Year of Data & Society.
Pittsburgh Center for Healthy Environments and Equity Research: Aaron Barchowsky, Graduate School of Public Health with colleagues Melissa Bilec, Civil & Environmental Engineering; Dara Mendez, Epidemiology; Emily Elliot, Geology & Environmental Sciences; Danial Bain, Geology & Environmental Sciences; Sarah Haig, Civil & Environmental Engineering; James Fabisiak, Environmental & Occupational Health; LuAnn Brink, Allegheny County Health Department; Harry Hochheiser, Biomedical Informatics; Carla Ng, Civil & Environmental Engineering; and Jeanine Buchanich, Biostatics. This project aligns with the 2021-2022 call for projects investigating the social determinants of health.
Teaming grants
The grants have a one-year term with an award cap of $60,000. Teaming grants support the formation of new multi-disciplinary collaborations to successfully pursue large-scale external funding.
Pitt MAC: From Titusville to Tuver with a stop in Lagos: Bopaya Bidanda, Industrial Engineering, with additional colleagues John Stoner, UCIS; John Wallace, Social Work; Ravi Madhavan, Katz; and M. Najeeb Shafiq, School of Education.
Advancing the Pittsburgh Center for Interdisciplinary Bone and Mineral Research (PCIBMR): Giuseppe Intini, School of Dental Medicine, with colleagues Dobrawa Napierala, Dental Medicine; Deborah Galson, Medicine; Peter Alexander, Orthopaedic Surgery; Partha Roy, Bioengineering; Juan Taboas, Dental Medicine; and Shilpa Sant, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Cultural Representativeness in the Principles of AI: Yu-Ru Lin, School of Computing and Information, with colleagues Morgan Frank, SCI; Edouard Machery, History & Philosophy of Science; Ben Rottman, Psychology; and Heath Cabot, Anthropology. This project is aligned with the themes of the Year of Data & Society.
Pittsburgh Transformations Project: Race, Migration, Education, and Healthcare: Michele Reid-Vazquez, University Center for International Studies, with colleagues Alaina Roberts, History; Abimbola Fapohunda, Africana Studies; Arif Jamal, ULS; Gina Garcia, School of Education; Patricia Documet, Graduate School of Public Health; and Martha Mantilla, ULS. This project aligns with the 2021-2022 call for projects investigating the social determinants of health.
Seeding Grants
These provide up to $25,000 per year, support significant and innovative scholarship by individual or small groups of faculty at all ranks at the University of Pittsburgh. In constructing each year’s portfolio of awards, attention is given to supporting early career faculty or areas where opportunities for extramural funding are extremely limited. Proposals are reviewed in four tracks: Creative Arts, Performing Arts and Humanities; Engineering, Technology, Natural Sciences, and Mathematical Sciences; Health and Life Sciences; and Social Sciences, which includes business, policy, law, education, and social work.
Functional heterogeneity at the level of an individual neurotransmitter release site at the adult neuromuscular junction: Yomna Badawi, Neuroscience
Manipulation of sensory-motor coupling during speech production: Jason Bohland, Communication Science & Disorders
T-box transcriptional control of Drosophila wing development: Deborah Chapman, Biological Sciences
Modernizing through Electronic and Digital Media: Transnational Evangelicalism and Indigenous Cultures in the Andes: Diego Cortes, Broadcast Communications, Pitt–Bradford
Modeling Driver Situational Awareness in Highly Automated Driving: Na Du, Informatics & Networked Systems
Agricultural Adaptations in Response to Environmental Stress in the Tropics: Claire Ebert, Anthropology
Data Mining Approach to Understand Tensor Properties in Turbulent Cascade: Lei Fang, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Beyond graduation rates: Conceptualizing liberatory educational outcomes for colleges and universities: Gina Garcia, Educational Foundations, Organizations, & Policy
Making Skeletons of Shapes Dance: Paul Gartside, Mathematics
Adaptive stochastic optimization via trajectory cues: Oliver Hinder, Industrial Engineering
The Politics-Psychology Nexus and the Future of Public Service: Gary Hollibaugh, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
Taking Off the Cape: Removing the Cloak of Invincibility to Support BIPOC Graduate Students: Alicia Johnson, Aliya Durham, Yodit Betru and Toya Jones; Social Work.
Developing a Holistic Measurement Plan for Transition to Adulthood
Traci Kazmerski, Pediatrics, with additional colleagues Andrew McCormick, Pediatrics; Ming-Te Wang, School of Education; Tomar Pierson-Brown, Law; Marlo A. Perry, Social Work; and Loreta Matheo, Pediatrics. This project aligns with the 2021-2022 call for projects investigating the social determinants of health.
Situated Task-Driven Multimodal Intent Modeling and Applications: Adriana Kovashka, Computer Science, with additional SCI colleagues Diane Litman, Malihe Alikhani, and Rebecca Hwa.
Digital Resistance: Olga Kuchinskaya, Communication. This project is aligned with the themes of the Year of Data & Society.
Taiwan Rising: A Year in the Life of a Forbidden Nation: Michael Meyer, English
Elucidating variable immune responses regulation through non-coding RNA-target interactomes: Olanrewaju Morenikeji, Biology, Pitt-Bradford
Understanding PFAS Interactions with Kidney Function in Health and Disease: Carla Ng, Civil & Environmental Engineering. This project aligns with the 2021-2022 call for projects investigating the social determinants of health.
Would That: Diana Khoi Nguyen, English
Causal Moderation and Mediation Analyses in Multisite Randomized Trials: Xu Qin, Health & Human Development
Socially Responsible Data Collection and Network Intervention Codesigns: Amin Rahimian, Industrial Engineering. This project is aligned with the themes of the Year of Data & Society.
HBCU Voices: A Digital Storytelling Project: Khirsten Scott, English
Q-GPU: A Recipe of Optimizations for Quantum Circuit Simulation Using GPUs: Xulong Tang, Computer Science
Carbonic Anhydrase-Catalyzed Carbon Dioxide Sequestration in Seawater: Meng Wang, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Improving Health Equity by Analyzing Social Determinants of Health from the Electronic Health Records: Yanshan Wang, Health Information Management. This project aligns with the 2021-2022 call for projects investigating the social determinants of health.
Highly Scalable and Efficient Deep Learning Accelerator Enabled by 3D Photonic Integration: Nathan Youngblood, Electrical & Computer Engineering