January 2025 & December 2024 Research Awards
January 2025
Dr. Eric Bailey, assistant vice president of Student Academic Success, was awarded $4,140,938 from Peer Power Foundation Inc. for his project “Peer Power Institute”.
Dr. Stephanie Ivey, associate dean for Research for the Herff College of Engineering and professor in Civil Engineering, was awarded $1,999,581 from National Science Foundation (NSF) for her project “Bridging the Gaps: Cultivating STEM Identity and Success through STEM Outreach, Networking, and Scholarships”.
Dr. Santosh Kumar, director of NIH mDOT Center, director of MD2K Center of Excellence, and Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence Professor in Computer Science, was awarded $1,008,061 from National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his project “mHealth Center for Discovery, Optimization & Translation of Temporally-Precise Interventions (mDOT)”.
Dr. Rouzbeh Nazari, chair and professor in Civil Engineering, was awarded $210,408.56 from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for his project “Development of Multi-Scale Non-Invasive in Situ and Remote Sensing Techniques for Proactive Waste Management: Demonstration and Training”.
Dr. Karimi Maryam, director of Research and associate professor in the School of Public Health, was awarded $193,000 from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for her project “Solid Waste Management Impact on Soil-Water Resources Across the Underserved Rural Communities of Black-Belt and the Deep South of Alabama and Mississippi”.
Dr. Jennifer Renick, assistant professor in Counseling, Educational Psychology & Research, was awarded $140,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her project “ADVANCE Partnership: Supporting Public Impact Research through Institutional Transformation (SPIRIT)”.
Dr. Daniel Foti, assistant professor and Graduate Program Coordinator in Mechanical Engineering, was awarded $123,531 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his project “Network-based modeling of energy transfer mechanisms of turbulent coherent structures”.
Dr. Satish Kedia, associate dean of Administration & Faculty Affairs and professor in Social and Behavioral Sciences, was awarded $105,000 twice from the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for his project “SAMHSA MAT 2021 BVI TBD”.
Dr. Latrice Pichon, professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health, was awarded $101,353 and $98,978 from the Center For Disease Control (CDC) for her projects, respectively, “Implementation of Rapid HIV Testing and Linkage to HIV Treatment or Prevention Among Vulnerable Populations in Tennessee”, and “Implementation of Rapid HIV Testing and Linkage to HIV Treatment or Prevention Among Vulnerable Populations in Tennessee”, through Meharry Medical College (MMC).
Dr. Kathryn Howell, Endowed Chair in Child Well-being and professor emerita in Psychology, was awarded $91,122 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her project “Pregnant Moms' Program”.
Dr. James McCutcheon, associate professor and Graduate Coordinator in Criminology and Criminal Justice, was awarded $50,000 from the (New) Shelby County Board of Commissioners for his project “Shelby County Forensic Lab Feasibility Study”.
Dr. Ali Fatemi, Ring Companies Endowed Professor, department chair and director of Fatigue and Fracture Research Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded $45,483 from Office of Naval Research (ONR) for his project “ICME-based fatigue life prediction for additive manufactured metallic components - Phase II”.
Dr. Randolph Dupont, professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice, was awarded $45,000 from the City of Memphis for his project “MPD Critical Incident Services”.
Dr. David Oller, professor and Plough Chair of Excellence in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, was awarded $37,903 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his project “Early communication in TSC and its relation to Autism”.
Dr. Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded $35,500 from U.S. Army Research Office for his project “Theoretical and experimental investigation of grain charging, coagulation and heating in dense non-thermal dusty plasmas for large scale materials synthesis”.
Dr. Amy Curry, associate professor in Biomedical Engineering, was awarded $30,000 from the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance for her project “State A/E Board Grant”.
Dr. Youngsang Kwon, associate professor in Earth Sciences, was awarded $23,548 from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for his project “Assessing Stream Health in West Tennessee: Advancing Scalable GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques for Stream System Analysis”.
Dr. Timothy McCuddy, assistant professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice, was awarded $10,000 from the Annie E Casey Foundation (AECF) for his project “BCCM Survey 2024”.
____________________________________________________________
Research Awards
December 2024
Dr. Sabya Mishra, professor in Civil Engineering, was awarded $500,000 from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development for his project “Designing Multimodal Transit for Blue Oval City and Volkswagen”.
Dr. Ashish Joshi, dean and distinguished professor in the school of public health, was awarded $459,890 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS) for his project “Healthy Start Professional Services for Data Collection and Analysis to provide culturally competent case management and care coordination to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities”.
Dr. Mohd Hasan Ali, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded $500,000 from the Department of Homeland Security for his project “DHS/FEMA-CTG 24: Cybersecurity Analysis for Cloud Environments and Cyber Identity & Authentication”.
Dr. Ashish Joshi, dean and distinguished professor in the School of Public Health, was awarded $199,999 from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for his project “Partnering with High School Educators to Build Pathways to Disease Intervention Certification”.
Dr. Marie van der Merwe, associate professor and APHN Program Coordinator in the College of Health Sciences, was awarded $179,550 from the National Institutes of Health for her project “Determining the contribution of microbial-derived metabolites to immunosurveillance in obesity-driven cancer risk”.
Dr. Rodrigo Villalpando Vizcaino, research professor in the Center for Applied Earth Sciences and Engineering Research, was awarded $165,899 from the State of Tennessee Mega site Authority of West Tennessee (MAWT) for his project “MRM-SSOE Hydro Studies”
Dr. Bonny Banerjee, associate professor in the Institute for Intelligent Systems & Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded $122,914 from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for his project “Wearable Technologies for Physiological Monitoring Open Topic”.
Dr. Jasbir Dhaliwal, executive vice president for Research & Innovation and distinguished university professor, was awarded $60,417 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his project “MID-SOUTH INNOVATION HUB”.
Dr. Randolph Dupont, professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice, was awarded $44,000 from City of Memphis for his project “Memphis Fire Services Critical Incident Services Program”.
Dr. Eraina Schauss, associate professor in Counseling, Educational Psychology & Research and director/founder of the BRAIN Center Memphis, was awarded $25,000 from Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLBH) Incorporated for her project “Le Bonheur Hurt2Healing”.
Dr. Fawaz Mzayek, associate professor in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Environmental Health in the School of Public Health, was awarded $21,956 from the Gilead Sciences, Inc for his project “A prospective qualitative exploration of multilevel factors affecting outcome disparities among Black women with breast cancer in Shelby County, TN”.
Dr. Shawn Brown, associate professor in Biological Sciences, was awarded $9,409 from The Cotton Foundation for his project “Cotton in a Crate: Increasing awareness of the importance of cotton in K-12 education”.
Dr. Yuan Gao, assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering, was awarded $5,000 from Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) for her project “Acoustic-Controlled Microbubbles: Enabling 3D Printed Biomimetic Porous Scaffolds for Study Brain Tumor Development”.
Dr. Stephanie Ivey, associate dean for Research for the Herff College of Engineering and professor in Civil Engineering, was awarded $5,000 from (New Prime) Federal Highway Administration for her project “DDETFP”.
Dr. Chunrong Jia, professor in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Environmental Health in the School of Public Health was awarded $5,000 from the King County Department of Public Health for his project “Characterization of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) exposure and related protein adductomic signatures to evaluate a local public health intervention in safer degreasers”.
Dr. Lan Wang, professor in Computer Science, was awarded $4,528 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her project “IPA- Dr, Lan Wang”.