RI Consortium for Coastal Ecology Assessment, Innovation & Modeling announces
grants for URI faculty
The Rhode Island
Consortium for Coastal Ecology Assessment, Innovation, and Modeling has announced the recipients of its 2018-19
Seed Grant program, which assists faculty at the University of Rhode Island developing
innovative projects in STEM and arts and humanities fields. The grants will also foster research collaboration and build upon the consortium’s efforts in science communication and visualization.
The following two
STEM-related projects will receive $25,000 each: “Algae-Surface Enhanced Raman
Spectroscopy-based Detection of Nitrates and Phosphates in Water,” submitted by
Assistant Professor Daniel Roxbury (principal investigator)
and Professor Arijit Bose (co-principal investigator), both of
URI’s Department of Chemical Engineering, and “Addressing predictive modeling
knowledge gaps to improve information used in decision making,” by Colleen
Suckling, assistant professor in the College of The Environment and Life
Sciences.
In support of arts and humanities-related research, two $5,000 grants have been awarded to the following projects: “In Sculptural Relief: A Documentation of the Marine Residents and Visitors to the Narragansett Bay and Southern New England Habitats and Ecosystem,” by Ben Anderson, associate professor, Department of Art and Art History, and “An innovative approach for diverse disciplines to visualize and communicate climate change through exploration, experimentation and dialogue,” by Richard E. Sheridan, professor of Landscape Architecture, and Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, director of URI’s Center for the Humanities and professor in the Department of Art and Art History.
“These seed grants
represent an investment in innovative ideas from exceptional URI faculty, one
that will help shape the future of the consortium and provide new opportunities
for collaboration and training,” explains Geoff Bothun, principal
investigator/project director for the Rhode Island consortium and professor of Chemical
Engineering at URI.
“The grants build on the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) mission of increasing research capacity.
“The grants build on the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) mission of increasing research capacity.
“We will be welcoming
submissions again next year for our second round of RI C-AIM seed funding,”
Bothun said.
Funded by a $19
million grant from the NSF through EPSCoR, and also a $3.8 million state match,
the consortium is a collaboration of engineers, scientists, designers and
communicators from eight higher education institutions across the
state—University of Rhode Island (lead), Brown University, Bryant University,
Providence College, Rhode Island College, Rhode Island School of Design, Roger
Williams University, and Salve Regina University—across the state developing a
new research infrastructure to assess, predict and respond to the effects of
climate variability on coastal ecosystems.
Working with
businesses and area communities, the consortium seeks to position Rhode Island
as a center of excellence for researchers on Narragansett Bay and beyond.
For more information
about the consortium and its researchers at institutions across the state,
including URI, visit www.uri.edu/rinsfepscor.