2022 Faculty Research Funds Announcement

The Faculty Research Fund program aims to support faculty in establishing or maintaining high-quality research programs and other creative achievements. Competitions are held annually and funded by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School through a review and nomination process by the Faculty Research Fund Committee.

This year ten recipients received Faculty Research Fund awards through three programs: the Regular Faculty Research Award, the Summer Research Award, and the Scholarly Equipment and Materials Award.

Regular Faculty Research Awards

Assists members of the faculty in establishing or maintaining high-quality research programs that will extend the limits of existing knowledge and lead to a tangible final product (e.g., performance, showing, publication, grant proposal, etc.)

1. Marcus LiBrizzi, Professor, Arts and Letter, 91±¬ÁÏ at Machias. “The Ghost Story in Brazil: Preserving Undocumented Cultural Narratives.â€�
2. Karissa Tilbury, Assistant Professor, Chemical & Biomedical Engineering. “Development of In-Vitro Tumor Microenvironment Models for the Identification of Hierarchical Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) Imaging Studies.�

Summer Research Awards

Provides $8,000 awards for faculty summer salaries for a minimum of 1.5 months of research effort.

1. Hollie Adams, Assistant Professor, English. “Morley Callaghan and Canadian Literary Modernism.�
2. Elizabeth DePoy, Professor, CCIDS and Social Work. “Professional Knowledge: Cultural Difference.�
3. Gregory Gerbi, Assistant Professor, School of Marine Sciences. “Ocean Dynamics of Coastal Maine.�
4. Sepideh Ghanavati, Assistant Professor, School of Computing and Information Science. “Towards Enhancing Developers’ Privacy Comprehension through Automated Classification of Privacy Behaviors in Software Applications.�
5. Peter Stechlinski, Assistant Professor, Mathematics and Statistics. “Nonsmooth Neural Networks and Machine Learning Algorithms.�
6. Kristin Vekasi, Associate Professor, Political Science. “The Politics of Supply Chain Security in the Indo-Pacific.�

Scholarly Equipment and Materials

The Scholarly Materials and Equipment Award assists faculty in establishing or maintaining high-quality research programs by providing items of equipment and library collections.

1. Rebecca Schwartz-Mette, Associate Professor, Psychology. “Dyadic Synchrony and Co-Regulation: Putative Vulnerability Markers for Socioemotional Maladjustment and Contagion.�
2. Yingchao Yang, Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering, “A Fume Hood to Enhance Lab Safety and Fulfill Research Objectives.�

Grantees will have the opportunity to learn from each other and from previously funded RRF grant projects in a series of meetings and events offered throughout the next year.

For more information about the program contact Executive Director of Research Development Jason Charland, jason.charland@maine.edu.