Science Research Roundup: January 2018

This month, Arts & Sciences researchers have been awarded grants from organizations including the National Institutes of Health and Sigma Xi.

Richard D. Vierstra, the George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Professor in the Department of Biology, was awarded a four-year, $1.16 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for a project titled "Autophagic clearance of inactive proteasomes and ribosomes as models for protein quality control."

Timothy Wencewicz, assistant professor of chemistry, received a three-year, $450,000 grant from the Children's Discovery Institute of Washington University and St. Louis Children's Hospital in support of research on blocking nitrogen metabolism in tuberculosis.

Mark McDaniel, professor of psychological and brain sciences and co-director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE), is co-recipient of a 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Conference of Prospective Memory. McDaniel was recognized for his work on prospective memory, a form of memory that involves remembering to perform a planned action or recall a planned intention at some future point in time.

Brian Carpenter, professor of psychological and brain sciences, was awarded $286,000 from the National Institutes of Health in support of enhancing undergraduate preparation for research in aging and neurologic diseases.

Arpita Bose, assistant professor of biology and of earth and planetary sciences, received a $40,000 collaboration initiation grant from the dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences to pursue cross-disciplinary research with Mark Meacham, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and material sciences in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

David Balota, professor of psychological and brain sciences, received $23,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation for a research project on rejuvenating the English lexicon. 

Lauren Cubellis, a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology working with Rebecca Lester, associate professor of sociocultural anthropology, was awarded $9,500 from the National Science Foundation in support of her research on the cultural contexts of mental health care. Lester also won the 2017 Stirling Prize, which is presented annually by the Society for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association to recognize a published work that makes an outstanding contribution to any area of psychological anthropology.

Jamie Elias, a graduate student in the Department of Physics working with Erik Henriksen, assistant professor of physics, received a $1,000 award from Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society, for her research project titled "Effect of transition metal adatoms on graphene transport."

Gayle Fritz, professor of archaeology, and Natalie Mueller, a 2017 doctoral graduate of the Department of Anthropology, received the Patty Jo Watson Award for the year’s best article or book chapter on Southeastern archaeology. Presented by the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, the award recognizes their co-authored chapter titled “Women as symbols and actors in the Mississippi Valley: Evidence from female flint-clay figurines and effigy vessels.”

Did we miss something? Let us know.

For assistance with proposal writing, editing, coordination, and other related projects, please contact 
Crystal Gammon, grants and science writer in Arts & Sciences.