Faculty earn seed grants for international research


Fourteen ASU faculty members recently were awarded seed grants designed to foster international collaborative research and advance institutional global engagement.

The grants were presented in a competition sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement (OVPGE).

Ninety-seven proposals were received and carefully evaluated by the Faculty International Committee (FIC) on the basis of the prospects for these programs to advance ASU global engagement.

“All of us on the Faculty International Committee were gratified by the response to the seed grant competition,” says Stephen Batalden, chairman of the FIC. “We know of no other such seed grant competition where almost 100 ASU faculty members submitted proposals. The uniformly high quality of the applications, as well as the high response rate, signals a very bright future for global engagement at ASU.”

In all, $129,990 was awarded, with individual grants ranging from $2,960 to $9,880. These awards will help establish valuable connections abroad and global insights that can be incorporated into ASU programs of study and collaborative research proposals.

Grants also were awarded where programs might reach new levels, expand applications and secure follow-on funding or other external support wherever possible.

“We were thrilled to receive so many excellent proposals, and we regret being able to fund only a relatively small number of extremely interesting submissions,” says Anthony “Bud” Rock, vice president for global engagement. “But we are confident that the incredible response affirms to all that global programs are central elements of the university’s educational and research agenda and critical to the advancement of the New American University.”

Recipients, their affiliations and the names of their projects are:

• Benjamin Broome, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, “Repairing the Past, Building the Future: Peacebuilding and Reconciliation in Cyprus.”

• Claudia Brown, Herberger College of the Arts, “New Chinese Art.”

• Nancy Eisenberg, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, “A Longitudinal Study of Lack of Forgiveness and Development Outcomes in Adulthood.”

• Nancy Jurik, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, “Gender, World, Entrepreneurship and Family Resiliency in the United States and the Czech Republic.”

• Arunachalanadar Madakannan, College of Technology and Innovation, “Research on Fuel Cell Component Development at ASU Along with NIT, India.”

• Arthur Mason, School of Justice and Social Inquiry, “Long Term Oil Spill Effects: Scenarios of Cascading Ecological and Socio-Economic Impacts.”

• Pamela McElwee, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, “The Role of International NGOs in Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Area Management in the Greater Mekong Subregion.”

• Gyan Nyaupane, School of Community Resources and Development, “Exploring the Linkages Among Poverty Alleviation, Biodiversity Conservation and Tourism.”

• Laura Popova, Barrett, the Honors College, “Samara River Valley Political Ecology Project.”

• Marco Saraniti, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, “An international Collaborative Graduate Educational Program in Nano-Electronics Between ASU and the University of Padova, Italy.”

• Elizabeth Segal, School of Social Work, “Collaboration and Exchange across the Border: Pathways to Create Better Understanding of Poverty in Arizona.”

• Pegge Vissicaro, Herberger College of the Arts, “Networking for Cross-Cultural Dance Research: Strategies for Ethnographic Analysis of Macedonian Roma Dance Culture.”

• Donna Winham, School of Applied Arts and Sciences, “Planting Seeds: Capacity Building for Black Bean Research and Health Production.”

• Jianguo “Jingle” Wu, School of Life Sciences, Global Institute of Sustainability, “Natural-Human System Dynamics of Inner Mongolia in the Past 100 years: Understanding the Interactions Among Ecological, Economic and Social Drivers.”

A recognition event for recipients is planned for this fall. For more information on OVPGE activities, visit the Web site http://ovpge.asu.edu.

Mark Luebker, mark.luebker@asu.edu
(480) 727-8269
Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement