The Office of Research Innovation and Economic Impact, is delighted to announce the results of the 2023 ORIEI Seed Funding Initiative.
In February 2023, ORIE released a Call for Proposals for two new seed funding opportunities:
- Building the Foundation – Early Stage Research to stimulate the development of new research and scholarship initiatives
- Take It to the Next Level to advance scalable multidisciplinary projects for research and scholarship in Sustainability, Biohealth or Digital Innovation
We had an overwhelming response to the call for proposals, receiving 51 applications (34 Building the Foundation and 17 Take It to the Next Level) which were externally reviewed by over 60 reviewers. A total of nine (9) applications were selected for funding.
The awarded teams PIs, Co-PIs, Other Senior Personnel (in no particular order), and their project titles, are noted below:
Building the Foundation
- Creating a Mason-based interdisciplinary community-academic partnership for fall-prevention in older adults
PI: Tiphanie Raffegeau, School of Kinesiology, College of Education and Human Development
Co-PI: Jatin Ambegaonkar, School of Kinesiology, College of Education and Human Development
Debra Stroiney, School of Kinesiology, College of Education and Human Development
Emily Ihara, Department of Social Work, College of Public Heath
Catherine Tompkins, Department of Social Work, College of Public Health
- Contributions and Challenges of the H-1B Visa Program in the United States
PI: Michelle Dromgold-Sermen, Institute for Immigration Research, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Co-PI: James Witte, Institute for Immigration Research, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
- Foam fractionation for simultaneous removal of PFAS and DBP precursors in potable reuse
PI: Kirin Emlet Furst, Department of Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering (CEIE), College of Engineering and Computing (CEC)
- Advancing Distributed Deep Learning: Computation, Communication, and Data Efficient Algorithms
PI: Mingrui Liu, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computing
- Computational Simulations of Human Habitats in Space
PI: Anamaria Berea, Computational and Data Sciences, College of Science
- Bio-inspired Metamaterials via Additive Manufacturing: Design & Optimization
PI: Shaghayegh (Shay) Bagheri, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing (CEC)
Co-PI: Maryam Parsa, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing (CEC)
Take It to the Next Level
- Influence of Internalized Racism on Maternal Mental Health and Infant Health Outcomes in Washington, DC
Co-PI: Amira Roess, Global and Community Health, College of Public Health
Co-PI: Akila-Ka Ma’at, Communication, Women Gender Studies, African and African American Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Leah Adams, Psychology and Women Gender Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Virginia Espina, School of Systems Biology, College of Science
Anna Pollack, Global and Community Health, College of Public Health
- Ubiquitous Sign Language Recognition and Interactions Using WiFi
PI: Parth Pathak, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computing
Huzefa Rangwala, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computing
- Breaking Cycles of Crime Through Employment: A Study of Tempus Novo’s Successful Rehabilitation Model
PI: Daniel Houser, Department of Economics & Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Co-PI: Cesar J. Rebellon, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Co-PI: Jia Liu, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
We want to thank all the teams that participated in the competition and congratulations to the teams selected for funding.
Andre Marshall, Vice President, Research Innovation and Economic Impact