Science research roundup: September 2019

Researchers in Arts & Sciences were recently awarded grants from the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and other organizations.

Elizabeth Haswell, professor of biology and HHMI-Simmons Faculty Scholar, received a $954,779 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a project titled, "Pollen: A model system for computational and experimental study of plan biomechanics."

Himadri Pakrasi, Myron and Sonya Glassberg/Albert and Blanche Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology and director of InCEES, was awarded $836,072 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a project titled, "Systems analysis of the interplay between oxygenic photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation in a unicellular cyanobacterium."

Douglas Chalker, professor of biology, and co-investigators at Cornell University received a $835,697 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for work on a resource center for tetrahymena thermophila, a unicellular organism that is often used as a model organism in molecular and cellular biology.

Deanna Barch, chair and professor of psychological & brain sciences, received a $554,195 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for computational psychiatry research.

Ryan Bogdan, associate professor of psychological & brain sciences, received a grant for  $264,938 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a project titled, “Modeling poly-genomic risk in the relationship between brain structure and alcohol involvement from adolescence through adulthood.”

Bronwen Konecky, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, received the Nanne Weber Early Career Award from the Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The award recognizes significant contributions in these fields from researchers within 10 years of completing their PhD. Honorees are selected on the basis of outstanding research impact, interdisciplinary work, leadership, and mentoring.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics, is a member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration that was awarded the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The award recognizes the team’s achievement of making the first image of a supermassive black hole, “taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes.” Nowak was also recently awarded a $47,000 grant from NASA for a project titled, “A rapidly spinning black hole in the (halo of the) galaxy?”

Brian Rauch, research assistant professor in the Department of Physics, received $25,000 from NASA to support his work on ultra-high energy particle astrophysics with ANITA-V.

Did we miss something? Contact Shawn Ballardcommunications specialist in Arts & Sciences.