The Research Development Office in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research is pleased to announce the final awardees from FY 2024 of the Here and Next Seed Grant Program. The program’s broad goal is to encourage novel, innovative interdisciplinary research excellence amongst Washington University researchers on both the Med School and Danforth Campuses. Largely writ, these programs aid them in laying the groundwork to be competitive and successful in submitting proposals to external funding opportunities, particularly complex, large proposals.
Proposed research projects and teams must be fundamentally interdisciplinary and innovative. Proposals also must address five key areas of focus within the Here & Next agenda: Public Health, Global Health, Environmental Research, Digital Transformation, and Research Impacting the St. Louis Community.
Congratulations to the below teams!
All programs are returning for FY 2025, but with new clarified names. Program details and application information can all be found on the Here and Next Research Seed Grant website. Questions can be directed to researchseedfunding@wustl.edu.
Transcend Initiative Grant Awardees — Fiscal Year 2024
Formerly, Tier 3: University-Wide Research Initiatives, five teams have been awarded Transcend Initiative Grants from the Fiscal Year 2024 cycle. These grants are meant to support collaborative teams of research in interdisciplinary research that will position WashU as a leader in the region, the nation, and the globe.
- Geospatial Research Initiative Public Health and Environmental Research; Leadership: Nathan Jacobs, Alexander Bradley, Michael Frachetti, Jennifer Moore
- Improving Mental Health, Poverty, and AIDS Research and Training in Global Contexts (IMPACT GLOBAL) Center Public Health, Global Health; Leadership: Fred Ssewamala, Mary McKay, Patricia Cavazos-Rehg
- Air Quality & Health Public Health and Environmental Research; Leadership: Randall Martin, Ziyad Al-Aly, Jay Turner, Victor Davila-Roman, Yin Cao
- Center for Education Research, Practice, and Policy Partnerships (CERP³), Digital Transformation, Public Health, & Research Impacting the St. Louis Community; Leadership: Jason Jabbari, Kelly Harris, Allison King, Andrew Butler, Victoria May, Rachel Ruggirello, Michael Wysession, Young-Shin Jun, Casey Reimer
- Center for Holistic Interdisciplinary Research in Psychedelics (CHIRP), Public Health & St. Louis Community; Leadership: Ginger Nicol, Leopoldo Cabassa
Teams that show great promise have been awarded partial Transcend Initiative Grants to further develop their initiatives.
- University-Wide Research on Vector-Borne, Public Health, Research Impacting the St. Louis Community; Leadership: Solny Adalsteinsson, Jacco Boon, Michael Landis, Susan Flowers
- Children and Youth Collaborative Network, Public Health; Leadership: Melissa Jonson-Reid, Brown School; Anneliese Schaefer, WUSM; Kimberly Johnson, Brown School
- EnviroTex: Advancing Interdisciplinary Environmental Solutions in Textiles Design to Adoption, Environmental Research; Leadership: Marcus Foston, Arpita Bose, Dino Christenson, Mary Ruppert-Stroescu
- WashU Synthetic Biology Initiative of Plants and Microbes, Environmental Research; Leadership: Joseph Jez, Fuzhong Zhang, Himadri Pakrasi
Spring 2024 Ignite Interdisciplinary Project Support Grant
Formerly Tier 2: Interdisciplinary Project Grants, this program is now called Ignite Interdisciplinary Grants. After a rigorous review by an interdisciplinary panel of senior researchers, nine awards were made across all Priority Areas in Spring 2024. In AY 2023-24, this program supported 18 interdisciplinary teams across multiple disciplines and schools.
The following projects and faculty were awarded:
- Cognitive Landscapes: Integrating Minecraft and AI for Enhanced Behavioral Analysis
H&N Area: Digital Transformation; Co-PIs: Dennis Barbour, McKelvey School of Engineering; John Zempel, WUSM - Neurogenic modeling of acute fentanyl toxicity in Drosophila
H&N Area: Public Health; Co-PIs: Yehuda Ben-Shahar, Arts & Sciences; Jose Moron-Concepcion, WUSM - Migration, Urbanization, and the Microbiomes of the Galapagos Giant Tortoises
Priority Area: Environmental Research; Co-PIs: Fangqiong Ling, McKelvey School of Engineering; Jonathan Losos, Arts & Sciences - Adapting novel wearable postpartum hemorrhage sensors and device workflow for a pilot study in Nigeria
Priority Area: Global Health; Co-PIs: Christine O’Brien, McKelvey School of Engineering; Mark Huffman, WUSM; Zainab Mahmoud, WUSM - Tia Zaa Bohima! (Let’s Learn Together): Making risks associated with child labor visible in schools and communities in Northern Ghana
Priority Area: Global Health; Co-PIs: Ozge Sensoy Bahar, Brown School, Penina Acayo-Laker, Sam Fox School - Understanding the preferences for quality of inpatient psychiatric care among patients, family, and providers, and the public using a discreet choice experiment
Priority Area: Public Health; Co-PIs: Morgan Shields, Brown School; Derek Brown, Brown School; Kevin Xu, WUSM - Hypertension and social determinants of health (SDOH) in the Greater St. Louis Area
Priority Area: Public Health; Co-PIs: Lindsay Underhill, Brown School; Jenna Ditto, McKelvey School of Engineering - Understanding the Interplay of Co2 capture and air quality
Priority Area: Environmental Research
Co-PIs: Lu Xu, McKelvey School of Engineering; Sophia Hayes, Arts & Sciences
Spring 2024 Spark Funding Awardees
The following projects have been awarded small grant dollars to spurn research activity, through proposal development efforts or early collaboration and team-building through pop-up initiatives during the summer months of 2024.
- From Consultation to Empowerment: A Pop-Up Initiative to Economic Development
Priority Area: Global Health, Public Health, & Environmental Research
Co-PIs: Mitra Naseh, Brown School; Rachel Brown, Arts & Sciences; Nhial Tutlam, Brown School; Proscovia Nabunya, Brown School - Mainstreaming Climate Content into Traditional Curriculums: Using Group Model Building to Identify priorities and pathways
Priority Area: Environmental Research, Public Health
Co-PIs: Duana Russell-Thomas, WUSM; Ellis Ballard, Brown School - Global Adolescent Health and Economic Strengthening Conference
Priority Area: Global Health, Public Health; Co-PIs: Fred Ssewamala, Brown; Juliet Iwelunmor, WUSM; Chenyang Lu, McKelvey School of Engineering - The Autonomous Future of Mobility: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Trustworthy AI Systems for Sustainable and Equitable Urban Futures
Priority Area: Digital Transformation, Public Health, Environmental Research; Co-PIs: Constance Vale, Sam Fox; Eugene Vorobeychik, McKelvey School of Engineering
- Refugee Success: Developing a refugee-grounded measure and understanding determinants
Priority Area: Public Health; Co-PIs: Ilana Seff, Brown School; Margot Moinester, Arts & Sciences - Building partnerships to support LGBTQ+ asylum in Mexico
Priority Area: Public Health, Global Health; Co-PIs: Lindsay Stark, Brown School; Jeremy Goldbach, Brown School; Julia Lopez, WUSM - Strengthening community partnerships to improve mental health in South Africa and globally
Priority Area: Public Health, Global Health; Co-PIs: Lindsey Filiatreau, WUSM; Byron Powell, Brown School - Engineering targeted Soil Microbiota Transplants for restoring health of depleted agricultural soils
Priority Area: Environmental Research; Co-PIs: Arpita Bose, Arts & Sciences; Joshua Blodgett, Arts & Sciences; Fangqiong Ling, McKelvey School of Engineering; Christopher Topp, Arts & Sciences - Addressing Substance Use Disorder Among Survivors of Human Trafficking
Priority Area: Public Health, Global Health; Co-PIs: Theresa Anasti, Brown School; Nathaniel Dell, WUSM - Race, Education, and Place: Mapping the Non-Profit Landscape in the St. Louis Region
Priority Area: Research Impacting the St. Louis Community; Co-PIs: Michelle Purdy, Arts & Sciences; Kia Davis, WUSM; Kelly Harris, WUSM; Nadirah Farah Foley, Arts & Sciences; Seanna Leath, Arts & Sciences; Bronwyn Nichols Lodato, Arts & Sciences - Federated Casual Inference for Reliable real-world evidence generation in medicine
Priority Area: Digital Transformation; Co-PIs: Linying Zhang, WUSM; Xuming He, Arts & Sciences; David Liss, WUSM; Adam Wilcox, WUSM