NSF Funding Surge Accelerates Research Growth At CCNY

The City College of New York (CCNY) is experiencing a surge in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).  Since August 1 members of the College’s faculty have received 22 grants from NSF totaling $8.9 million.

The rise reflects an increase in proposals submitted by faculty members, according to Regina Masterson, Director of the Office of Research Administration.  In addition, several new faculty members brought grants with them that had been awarded to them at their previous institution, she noted.

“We are experiencing unprecedented funding levels, with $30 million from all sources for the first few months of the 2009 – 10 academic year.” Ms. Masterson added.  “Much of this activity is the result of the federal economic stimulus program.” 

The new NSF grants will accelerate the College’s drive toward its strategic goal of $65 million in funded research by 2012 as it strives to become a research university.  Last year, research funding increased by 21.5 percent to $55.2 million.

The grants will support investigations into issues that range from improved techniques for measuring the surface mass of the Greenland ice sheet to factors affecting the desulfurization of diesel fuel and to the movement of interstitial fluid within bone cells.

Five of the grants were funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).  Several of these projects were deemed to have scientific merit, but could not be supported in the past due to NSF budgetary constraints, Ms. Masterson said. The ARRA funding will support research and administrative positions at CCNY and provide orders for businesses that supply scientific equipment to the College.  

A list of principal investigators receiving NSF funding, their grant titles, funding amounts and durations follows.  Grants funded under ARRA are identified by an asterisk at the end of the listing.

Teresa Bandosz, Professor of Chemistry, “Investigation of Factors Affecting Adsorption Capacity and Selectivity of Activated Carbon in Highly Efficient Desulfurization of Diesel Fuel,” $291,762 over three years.
 
Maria Binz-Scharf, Assistant Professor of Economics, “VOSS: New Generations of Scientific Knowledge in Collaborations,” $368,210 over three years.
 
Stephen Cowin, Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, “Feeding and Exciting Bone Cells with Interstitial Fluid Movement,” $250,000 over two years.

David Crouse, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, “Collaborative Research: Planning Grant: I/UCRC for Metamaterials,” $10,000 for one year.

Jorge Gonzalez, NOAA-CREST Professor of Mechanical Engineering, “Understanding Impacts of Climate Change on Energy Infrastructure in Urbanized Coastal Area,” $121,996 for one year.

Ronald Koder, Assistant Professor of Physics, “A Simple, Robust Biomimetic Charge Separation Protein Domain,” $444,880 over two years.

Hernan Makse, Professor of Physics, “Statistical Analysis of Jammed Matter,”  $90,000 for one year.

Nicholas Madamopoulos, Professor of Electrical Engineering, “A Cost-Effective Migration Path to a Fully Packet-Based Hybrid Fixed/Mobile Backhaul Infrastructure,” $118,179 for one year.

Jeffery Morris, Professor of Chemical Engineering, “PREM: City College-Chicago MRSEC Partnership on the Dynamics of Heterogeneous and Particulate Materials.”  $3,000,000 over five years.*

V. P. Nair, Professor and Chair of Physics, “Collaborative Research: Topics in Gauge Theory, Gravity and String Cosmology,” $480,000 over three years.*  

Neville Parker, Herbert Kayser Professor of Civil Engineering, “LSAMP: Bridge to the Doctorate,” $987,000 over two years.

Tony Ro, Professor of Psychology, “Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Awareness,” $176,567 for one year.

Sang-Woo Seo, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, “MRI: Acquisition of a Multi-Pocket E-Beam Evaporator for Nano/Micro Facility at CCNY,” $234,400 over two years.

Vladimir Shpilrain, Professor of Mathematics, “Collaborative Research: Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Search Problems in Group Theory,” $73,495 over three years.
 
Simon Simms, Professor and Chair of Chemistry, “Acquisition of a GC/MS for Research and Teaching,” $137,605 over three years.*

Maria Tamargo, Professor of Chemistry, “MRI: Acquisition of a High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction System for Materials Research at The City College of New York,” $475,000 for one year.
 
Marco Tedesco, Assistant Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, “Improving Surface Mass Balance Estimation of the Greenland Ice Sheet through Assimilation of Multi-Sensor Satellite Products and Ground Measurements into a Regional Climate Model,” $572,430 over three years.*

YingLi Tian, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, “Context-based Indoor Object Detection” $101,671 for one year.
 
Raymond Tu, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, “Eager: Rapid DNA Detection with a Fluctuating Surface-Active Peptide,” $50,000 for one year.

Ioana Voiculescu, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, “Eager: Novel MEMS Biosensor for Real-Time Study of the Attachment of Cancer Cells," $150,000 over two years.

Joshua Wallman, Professor of Biology, “Contextual Learning of the Adaptation of Saccadic Eye Movements,” $553,241 over four years.*

Yael Wyner, Assistant Professor of Education, “Collaborative Research: Ecology Disrupted: Using Real Scientific Data about Daily Life to Link Environmental Issues to Ecological Processes in Secondary School Science Classrooms,” $198,631 for one year.