Awards

This information is based upon official award data from the Contracts and Grants office. It is provided to make you aware of the interesting research that is being conducted by our colleagues and that is supported through extramural sources.

- Stephen Smith, Shoah Foundation Institute, IWitnessProject, Rosenthal Family Foundation
- John Wilson, Geography, Shortest Network Paths: New Algorithms and Applications, North American Assn. of Central Cancer Registries
- Patrick James, Center for International Studies, Diversionary Dragons or Talking Tough in Taipei, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy
- Nelson Bickers, Physics and Astronomy, NIST Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Paolo Zanardi, Physics and Astronomy, Geometric Quantum Information Processing in Open Systems, National Science Foundation


Accolades

In addition to information about faculty grant awards, I would like to include other awards and accolades received by our stellar faculty.  This is not only to note accomplishments but to make all of us aware of the quality and diversity of College scholarship.  Please email me (mailto:dbyrd@college.usc.edu) with recent successes of yours or your colleagues.


Announcements

New to writing an NIH R01, or maybe it’s been a while? Here is a tip-sheet created for our College faculty: http://dornsife.usc.edu/nih-r01-tip-sheet/

NSF CAREER full proposal deadlines (due by 5:00 P.M. proposer's local time) are
- July 20, 2010, for BIO, CISE, HER, OCI;
- July 21, 2010, for ENG; and
- July 22, 2010, for GEO, MPS, SBE, and OPP.  
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08557/nsf08557.htm?govDel=USNSF_25

Please give me a heads-up if you are applying.

USC Stevens "Ideas Empowered" Funding Program
http://stevens.usc.edu/ideasempowered.php
USC Stevens is launching a 2-year pilot of the “Ideas Empowered” program that is designed to bridge the gap between academic ideas and the marketplace, and to provide support for students participating in this process. It will provide funding of typically $50K for proof-of-concept experiments and prototype development, along with connections to resources and coaching from industry experts.  Applications for the Ideas Empowered program are due on June 30, 2010. For questions, contact Juan Felipe Vallejo at jvallejo@usc.edu.


Upcoming Funding Opportunities

-- New Directions Fellowships
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation  
****Institutionally Limited.   Internal Selection Process.*****
These highly selective fellowships provide support for exceptional faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who received their doctorates between five and fifteen years ago, and whose research would benefit from their acquiring systematic training outside their own disciplines.  New Directions Fellowships are primarily for advanced training in pursuit of a specific research agenda.  Unlike other fellowship awards, this program does not aim to facilitate short-term outcomes, such as completion of a book.  Rather, New Directions Fellowships are meant to be viewed as longer-term investments in scholars' intellectual range and productivity.  The fellowships cover salary for approximately one academic year and two summers (including released time from teaching, if required). Once an award is completed, fellows will be eligible to apply for supplemental funding to permit them to make appropriate scholarly use of their newly acquired training.  This opportunity is institutionally limited.  If you are interested, please send me your CV and proposal abstract by August 1.

-- Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions
http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/fpiri.html
NEH
Grants for Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions (FPIRI) support fellowships at institutions devoted to advanced study and research in the humanities. NEH fellowships provide scholars with research time and access to resources that might not be available at their home institutions. Fellowship programs may be administered by independent centers for advanced study, libraries, and museums in the United States; American overseas research centers; and organizations that have expertise in promoting research on foreign cultures. Individual scholars must apply directly to the institutions themselves. A list of currently funded institutions is available.   http://www.neh.gov/projects/fpiri.html   In evaluating applications from programs at institutions located in the United States, priority is given to those with library holdings, archives, or other special collections-either on site or nearby-that are available as resources for NEH fellows. American overseas research centers should demonstrate a particular benefit to NEH fellows by virtue of their location and other resources. FPIRI grants provide funding to programs for humanities fellowships of four to twelve months. Fellowship tenure must be fulltime and continuous. FPIRI grants support fellowship stipends and standard allowances, as well as a portion of the costs of selecting the fellows. Indirect costs are not allowed in this program. Institutions are expected to pay FPIRI fellows stipends at a rate of $4,200 a month; therefore the minimum stipend would be $16,800 for a four-month fellowship, and the maximum stipend would be $50,400 for a twelve-month fellowship.

-- HFSP Cross-Disciplinary Fellowships (CDF)
http://www.hfsp.org/how/appl_form.php
Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Organization
Cross-Disciplinary Fellowships (CDFs) are open to applicants with a Ph.D. from outside the life sciences, e.g., in physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering or computer sciences, who have had limited exposure to biology during their previous training. Applicants for the CDF should propose a significant departure from their past research by changing, e.g., from material science or physics to cell biology, from chemistry to molecular biology, or from computer science to neuroscience.  The Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) supports innovative basic research into fundamental biological problems with emphasis placed on novel approaches that involve scientific exchanges across national and disciplinary boundaries. Biological research has become increasingly quantitative through the participation of scientists from disciplines outside the traditional life sciences such as biophysics, chemistry, computational biology, computer science, engineering, mathematics, nanoscience or physics. Such collaborations have opened up new approaches for understanding the complex structures and regulatory networks that characterize the evolution and interactions of organisms and biological systems. Within this framework the HFSP invites applications for international programs that offer postdoctoral fellowships for basic research training. The HFSP focuses on elucidating the complex mechanisms of living organisms. Emphasis is placed on novel, innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to basic research that involve scientific exchanges across national boundaries. In particular, HFSP encourages research into biological problems involving approaches and knowledge from different disciplines such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and material sciences because significant new ideas, techniques, and discoveries often arise at the boundaries between disciplines.  In addition to its international, and especially intercontinental, character, the HFSP places emphasis on supporting researchers who are early in their careers and who are expected to play an important role in generating and pursuing original research.  The scope of HFSP funding ranges from biological functions at the molecular and cellular level up to biological systems including cognitive functions. Within this broad area, all levels of analysis are supported, from studies on genes and individual molecules, intracellular networks, intercellular associations in tissues and organs, to networks underlying complex functions of entire organisms. In order to be eligible, candidates with a Ph.D. must have obtained their doctoral degree in the three years prior to the submission deadline (between September 1, 2007, and September 9, 2010). Deadline Aug 27, 2010

-- Advances in Biological Informatics (ABI) - NSF 10-567
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10567/nsf10567.htm
National Science Foundation (NSF)
The ABI program seeks to encourage new approaches to the analysis and dissemination of biological knowledge for the benefit of both the scientific community and the broader public. The ABI program is especially interested in the development of informatics tools and resources that have the potential to advance, or transform, research in biology supported by BIO. The ABI program accepts two major types of proposals: Innovation awards that seek to pioneer new approaches to the application of informatics to biological problems and Development awards that seek to provide robust cyberinfrastructure that will enable transformative biological research.  The ABI program encourages proposals that conduct collaborative and planning activities such as workshop series, network retreats, exchange visits, and the development of virtual organization frameworks. Those activities that promote interaction between the computational sciences and biology communities, as well as innovative networking strategies that foster research collaborations or enable new research directions, are especially encouraged. The ABI program will place a higher priority on proposals to create computational/informatics tools and database architectures that are applicable to a broad range of biological research questions.

-- NCRR Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) (R25)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-206.html
NCRR
*********institutionally limited competition*********
NCRR encourages applications to its Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program for the development and evaluation of innovative research education programs to improve PreK-12 research career opportunities and the community's understanding of the health science advances supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded clinical and basic research. SEPA encourages dynamic partnerships between biomedical and clinical researchers and PreK-12 teachers and schools and other interested organizations. Particular importance will be given to applications that target PreK-12 and/or ISE/media topics that may not be addressed by existing curriculum, community-based or ISE/media activities. USC is allowed only one slot for this program; interested PIs can put forward a research summary and biosketches to me no later than June 25.

-- Sloan Research Fellowships
http://www.sloan.org/fellowships
Sloan Foundation, Alfred P. Science and Technology Fellowships
The Sloan Research Fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. These fellowships are awarded to researchers in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field. Candidates for Sloan Research Fellowships are required to: * hold a Ph.D. (or equivalent) in chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, economics, neuroscience or computational and evolutionary molecular biology, or in a related interdisciplinary field; * be members of the regular faculty (i.e., tenure track) of a college or university in the United States or Canada; and * be no more than six years from completion of the most recent Ph.D. or equivalent, unless they have held a faculty appointment for less than two years or unless one of the following special circumstances apply: military service, a change of field, or child rearing. While Fellows are expected to be at an early stage of their research careers, there should be strong evidence of independent research accomplishments. Candidates in all fields are normally below the rank of associate professor and do not hold tenure, but these are not strict requirements.  Candidates are nominated by department heads or other senior researchers. More than one candidate from a department may be nominated, but we recommend no more than three. Direct applications are not accepted. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation welcomes nominations of all candidates who meet the traditional high standards of this program, and strongly encourages the participation of women and members of underrepresented minority groups.  Deadline Sept 15; please coordinate through me (dbyrd@college.usc.edu) and departmental chair.

-- Grants for Research and Exploration
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/research/grant/rg1.html
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society awards grants for scientific field research and exploration through its Committee for Research and Exploration (CRE). All proposed projects must have both a geographical dimension and relevance to other scientific fields and be of broad scientific interest. Applications are generally limited to the following disciplines: anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, biology, botany, geography, geology, oceanography, paleontology, and zoology. In addition, the committee is emphasizing multidisciplinary projects that address environmental issues (e.g., loss of biodiversity and habitat, effects of human-population pressures). This grant program does not pay educational tuition, nor does it offer scholarships or fellowships of any kind

-- High-Throughput-Enabled Structural Biology Research (U01)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-10-214.html
NIH
This FOA encourages applications to establish partnerships between researchers interested in a biological problem of significant scope and researchers providing high-throughput structure determination capabilities through the NIGMS PSI:Biology network. Applicants to this FOA should propose work to solve a substantial biological problem for which the determination of many protein structures is necessary. The proteins should be amenable to high-throughput structure determination and/or should provide suitable targets to motivate new technology development. Awardee principal investigators will become part of the PSI:Biology Network Steering Committee and will work jointly with other investigators and NIH staff to manage the overall PSI:Biology initiative.

-- Expanding and Personalizing Treatment Options for Alcohol Use Disorders Including Pharmacogenomics (R01)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAS-10-215.html
NIH
Under this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) requests research project grants (R01) to study how genetic variation affects responses to medications for the treatment of Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD). Both human and animal studies are encouraged to determine the full range of genetic variation affecting both pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic parameters resulting in altered drug efficacy and toxicity.

-- PFINDR: Phenotype Finder IN Data Resources: A Tool to Support Cross-study Data Discovery Among NHLBI Genomic Studies (UH2/UH3)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HL-11-020.html
Department of National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications for projects that propose to develop and apply advanced informatics approaches to categorize phenotypic measures in multiple datasets in data repositories to help researchers identify potentially relevant genomic studies across cardiovascular, lung, blood, and sleep research domains.

-- Army Research Office (ARO) Broad Agency Announcement for Basic and Applied Scientific Research (W911NF-07-R-0003)
http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?Action=6&Page=8
United States Department of Defense (DOD), Department of the Army, Army Research Office (ARO)
The U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) solicits proposals for basic and scientific research in mechanical sciences, environmental sciences, mathematical and computer sciences, electronics, computational and information sciences, physics, chemistry, life sciences, and materials science. Research areas of interest include the following: 1. Research Area 1: Mechanical Sciences, 2. Research Area 2: Environmental Sciences, 3. Research Area 3: Mathematical Sciences, 4. Research Area 4: Electronics, 5. Research Area 5:, Computing and Information Sciences, 6. Research Area 6: Physics, 7. Research Area 7: Chemistry, 8. Research Area 8: Life Sciences, 9. Research Area 9: Materials Science, 10. Research Area 10: ARO Special Programs.  Additional programs include the Short Term Innovative Research (STIR) Program; Young Investigator Program (YIP); Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE); Research Instrumentation (RI) Program; and DOD Programs (DURIP, DEPSCoR and HBCU/MI Infrastructure Program). The Army supports conferences and symposia in special areas of science that bring experts together to discuss recent research or educational findings or to expose other researchers or advanced graduate students to new research and educational techniques. The Army encourages the convening in the United States of major international conferences, symposia, and assemblies of international alliances. Scientific, technical, or professional organizations which otherwise qualify for a grant under the criteria in this BAA may receive conference and symposia grants. Open through 30 September 2011.