January 04, 2019
Faculty research grants in 2018
Faculty at Providence College received a number of notable research grants in 2018. Here are some of the highlights.
January 04, 2019
Faculty at Providence College received a number of notable research grants in 2018. Here are some of the highlights.
Dr. James S. Waters, associate professor of biology, received $632,731 award from the National Science Foundation for collaborative research among Providence College, Salve Regina University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Vermont to study evolutionary mechanisms of thermal plasticity in fruit flies — how their bodies develop and behavior changes in different temperatures. The grant is a subaward from the University of Vermont, and the total award for all institutions over four years is more than $4.7 million.
Waters also will coordinate a summer program and run a high school genetic code boot camp in the later years of the award.
Dr. Jack Costello, professor of biology who has taught at PC for 29 years, was awarded a $407,061 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Biological Oceanography Program for a collaborative project with the University of South Florida, the University of Oregon, and Roger Williams University.
The team will apply new video techniques to observe the feeding process of ctenophores, or comb jellies, to determine prey selection and predatory impact.
Dr. John J. Breen III ’81, professor of chemistry, and Dr. Joseph A. DeGiorgis, professor of biology, are collaborating with researchers at colleges and universities throughout Rhode Island to create a “Bay Observatory” to measure nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the water.
Through the $19 million federal grant from RI NSF-EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), the PC scientists are expected to receive $400,000 over five years.
Dr. Sharon Ann Murphy, professor of history, is a recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship totaling more than $50,000.
With these funds, Murphy went on sabbatical for the 2018-19 academic year to work on her research project, Banking on Slavery in the Antebellum South, discussing the relationship between banking and slavery in the antebellum South.
She also received a $3,000 American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant, which provides travel support and photo reproduction services of key collections at the APS Library in Philadelphia.
In addition, Murphy received a 2018 Hugh L. McColl Library Fund Research Fellowship for travel expenses to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for research at the Wilson Library’s Special Collections.
Dr. Maria E. Carroll, assistant professor of chemistry, received a grant of $55,000 from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. The grant supports research on iron carbonyl complexes for Carroll and three undergraduate students through ACS’s Undergraduate New Investigator Grants Program.
