Featured Awards – July/August 2017

Lora Billings • Dean’s Office
Aihua Li • Mathematical Sciences
Garden State LSAMP Phase II – Year 4
National Science Foundation
$71,802
The fourth year of “Garden State LSAMP Phase II,” funded by a subaward from Rutgers University, will continue and extend the programmatic support for underrepresented students heading into
the sciences other than medicine.

Mark Chopping • Earth and Environmental Studies
Changes in Shrub Abundance in Arctic Tundra from the Satellite High Resolution Record for the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment and Impacts on Albedo – Year 3
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$67,476
The project is part of NASA’s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE; http://above.nasa.gov), a large-scale NASA Terrestrial Ecology Program study of environmental change in the region and its implications for social-ecological systems. The first year funding will support project set-up, with the remainder in the second and third years going mainly towards graduate student support. The project will use semi-automated interpretation of high resolution satellite imagery to assess the direction and magnitude of changes in shrub cover and aboveground biomass in Alaskan and Canadian Arctic tundra over a 10- to 15-year period. This will provide data that can be used to validate lower spatial resolution ABoVE remote sensing data products; initiate, drive, calibrate and validate ecological models; and assess the impacts of these changes on tundra summer albedo.

‌Domenica Dominguez • Office of International Engagement
Syria Consortium Top Up Grant
Institute of International Education
$25,000
This award, which will support five Syrian students at Montclair State University, is the third grant received from IIE to directly support Syrian students.  Montclair State is an active member of the IIE Syria Consortium for Higher Education in Crisis.
Erasmus+ Call 2017
Erasmus+
Montclair State University, in collaboration with the University of Graz, Austria, will receive funding to support student and faculty mobility between the two institutions.

Margaret Freedson • Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Education
International Consortium for Multilingual Excellence in Education (ICMEE)
US Department of Education
$10,530
Funded by a subaward from University of Nebraska Lincoln, Dr. Freedson will explore the content of available ICMEE e-workshops on second language acquisition and on ELL content area instruction in K-6 math and science. Dr. Freedson will then integrate appropriate eworkshop content into the in-service work and field experiences of approximately 40 students enrolled in MSU graduate and undergraduate courses with a focus on ELL supports, creating school- and university-based learning communities around the eworkshop use.

Jinshan Gao • Chemistry and Biochemistry
RUI: Glycan Characterization and Quantitative Analysis via Free Radical Induced Dissociation
National Science Foundation
$176,000
This project will develop a new approach for glycan characterization and quantitation by combining the merits of free radical chemistry and mass spectrometry.
 

Sidney Gardner • Equity and Diversity
Interfaith Youth Core Interfaith Innovation Grant
Interfaith Youth Core
$5,000
This award will allow the Center for Faith and Spirituality at Montclair State University to develop a more holistic approach to interfaith work by working with campus partners to develop a strategic plan, marketing plan, and opportunities for leadership and education that is inclusive of the entire campus community.
 

Amir Golnabi • Mathematical Sciences
3-Dimensional Ultrasonographic Evaluation of Placental Volume Using a Novel Method
St. Barnabas Medical Center
$16,924
This award from St. Barnabas Medical Center will support an investigational study to determine the ability of medical imaging software to analyze ultrasonographic data and ultimately to create a semi-automated process for image segmentation and data analysis.
 

Janet Koehnke • Communication Sciences and Disorders
Maris Appelbaum • Communication Sciences and Disorders
New Jersey Hearing Aid Project – Year 2
NJ Department of Human Services
$ 56,224
Now into it’s fifth year, this project will continue to provide low income individuals access to needed hearing aid devices and related audiological services that otherwise are not available due to cost.
 

‌Pankaj Lal • Earth and Environmental Studies
CAREER: Geographic Suitability, Socioeconomic Uncertainty, and Environmental Consequences: Exploring Place-based Opportunities for Bioenergy Sustainability – Year 4
National Science Foundation
$79,250
This five-year project will explore place based solutions for cellulosic bioenergy sustainability, through a unique approach that coordinates three strands of research: fuzzy logic theory based geospatial suitability, stated preference survey and stochastic analyses based socioeconomic uncertainty, and life cycle assessment based environmental analyses. Two dominant cellulosic bioenergy feedstocks, namely switchgrass in Midwestern US and pine in Southern US, will be studied.
Assessing socioeconomic impacts of forest biomass based biofuel development on rural communities in the Southern United States (U.S.) – Renewal
US Department of Agriculture
$250,000
In the continuation of this project led by Dr. Lal, stakeholder surveys will be conducted in thirteen Southern States in U.S. to assess perceived socioeconomic acceptability of woody biofuels. Direct, indirect, and induced impacts of woody biofuel expansion on stakeholders will be estimated through Input Output Analysis and Social Accounting Matrix approach. Region wide distributional impact will be assessed through computable general equilibrium model. Other institutions working on this project are Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, and Tuskegee University.
 

Christopher Leberknight • Computer Science
Anna Feldman • Linguistics
SaTC: CORE: Medium: Collaborative: A Linguistically-Informed Approach for Measuring and Circumventing Internet Censorship – Year 1
National Science Foundation
$161,238
This collaborative project with Princeton University will explore a linguistically-informed approach and system for measuring and mitigating Internet censorship.
 

Jorge Lorenzo Trueba •  Earth and Environmental Studies
Managing for biodiversity and blue carbon in the face of sea-level rise and barrier-island migration – Year 2
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
$70,000
Funded by the NJ Sea Grant Consortium, this collaborative project with the University of Maryland, the University of Delaware, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences is investigating the geologic and ecologic response of coupled barrier-backbarrier systems to relative sea-level rise and the implications for the backbarrier ecosystem services of biodiversity provision and blue carbon sequestration.
 

Sarah Lowe • Psychology
Identifying Risk Factors for PTSD by Pooled Analysis of Current Prospective Studies – Year 2
National Institutes of Health
$23,641
This subaward from Harvard University supports the creation of a consortium of principal investigators to combine their individual- and item-level data towards carrying out a pooled secondary analysis to synthesize information about the predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder.
 

Bryan Murdock • Center for Community Engagement
City of Orange Proposal to the U.S. Department of Education: University Assisted Full Service Community Schools Program – Year 4
US Department of Education
$486,034
This program allows MSU to work closely with the Orange Public School District to convert two low-performing Title I schools into University-Assisted Full-Service Community Schools.
 

Lois Oppenheim • Modern Languages and Literature
Benjamin Wolf • School of Communication and Media
“Daniel, Debra, Leslie (and Maybe Drew)”
NJ Council for the Humanities
$20,000
The project, a 90-minute documentary entitled “Daniel, Debra, Leslie (and Maybe Drew),” will explore lived experiences of psychosis or, more precisely, the complex notion of being in “recovery,” a social construct with multiple meanings.
 

Jennifer ‌Robinson • Center of Pedagogy
Newark Montclair Urban Teacher Residency – Year 4
US Department of Education
$1,424,793
The fourth year of a $6.2 million project, in partnership with the Newark Public Schools (NPS), seeks to improve student achievement by applying rigorous research-based teacher preparation to the concrete needs of the NPS. The Newark Montclair Urban Teacher Residency is designed to recruit talented individuals, including those from underrepresented groups and other careers, into teaching math, science, and early childhood special education. The NMUTR also increases teacher quality and retention, which ultimately improves student achievement.
 

Joshua Sandry • Psychology
The Effect of Feedback Presentation on the Fronto-Striatal Network Activity and Fatigue in Individuals with MS
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
$23,675
Dr. Sandry’s project, funded by a subaward from the Kessler Foundation, will examine the influence of monetary feedback presentation and performance-related feedback presentation on brain activity underlying the experience of fatigue in individuals with multiple sclerosis relative to healthy controls.
 

Steven Shapiro • Library Services
Stefan Robila • Computer Science
Roboto-san: The contrasting visions of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Japanese and Western culture
NJ Council for the Humanities
$20,000
This award will support a series of free public activities from October to December 2017 that explore differing perspectives on artificial intelligence and robotics in Japanese and Western cultures. The program will also address related themes, including the philosophical questions posed by robotics, the history of “intelligent machines,” and New Jersey’s role in the development of artificial intelligence.
 

Robert Taylor • Earth and Environmental Studies
Actionable Decision-Making for Flooding Events utilizing a small UAV Platform with LiDAR and Hyperspectral Instruments
US Department of Defense
$195,953
This award will provide the necessary instrumentation as an Initiative within the Center for Environmental Management & Analysis at Montclair State University to train students to complete the following activities: to pilot a UAV; to develop algorithms specifically designed to access housing vulnerability to flooding and evacuation planning; to process and analyze data from the LiDAR and hyperspectral instrumentation; and to develop a decision-making analytic that utilizes this data to recommend to governmental agencies appropriate voluntary relocation scenarios.
 

Jennifer Urban • Family Science and Human Development
Miriam Linver • Family Science and Human Development
Boy Scouts of America National Character Initiative
Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
$780,000
This subaward from the Boy Scouts of America will help the BSA research and understand how Scouting helps to build character. Dr. Urban and Dr. Linver will be working with a team at the National BSA office to develop a model of adult volunteer training and development as well as a model of character development in Boy Scouts youth members. The models will be validated by convening focus groups across the country and will also be compared against the research literature. Drs. Urban and Linver will also be developing measures of adult and youth character development.