Featured Awards – May 2014

‌Clement Alo (Earth and Environmental Studies, CSAM) was awarded $19,998 from the US Agency for International Development for “Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (LEAP)” in support of an International Research Scholar who will be visiting MSU under the mentorship of Dr. Alo.

Charles Du (Biology and Molecular Biology, CSAM) received a $160,916 subaward from Rutgers University for the first year of NSF-funded project “A sequence-indexed reverse genetics resource for maize: a set of lines with single Ds-GFP insertions spread throughout the genome.” The first year of the project will include the assembly, annotation, and mapping of SOLiD-generated short reads as putative tac sites.

The Mathematical Association of America awarded Aihua Li (Mathematical Sciences, CSAM) $27,300 for “Interdisciplinary Research in Graph Theory and its Applications in the Sciences,” which will offer select 4 undergraduate minority students from MSU or other nearby universities opportunities to explore selected graph theory problems raised from chemistry and biology and to experience original mathematics research and scientific applications.

Robert Prezant (Dean, CSAM) and Carlos Molina (Biology & Molecular Biology, CSAM) received a $11,218 supplement to a subaward from Rutgers University/NSF for “LSAMP: The Garden State Alliance for Minority Participation.” The goal of this project is to increase the participation of African American and Hispanic students in the sciences and address the national shortage of STEM-trained professionals from underrepresented minority groups.

Meiyin Wu (Passaic River Institute, CSAM) and Lee Lee (Biology & Molecular Biology, CSAM) were awarded $24,978 by the US Environmental Protection Agency for “The Third River Study for Pathogen Indicators” which will monitor ten sampling sites along the Third River. The ultimate goal of the project will be to encourage environmental stewardship among all the communities along the Third River, as well as encouraging a routine monitoring of the water quality.