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February 2023 Grants and Awards

CAREER: Manufacturing Soft Functional Composites through Mechanically Induced Assembly of Liquid Microstructures

Principal Investigator:
Michael D. Bartlett, Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$590,600

Sponsor:
National Science Foundation

Testing Effects of Plant Health + Fe on Physiological Fitness and Quality of Creeping Bentgrass Under Heat and Mild Drought Stress

Principal Investigator:
Xunzhong Zhang, Research Associate Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$10,000

Sponsor:
Calpis America Inc.

Investigating Adjacent Land-use Risks to Improve Good Agricultural Practices

Principal Investigator:
Laura K. Strawn, Associate Professor
Food Science and Technology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$73,854

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

Evaluate Plant Activators and Enzymes in Control of Fire Blight Inoculum Using Droplet Digital PCR

Principal Investigator:
Srdan G. Acimovic, Assistant Professor
Alson H. Smith, Jr. Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Agriculture Experiment Station

Total Anticipated:
$75,000

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

Developing Aromatic Snacking Pepper Cultivars Suitable for Vertical Agriculture

Principal Investigator:
Bingyu Zhao, Associate Professor
School of Plant and  Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$74,940

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

CAREER: Resolving the Influence of Biologically Relevant Microenvironments on Amyloid Aggregation

Principal Investigator:
Anne M. Brown, Science Informatics Consultant and Health Analytics Coordinator
Library, Dean of Libraries

Total Anticipated:
$800,000

Sponsor:
National Science Foundation

CAREER: Smart Additive Manufacturing - Fundamental Research in Sensing, Data Science,and Modeling Toward Zero Part Defects

Principal Investigator:
Prahalada K. Rao, Associate Professor
Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$500,000

Sponsor:
National Science Foundation

Evaluating Specialty Pumpkin Production and Postharvest Treatments for Shelf Life Extension in Virginia

Principal Investigator:
Steven L. Rideout, Associate Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$74,474

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

CAREER: Marshaling NEON Resources to Understand Wildlife Disease Transmission

Principal Investigator:
Luis E. Escobar Quinonez, Assistant Professor
Fish and Wildlife Conservation, College of Natural Resources and Environment

Total Anticipated:
$703,986

Sponsor:
National Science Foundation

A Flavor and Shelf-Life Focused Study of Virginia Cherry Tomatoes From Field and Indoor Facilities

Principal Investigator:
Yun Yin, Assistant Professor
Food Science and Technology,  College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$74,920

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

A New Way of Growing and Utilizing Blackberry: From Farms to Bottles

Principal Investigator:
Yun Yin, Assistant Professor
Food Science and Technology,  College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$74,054

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

Field Pea Production for Virginia: An Emerging Market?

Principal Investigator:
Mark S. Reiter, Associate Professor
Eastern Shore Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Agriculture Experiment Station

Total Anticipated:
$74,970

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

3D X-Ray CT for Research on Power Electronics Devices, Materials, Packaging, and Components for Reliable Naval Power Electronics Power Distribution Systems

Principal Investigator:
Christina M. Dimarino, Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$344,900

Sponsor:
Office of Naval Research

Pilot Demonstration of a Modular Bioprocess System for Manufacturing Consumer Bioplastic Products from Food Wastes

Principal Investigator:
Zhiwu Wang, Assistant Professor
Biological Systems Engineering, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$2,400,874

Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture

State-of-the-Art Additive Friction Stir Deposition for Advancing Manufacturing Research and Cultivating Next-Generation Workforce

Principal Investigator:
Hang Yu, Assistant Professor
Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$800,000

Sponsor:
Office of Naval Research

U.S.-Ireland R&D Partnership: Wearable Dynamic Microsystem Sampler for Collecting Microbial Volatiles

Principal Investigator:
Masoud Agah, Virginia Microelectronics Consortium Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$390,000

Sponsor:
National Science Foundation

Southeast Collaborative for Innovative and Equitable Solutions to Chronic Disease Disparities

Principal Investigator:
Warren K. Bickel, Virginia Tech Carilion Behavioral Health Research Professor
Director, Addiction Recovery Research Center
Director, Center for Health Behaviors Research
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC

Total Anticipated:
$45,994

Sponsor:
Meharry Medical College

Agricultural Productivity Growth Workshop: Drivers, Impacts, and Climatic Effects

Principal Investigator:
Tommy L. Thompson, Associate Dean and Director of Global Programs
CALS Global, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$25,000

Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Understanding the Physical Processes Controlling the Amount of Fine Sediment and Gravel Embeddedness in Streambeds

Principal Investigator:
Jonathan A. Czuba, Assistant Professor
Biological Systems Engineering, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$449,973

Sponsor:
National Science Foundation

Developing a Drug Delivery Technology that Targets Bacterial Gene Expression

Principal Investigator:
Bryan Hsu, Assistant Professor
Biological Sciences, College of Science

Total Anticipated:
$60,000

Sponsor:
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Foundation

Eisenhower Fellowship

Principal Investigator:
Miguel A. Perez, Associate Professor
Director, Center for Data Reduction and Analysis Support
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Total Anticipated:
$5,000

Sponsor:
Federal Highway Administration

Connection to Care Year 3

Principal Investigator:
Mary E. Dunkenberger, Associate Director
Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance
School of Public and International Affairs, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$269,695

Sponsor:
University of Baltimore

Investigation of the Transcriptional Regulation of Cannabinoid Synthesis in Industrial Hemp

Principal Investigator:
Bastiaan Bargmann, Assistant Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$600,000

Sponsor:

United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture

ENGULF -Coastal Land Subsidence in the GULF of Guinea: Assessing Relative Sea-Level Rise and Land Subsidence of Coastal Mega-Cities and River Deltas along the Gulf of Guinea

Principal Investigator:
Manoochehr Shirzaei, Associate Professor
Geosciences, College of Science

Total Anticipated:
$50,000.00

Sponsor:
University of Padua

Role of Axo-Axonic Interneurons in Memory Guided Behaviors

Principal Investigator:
Daniel F. English, Assistant Professor
School of Neuroscience, College of Science

Total Anticipated:
$300,000

Sponsor:
Whitehall Foundation, Inc.

Research on Lift Assists in Automotive Assembly

Principal Investigator:
Maury A. Nussbaum, H.G. Prillaman Professor
Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$150,000

Sponsor:
United Auto Workers-Ford Joint Trust

Latent Detection of Anthracnose on Strawberry Crop Using Multi-Spectral Imaging

Principal Investigator:
Jayesh B. Samtani, Assistant Professor
Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Agriculture Experiment Station

Total Anticipated:
$5,000

Sponsor:
Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium

Assessing Soil Microbiome Populations Shifts with Soil Disinfestation Treatments, Beneficial Bacteria, and Their Combinations

Principal Investigator:
Jayesh B. Samtani, Assistant Professor
Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Agriculture Experiment Station

Total Anticipated:
$5,000

Sponsor:
Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium

Collaborative Research: Research-Plant Growth Regulator: Unraveling the Origin of Vegetative Desiccation Tolerance in Vascular Plants

Principal Investigator:
Lenwood S. Heath, Professor
Computer Science, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$370,704

Sponsor:
National Science Foundation

Understanding the Drivers of Interbasin Water Transfers to Identify and Mitigate Future Conflict

Principal Investigator:
Landon T. Marston, Assistant Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$496,922

Sponsor:
United States Geological Survey

Support for the Mussel Propagation Conservation Program of the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources 2023 - 2025

Principal Investigator:
Scott D. Klopfer, Director
Conservation Management Institute, Fish and Wildlife Conservation, College of Natural Resources and Environment

Total Anticipated:
$417,534

Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources

An Environmental Chamber for Realistic Sub-Freezing Arctic Engineering Techniques and Materials

Principal Investigator:
Sherif Lotfy A. Motaleb Abdelaziz, Associate Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering

Total Anticipated:
$195,316

Sponsor:
United States Army Research Office

Cover Crop Species and Variety Evaluation to Maximize Agronomic and Economic Returns in Virginia's Row Crop Agroecosystems

Principal Investigator:
William H. Frame, Associate Professor
Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Agriculture Experiment Station

Total Anticipated:
$15,500

Sponsor:
Virginia Agricultural Council

Investigating the Impact of Genome Content on Hybridized Chestnut Trees for Growth Form Utilizing Remote Sensing Techniques: Lesesne State Forest (Nelson Co., VA)

Principal Investigator:
William C. Hession, Professor and Graduate Program Director
Biological Systems Engineering, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Total Anticipated:
$9,795

Sponsor:
American Chestnut Foundation