September 2023 Grants and Awards
The Role of Stress in Human Crowd Dynamics during Emergency Situations
Principal Investigator:
Nicole T. Abaid
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$354,551
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Context-Dependent Neural Processing of Leg Proprioception in Drosophila
Principal Investigator:
Sweta Agrawal
Assistant Professor
School of Neuroscience
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$745,962
Sponsor:
National Institutes of Health
High Order Wave Equation Algorithms for the Frequency Domain
Principal Investigator:
Daniel E. Appelo
Professor
Department of Mathematics
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$283,456
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Enhanced Mid-Atlantic System Sustainability Through Development of High-Protein and Stress Tolerant Faba Bean for Winter Production?
Principal Investigator:
Maria Balota
Professor
Tidewater Agriculture Research Extension Center
Agriculture Experiment Station
Total Anticipated:
$2,664,745
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture
A Neuromechanical-Robotic Approach to Control Pathological Tremor in Upper Limbs
Principal Investigator:
Oumar Barry
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$599,660
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Cyberbiosecurity for Air-Gapped Portable Genome Sequencing Systems
Principal Investigator:
Feras A. Batarseh
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Systems Engineering
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$23,121
Sponsor:
MRIGlobal
Nano-Bio-Hybrid Living Systems for Airborne Biothreat Detection
Principal Investigator:
Bahareh Behkam
Associate Professor and John R. Jones III Faculty Fellow
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$1,999,999
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Engaging Wyoming Communities in an Environmental Justice Approach for Advanced Nuclear Energy Facility Siting
Principal Investigator:
Rachael Budowle
Collegiate Assistant Professor
Honors College
Total Anticipated:
$94,835
Sponsor:
University of Wyoming
Toward a Decentralized Cross-administrator Zone Management System: Policy and Technology
Principal Investigator:
Eric W. Burger
Research Professor
Commonwealth Cyber Initiative
Office of Research and Innovation
Total Anticipated:
$300,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Applying Rules of Life to Forecast Emergent Behavior of Phytoplankton and Advance Water Quality Management
Principal Investigator:
Cayelan C. Carey
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$2,076,344
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Global Centers Track 2: Building the Global Center for Forecasting Freshwater Futures
Principal Investigator:
Cayelan C. Carey
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$250,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Analyzing Impacts of White-Tailed Deer Herbivory on Vegetation in NCR Parks: ROCR and CATO
Principal Investigator:
Thomas A. Coates
Assistant Professor
Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation
College of Natural Resources and Environment
Total Anticipated:
$114,320.91
Sponsor:
National Park Service
Developing Management Strategies for Ambrosia Beetle and Red-Headed Flea Beetle, as Key Pests in Ornamental Nursery Production
Principal Investigator:
Alejandro Del Pozo-Valdivia
Assistant Professor
Hampton Roads Agriculture Research Extension Center
Agriculture Experiment Station
Total Anticipated:
$33,767
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Midwest Area
Weed Management in Virginia Small Grains 2023
Principal Investigator:
Michael L. Flessner
Associate Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$7,900
Sponsor:
Virginia Small Grains Board
User-Testing of Cover Crop Performance Mapping Tool for Precision Integrated Weed Management
Principal Investigator:
Michael L. Flessner
Associate Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$30,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service Pacific West Area
Integrated Conservation Agronomy Expansion
Principal Investigator:
Michael L. Flessner
Associate Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$1,130,866
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service
Automating Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing of Campus Network Traffic Logs
Principal Investigator:
Mark K. Gardner
Network Research Manager
Advanced Research Computing
Total Anticipated:
$50,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Assessing the Potential Impacts of the EU's Deforestation Free Supply Chain Regulation on U.S. and Global Agricultural and Forestry Exports
Principal Investigator:
Jason H. Grant
W.G. Wysor Professor
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$74,999
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service
Circuit Support for Maintaining the Continuous-Power Abstraction in Energy Harvesting Systems
Principal Investigator:
Matthew Hicks
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$450,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Determining the Role of Pseudogymnoascus Destructans Evolution in White-Nose Syndrome Disease Dynamics in North America and its Impacts on Bat Management
Principal Investigator:
Joseph R. Hoyt
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$91,129.30
Sponsor:
United States Geological Survey
Mobile Distributed MIMO: Learning Meets Spreading in Networking
Principal Investigator:
Daniel Jakubisin
Assistant Professor
Virginia Tech National Security Institute
Total Anticipated:
$279,115
Sponsor:
Advanced Technology International
A Cross-Stack Approach to Reduce Memory Carbon in Cloud Data Centers
Principal Investigator:
Xun Jian
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$1,000,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
The Role of Endothelial Connexins in Vascular Wound Repair
Principal Investigator:
Scott R. Johnstone
Assistant Professor
Vice President of Health Sciences and Technology
Faculty of Health Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$100,849
Sponsor:
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
Virginia Department of Transportation Survey for Freshwater Mussels Route 624 Bridge, North Fork Clinch River, Scott County, Virginia
Principal Investigator:
Jess W. Jones
Associate Professor
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation
College of Natural Resources and Environment
Total Anticipated:
$8,466
Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Transportation
Benefits and Impacts of Grazing on Conservation
Reserve Program
Principal Investigator:
Sarah M. Karpanty
Professor
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation
College of Natural Resources and Environment
Total Anticipated:
$591,037
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency
Securing Next G Millimeter-Wave Communication in Programmable RF Environments with Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces
Principal Investigator:
Jacek Kibilda
Associate Professor
Commonwealth Cyber Initiative
Office of Research and Innovation
Total Anticipated:
$219,999
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Building Capacity for Research in Technology-Based Social Entrepreneurship Education for the Next Generation of Engineering Leaders
Principal Investigator:
Dayoung Kim
Assistant Professor
Department of Engineering Education
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$349,957
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Multiscale Structural Mechanobiology of Platelet-Driven Blood Clot Contraction
Principal Investigator:
Oleg Kim
Assistant Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$150,000
Sponsor:
American Society of Hematology
Leishmania and Zoonotic Disease Transmission in Sandflies of the Peruvian Amazon
Principal Investigator:
Kevin K. Lahmers
Clinical Professor
Veterinary Medical Research and Graduate Studies
College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$10,000
Sponsor:
Food and Agriculture Research Foundation
Collaborative Research: Overcoming Isolation and Scholarly Devaluation by Bolstering the Collective Agency of Black Discipline-Based Education Researchers
Principal Investigator:
Walter C. Lee
Associate Professor and Assistant Department Head for Graduate Programs
Department of Engineering Education
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$1,095,344
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Youth-Centered Civic Technology, Science, and Art for Improving Community Heat Resilience Infrastructure
Principal Investigator:
Theodore C. Lim
Assistant Professor
School of Public and International Affairs
Total Anticipated:
$1,000,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Convergent Anthropocene Systems (Anthems) - A System-of-Systems Paradigm
Principal Investigator:
John C. Little
Charles E. Via, Jr. Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$1,649,839
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Discovery and Characterization of a Novel Natural Product for the Treatment of Both Diabetes and Obesity
Principal Investigator:
Dongmin Liu
Professor
Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$1,945,383
Sponsor:
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Mobile Distributed MIMO: Learning Meets Spreading in Networking
Principal Investigator:
Lingjia Liu
Professor and Bradley Senior Faculty Fellow
Virginia Tech National Security Institute
Total Anticipated:
$8,741,427
Sponsor:
Advanced Technology International
Robots that Influence Human Behavior Across Long-Term Interaction
Principal Investigator:
Dylan P. Losey
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$243,600
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Low-Input Profiling of Brain-Region and Cell-Type Specific Epigenomic Dynamics to Understand Gene-Environment Interactions in Opioid Addiction
Principal Investigator:
Chang Lu
Fred W. Bull Professor
Chemical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$3,467,071
Sponsor:
National Institute on Drug Abuse
The Network of Local Officials in Qing China: Did Nepotism Contribute to the Decline of the Empire?
Principal Investigator:
Shaowen Luo
Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$20,000
Sponsor:
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation International Scholarly Exchange
CyberTraining: Implementation: Medium: Transforming the Molecular Science Research Workforce Through Integration of Programming in University Curricula
Principal Investigator:
Jessica Nash
Research Scientist CY
Department of Chemistry
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$792,646
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Postdoc Fellowship
Principal Investigator:
Kimberly L. Niewolny
Professor
Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$225,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Measurement of In-Situ Geomechanical Properties Using Hydraulic Techniques
Principal Investigator:
Rohit Pandey
Assistant Professor
Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$333,668
Sponsor:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Prediction and Mitigation of Erosion, Abrasive Wear and Particle Attrition in Gen3 Falling Particle CSP System Components
Principal Investigator:
Ranga Pitchumani
George R. Goodson Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$500,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Energy
Muon and Neutrino Science at Virginia Tech
Principal Investigator:
Kevin T. Pitts
Professor and Dean, College of Science
Department of Physics
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$250,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Energy
Carbon and Color: Linking Soil Carbon Properties, Ecosystem Functions, and Color Requirements for Soil Classification and Taxonomy
Principal Investigator:
Angela R. Possinger
Assistant Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$491,803
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service
Leveraging a Cloud-Based Platform to Quantify the Uncertainty of the Process-Structure-Property-Surface Relationship for Repeatable Additive Manufacturing of Inconel 718 Parts
Principal Investigator:
Bart Raeymaekers
Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$499,999
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Machine Learning to Improve Detection and Traceability of Forest Products and Forest Risk Commodities Using Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA)
Principal Investigator:
Narendran Ramakrishnan
Thomas L. Phillips Professor
Computer Science
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$625,764
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Novel Tools for Early Intervention in the Control of Haemonchus Contortus (Barber's Pole Worm)
Principal Investigator:
Roger A. Ramirez Barrios
Associate Professor
Veterinary Medical Research and Graduate Studies
College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$10,000
Sponsor:
Food and Agriculture Research Foundation
Integrating Science and Action: An Invasive Species Policy Database for the National Early Detection and Rapid Response Information System
Principal Investigator:
Emily M. Reed
Postdoctoral Associate
Fralin Life Sciences Institute Investments
Fralin Life Sciences Institute
Total Anticipated:
$50,000
Sponsor:
United States Geological Survey
Using a Multilayer Plant-Pollinator and Fruit-Frugivore Network along a Defaunation Gradient to Understand the Combined Influence of Mutualisms on Forest Communities
Principal Investigator:
Haldre S. Rogers
Associate Professor
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation
College of Natural Resources and Environment
Total Anticipated:
$970,052
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
U.S.-Ireland Research and Development Partnership: Processing-Driven Nucleation Mediated Control for Manufacturing of Phase-Pure Ferroelectric Hafnia
Principal Investigator:
Christina M. Rost
Assistant Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$143,196
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
The Fear of "Here": Integrating Place-Based Travel Behavior and Detection into Novel Infectious Disease Models
Principal Investigator:
Nick Ruktanonchai
Assistant Professor
Veterinary Medical Research and Graduate Studies
College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$629,785
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Light in the Dark: Fiber Optic Sensing of Climate-Critical Carbon Cycle Components at Water/Ice-Air Interfaces
Principal Investigator:
David G. Schmale
Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$200,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Efficient and On-Demand Spectrum Coexistence for Satellite-Terrestrial Systems
Principal Investigator:
Yi Shi
Associate Professor
Commonwealth Cyber Initiative
Office of Research and Innovation
Total Anticipated:
$749,999
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Flow Regulated Nasal Delivery system
Principal Investigator:
Umar Sofi
Associate Professor
Department of Internal Medicine
Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Departments
Total Anticipated:
$50,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Quantifying and Contextualizing Soil Health in Virginia Vineyards
Principal Investigator:
Ryan D. Stewart
Associate Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$200,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service
Enabling Cloud-Native Event-Driven Function-as-a-Service Computing Workflows in R
Principal Investigator:
Robert Q. Thomas
Associate Professor
Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation
College of Natural Resources and Environment
Total Anticipated:
$85,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Addressing Climate and Sustainable Food Systems Challenges via Sustainable Productivity Growth
Principal Investigator:
Tommy L. Thompson
Associate Dean and Director of College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Global
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Global
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$54,997
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service
Understanding and Engineering Chemically Activated Ubiquitin Ligases
Principal Investigator:
Robert C. Wright
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Systems Engineering
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$1,835,561
Sponsor:
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences
Exploring Temperatures During the Cambrian Explosion Using Oxygen Isotopes of Phosphatic Small Shelly Fossils
Principal Investigator:
Shuhai Xiao
Professor
Department of Geosciences
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$5,500
Sponsor:
Virginia Space Grant Consortium
Novel Nanosensors for the Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Animal Diseases
Principal Investigator:
Chenming Zhang
Professor and Turner Faculty Fellow
Department of Biological Systems Engineering
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$650,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Multi-Functional Intelligent Voltage Source Converter High Voltage Direct Current
Principal Investigator:
Richard Zhang
Hugh P. and Ethel C. Kelly Professor
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$50,000
Sponsor:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
1890 Scholarship Program Evaluation Project
Principal Investigator:
Peter E. Ziegler
Assistant Professor and Director, Civic Agriculture and Food Systems Pathway Minor
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Academic Programs
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$163,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture