FY2026 Research and Innovation Catalytic Funding Awardees

Research and Innovation is pleased to announce the recipients of FY26 internal catalytic funding. These opportunities support and encourage research, scholarship, creative work, and innovation in multiple disciplines and foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

Awardees are recognized in the following programs:

• Charles L. Cahill Grants for Faculty Scholarship
• Research Momentum Funds
• OIC New Invention Grants
• Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series

Please review the full list of projects below.

Charles L. Cahill Grants for Faculty Scholarship

"Zoomed In, Stressed Out: The Effects of Self-Awareness on Anxiety and Speech Quality"

• Emily Baxter, Assistant Professor, Psychology
• Karen Daniels, Associate Professor, Psychology
• Carole Van Camp, Associate Professor, Psychology

"Pilot for docu-series on food and family"

• Michael Betts, Assistant Professor, Film Studies

"Evaluating the Implementation and Impact of the Community-Driven Malaria Prevention Health Education Program"

• Michelle Cathorall, Associate Professor, Health and Applied Human Sciences
• Kent Guin, Professor, Health and Applied Human Sciences

"Healthcare Professionals' Awareness, Acceptance, and Intentions to Use Integrative Health: A National Assessment"

• Yea-Jyh Chen, Associate Professor, Nursing
• Lenis Chen-Edinboro, Associate Professor, Health and Applied Human Sciences

"Quinine: New Catalysts Enabling New Medicines"

• Thomas Coombs, Associate Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry

"Retention/Detention: A bioremediation art intervention"

• Gene Felice, Associate Professor, Art and Art History

"The Films if Oablo Larraín"

• Mariana Johnson, Associate Professor, Film Studies

"Do drugs that improve exercise endurance without training have the same beneficial effects on brain function as real exercise?"

• Stephen Kinsey, Professor, Biology and Marine Biology

"Enhancing Community-Based Citizen Science Research and Education for Coastal Resilience: Building CoCoRaHS and Frog Warch USA"

• Christine Li, Assistant Professor, Environmental Sciences
• Rachel Urbanek, Department Chair, Environmental Sciences

"Leveraging Large Language Models to Assist Quantum Programming"

• Yi Liu, Associate Professor, Computer Science

"From Intention to Action: Gratitude-Based Messaging for Family Food Waste Reduction"

• Simone Nguyen, Professor, Psychology

"Living War: Women and Vietnamese Revolutionary Cinema (1945 - 1975)"

• Qui Ha Nguyen, Assistant Professor, Film Studies

"Adverse Childhood Experiences and Aggression: A Gene by Environment Investigation"

• Richard Pond, Professor, Psychology

"Expansion Microscopy at UNCW: A New Frontier in Cellular Ultrastructure Research"

• Alison Taylor, Professor, Biology and Marine Biology

Research Momentum Funds

"Glacial to Deglacial Dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet in Northeastern Baffin Bay"

• Shannon Klotsko, Associate Professor, Earth and Ocean Sciences

"Fullbright Award Application: A Comparative Analysis of Third Country Asylum"

• Julia Morris, Associate Professor, International Studies

"Signals of Growth Mindsets and Instructor Support in STEM"

• Jasmine Norman, Assistant Professor, Psychology

"A Comparative Study of AI Use by SMEs in the U.S. and Europe: Developing a Framework for Value Creation within Differing Regulatory Contexts"

• Yao Shi, Assistant Professor, Congdon School of Supply Chain

OIC New Invention Grants

"Using a zooplankton toxicology kit to solve national water quality and STEM education problems."

• Joseph Covi, Associate Professor, Biology and Marine Biology

"PULSE (Platform for Unified Learning & Simulation Excellence): Integrated technologies for educational support of students and educators"

• Shannon Ford, Assistant Professor, Nursing
• Gulustan Dogan, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
• Jacqueline Vaughn, Clinical Assistant Professor, Nursing

"The Development of An Autonomous Foosball Table for Intelligent Systems Engineering Education and Research"

• Hamed Saeidi, Assistant Professor, Computer Science

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series

"The Flood Risk and Resilience Seminar Series: Advancing Research-Based Solution for Coastal North Carolina"

• Jenny Biddle, Associate Professor, Public and International Affairs
• Phil Bresnahan, Associate Professor, Earth and Ocean Sciences 
• Joanne Halls, Professor, Earth and Ocean Sciences 
• Meredith Hovis, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science 
• Lynn Leonard, Associate Director for Research & Innovation, Center for Marine Science 
• Pete Schuhmann, Professor, Economics and Finance 
• Yang Song, Associate Professor, Computer Science 
• Lori Sutter, Assistant Professor, Biology and Marine Biology 

"Healthcare in the Era of Machine Learning"

• Xuemei Chen, Associate Professor, Mathematics and Statistics 
• Jeeyae Choi, Professor, Nursing 
• Ahmed ElSaid, Assistant Professor, Computer Science 
• Karl Ricanek, Professor, Computer Science 
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