Research Momentum Funds

Award Recipients List

Announcing the 2022-2023 Recipients

• Paulo Almeida (Chemistry & Biochemistry, CAS) “Interactions and Assembly of β-Hairpin Peptides on Membranes”
• Xuemei Chen (Mathematics & Statistics, CAS) “Structured Signal Recovery and Its Applications”
• Indranil Ghosh (Mathematics & Statistics, CAS) “Application of heavy-tailed probability distributions in analyzing health and financial data breaches: a statistical study”
• Michael Gordon (World Languages & Cultures, CAS) “A Way Back Home: The Return of Jews to the Heart of the Spanish Empire”
• Michel Heijnen, Alexander McDaniel, and Tseh Wayland, (School of Health & Applied Human Sciences, CHHS) “Efficacy of Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) 12-Week Virtual Exercise Program”
• Michaela Howells (Anthropology, CAS) “Does social status impact maternal stress among pregnant people following a natural disaster? An assessment of intergenerational risk.”
• Christina Lord (World Languages & Cultures, CAS) “From French Comics to "Star Wars": Transvisual Culture in Science Fiction and Fantasy”
• Ralph Mead (Chemistry & Biochemistry, CAS) and Jennifer McCall (School of Nursing, CHHS) “Discovering the Role Replacement Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Play in Chronic and Acute Inflammation”
• Lorian Schweikert (Biology & Marine Biology, CAS) “Developing proposals for the AFOSR Young Investigator Program and the NSF DBI BRC-BIO Program #22-500 to investigate the role of dermal photoreception in dynamic color change of animal skin” Mentor Request: Stephen Kinsey

Spring 2021 Recipients

• Catharina Alves de Souza, Center for Marine Science (CMS) “Scaling-up culturing of omega-3 PUFA-producing cyanobacteria as a supplement for poultry and aquaculture feed” 
• Brian Arbogast and Stephanie Kamel, Co-PI, Biology & Marine Biology (CAS) “Conservation Genetics and Development of a Genetic Management Plan for the Federally Threatened Cheat Mountain Salamander
• Danielle Daidone, World Languages & Cultures (CAS) “Documenting instructor input in the Spanish language classroom” Mentor Request: Jess Boersma 
• Gene Felice II, Art and Art History (CAS) “The Algae Society Presents: “Speculative Futures Lab”” 
• Lee Soon Goo, Chemistry & Biochemistry (CAS) “Structural and Functional Studies of Phosphoethanolamine Methyltransferase (PMT) from Eimeria tenella: Anti-Parasitic Drug Targets” 
  Mentor Request: Antje Almeida 
• Robert Mark Spaulding, History (CAS) “Research Center in International Trade and Exchange"

Fall 2020 Recipients

Funded Momentum proposals consisted of 14 traditional and 5 collaborative applications. This year 22 Momentum applications were received. There were 17 traditional individual applications, 5 collaborative applications and 6 Mentor Requests.

• Antje Almeida, Chemistry & Biochemistry (CAS) “Fishing for calcium ions: exploring antibiotic design principles”
• Philip Bresnahan, Earth & Ocean Sciences (CAS) “Exploring Spatiotemporal Variability in Carbon Dioxide Fluxes in Wilmington’s Estuaries Via Novel Sensor/Drone/Satellite Integrations”
• Katherine Bruce (Psychology, CAS) and Mark Galizio, Co-PI (Psychology, CAS) “Drug Effects on Rodent Models of Working and Episodic Memory”
• Jeeyae Choi and Charlotte Thompson, Co-PI (School of Nursing, CHHS) “Development and Evaluation of a Virtual Reality Nursing Educational Program for Undergraduate Nursing Students”
• Elham Ebrahimi, Computer Science (CAS) “Bridging the Diversity Gap: Changing the Narrative Surrounding Minorities in STEM Fields”  Mentor Request: Karl Ricanek
• Peng Gao, Earth & Ocean Sciences (CAS) “Assessing Wildfire Risk in the Southeast U. S. Using a Fire Behavior Model”
• Eman M. Ghoneim, Earth & Ocean Sciences (CAS) “Detecting sandy buried archaeological sites in Upper Egypt using machine-learning classification of multisensor and multitemporal space-borne satellite data”
• Dana El Hajj, School of Nursing (CHHS) “Reducing Risk for Adverse Outcomes of COVID-19 with a Virtual Reality/Motivational Interviewing approach as a Smoking Cessation Intervention”
• Peter Haproff, Earth & Ocean Sciences (CAS) “Geomorphic and Thermochronologic Responses to the Uplift of the Santa Monica Mountains, CA and Implications for Regional Seismic Hazard”
• Daniel Johnson, Music (CAS) “The Effects of Music Therapy on Sleep: A Meta-Analysis of the Literature in Preparation for an NIH/NEA Grant on Music Therapy among People with Mild Alzheimer’s” Mentor Request: TBD
• Stephen Kinsey and Sarah Fausett, Co-PI (Biology & Marine Biology, CAS) “Proof-of-concept studies on energetics and life history in body size mutants of C. elegans”
• Hikmet Kocamaner, Anthropology (CAS) “From Zoom Prayers to Televised Sermons: How Media Technologies Help Mediate Religious Practices and Congregational Belonging during the COVID-19 Pandemic among the Practitioners of Abrahamic Religions in the United States”
• Athena R. Kolbe, School of Social Work (CHHS) “Prevalence and impacts of institutional child abuse”
• Jennifer R. McCall, School of Nursing (CHHS) “Creation of a screening library for bioactivity in the Algal Resource Collection”
• Sudip Mittal, Computer Science (CAS) “Center for AI and Security Technologies in Finance (UNCW FinCAST)” Mentor Request: Karl Ricanek
• Ginger Rhodes, (Mathematics and Statistics, ETEAL/Applied Learning, CAS) and Kerry Robinson, Co-PI (Educational Leadership, WEC) “Formative Assessment and Responsive Teaching: Transforming Schools through Synergistic Leadership in STEM”  Mentor Request: TBD
• Jacob F. Warner, Biology & Marine Biology (CAS) “Analysis of gene expression during coral embryogenesis to support grant submissions to the NSF IOS Developmental Systems program and NIH NIGMS MIRA”
• Zhangping Wei, Physics & Physical Oceanography (CAS) “Development of an artificial intelligence-based approach to identify/classify hurricane damage from post-disaster images and videos”
• Yiyi C. Yang (Communication Studies, CAS) and Song Yang, Co-PI (Computer Science, CAS) “An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Sigma in the Context of Young Adults Suicide Prevention Drawing on Stigma Communication, Deep Learning, and Text Mining” Mentor Request: Karl Ricanek