Sponsored Research and Programs

The Council of Independent Colleges has recently released its Humanities Research for the Public Good Grant Request for Proposals.  This program provides funding to support undergraduate research projects that incorporate a public presentation of research findings.

Proposed projects should make use of a significant archival, library, or museum collection held by a college or university, and the applicant must parter with a community-based organization to share the results of the project with the public.

The program is designed to:

• Connect independent colleges and universities with cultural and civic organizations in their local areas for the benefit of both students and the public;
• Make better use of existing campus collections for teaching, undergraduate research, and public engagement;
• Enhance the research, collaboration, and communication skills of students in humanities disciplines;
• Encourage humanities faculty members and the staff members of campus libraries, archives, and museums to apply their expertise to issues of public policy and community concern; and
• Increase public interest in and appreciation of humanities research.

Awards will be made between $10,000 and $20,000 for the 2019-2020 academic year.  Applicants are encouraged to review the full Request for Proposals for additional details.

Proposals are due 14 December 2018.  If interested in an application, please contact Ron Fleischmann, Director of the Office of Sponsored Research and Programs (fleischmann@hope.edu).

Join us on Thursday 29 November 2018 at 3 pm in the Fried/Hemenway Auditorium for a Panel Discussion on National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowships and grants.  (Please note the date change.)

The session is intended to provide an overview of the various programs offered by the NEH, how to construct a competitive application, and how submissions are reviewed by the agency.

The panelists are:

• Natalie Dykstra, Professor of English and two-time NEH fellowship recipient. Natalie received her first NEH Fellowship award in 2005-2006 for her biography of Clover Adams.  Natalie will start work on her second NEH Fellowship, under the Public Scholar Program, in 2019 for her biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner.
• Jeanne Petit, Professor of History and Department Chair, a Summer Stipend award recipient, and a former NEH reviewer. Jeanne received a 2009 Summer Stipend award to support her project titled Catholic Women in Modern America: Gender, Race, Religion and the National Council of Catholic Women, 1918-1929.  Jeanne also reviewed proposals to the United States History program in 2014.
• Ron Fleischmann, Director of Sponsored Research and Programs and Session Moderator, provides training and technical assistance to faculty members applying for NEH grants and fellowships.

What topics will this discussion cover?

• Both Natalie and Jeanne will provide insight into how they approached the development of their applications, key considerations in assembling a competitive proposal, and key lessons learned from the process.
• Jeanne will provide an overview of her experience as a reviewer, what separated great proposals from exceptional, and key lessons learned from the review process.
• Ron will provide a broad overview of NEH grants and fellowships. Additionally, he will provide information to prospective applicants about eligibility and key considerations in developing their submissions.

Will time be provided for audience questions?

Yes!  Please come prepared to ask the panelists anything you want to know about the NEH and its programs.

How are the ‘humanities’ defined for purposes of the NEH?

NEH defines the ‘humanities’ as the study and interpretation of “language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.”

Do I need to RSVP to attend?

Yes, we respectfully request interested attendees RSVP for the event.  The RSVP form will be available through Monday 26 November 2018.

Questions? 

Feel free to contact Ron Fleischmann (fleischmann@hope.edu).

We look forward to seeing you at the event!

Are your research, scholarship, and/or teaching activities linked to global health or global health-related topics (i.e., food security, water access or filtration, etc.)?  If so, please consider joining us for a Collaborative Opportunity Gathering (COG) on Tuesday 6 November 2018 at 11 am in Martha Miller 237.

 This event will serve two purposes.  First, it will serve as an opportunity to learn about and catalog the global health work already occurring on our campus.  Second, this information will be used to better connect Hope faculty and staff to resources to support their global health-related efforts, including funding opportunities, potential partnerships, and coordinated efforts with institutional partners such as the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA).

 How will this event be structured?

Participating faculty and staff will be provided two to four minutes to provide an overview of their research, scholarship, and/or teaching activities linked to global health to attendees.  Each presenter will be provided a PowerPoint template for visual images or text.  As time allows, participants will be permitted to ask presenters questions about their work.  At the conclusion, we will highlight general themes uncovered and follow-up with participating faculty and staff about next step(s).

 Who may participate?

Any faculty or staff member is welcome to present and attend.  The only eligibility requirement for this COG is that the presentation must focus on a global health topic.

 Is registration required?

Yes, advanced registration is required.  Registration is limited and will be completed on a first-come, first serve basis.  Light refreshments will be served.

 Questions?

Feel free to contact Dede Johnston, Interim Associate Dean of Global Education (johnston@hope.edu), or Ron Fleischmann, Director of Sponsored Research and Programs (fleischmann@hope.edu).

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 6 November 2018!

Charlotte vanOyen-Witvliet, Professor of Psychology, recently received a three year, $343,445 award from Templeton Religion Trust to study accountability.  Dr. vanOyen-Witvliet will collaborate with C. Stephen Evans, Byron R. Johnson, and Sung Joon Jang at Baylor University, which serves as the lead institution on the $2 million project.  Researchers from Havard Medical School and the University of St. Andrews are also participating on the project.

The project will seek to understand how accountability is embodied as a virtue, its relation to other human characteristics, and how people can show virtue within a wide variety of supervisory, supervised, and peer relationships.  One of the key outcomes of the project is being able to measure virtue empirically–which has the potential to impact a number of academic disciplines and applied settings.

Congratulations, Charlotte, on your new award!

The Michigan Space Grant Consortium (MSGC) creates, develops, and promotes programs that support research and educational activities focused on space-related science and technology in Michigan.  MSGC projects reflect NASA strategic interests and encourage cooperation between academia, industry, and state and local government on space-related topics.

MSGC provides funding for several grant and fellowship programs:

• Undergraduate Fellowships:  These Fellowships offer $2,500 to students pursuing projects directly related to NASA strategic interests, including aerospace, space science, and Earth system science; other STEM fields; and educational research topics in STEM.
• Educational Program Support:  These grants support activities which promote, encourage, and enrich the study of STEM for K-12 students; conduct public outreach related to STEM topics, with a special emphasis on aerospace, space, or Earth system science; and pre-service and in-service teacher training on STEM topics in aerospace, space science, or Earth system science.
• Research Seed Grants: These grants are designed to support junior faculty members or senior faculty members initiating a new area of research.  Projects should develop research expertise that will allow grant recipients to further develop research areas/topics for submission to other federal or non-federal sponsors.

Proposals for all programs are due to MSGC Wednesday 14 November 2018; all projects will run 1 May 2019 through 30 April 2020.  All grants require 1:1 cost-share.

If interested in a proposal submission or need assistance assembling the required cost-share, please contact Ron Fleischmann, Director of Sponsored Research and Programs (fleischmann@hope.edu).

Today, Natalie Dykstra of our English Department received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Public Scholar Fellowship for 2019.  This is an impressive accomplishment for Natalie and the Hope community, as Public Scholar Fellowships are highly competitive–less than 10% of applicants receive an award.  Natalie’s award demonstrates the high value of her humanistic work on the general public.

Natalie is under contract with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to publish a book on Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) by 2022.  Gardner was a woman whose personal story had been eclipsed by the fame of her eponymous museum in Boston and its many masterpieces.  But Gardner’s life was one of dramatic adventure, high stakes, world-wide travel, unlikely twists, taste-making, and passionate relationships during the turn of the century America.  Though Gardner has been written about in art histories and histories of collecting in America, there has not been a serious biography of her in over 50 years.

Congratulations on your NEH fellowship, Natalie!

Stephen Remillard of our Physics Department was the recent recipient of a $142,902 grant from the Department of Energy for the project titled Generating and sustaining microplasma with microwaves.  This is a three year project that will run through 31 July 2021.

This project will engage undergraduate students in leading edge microplasma science.  Undergraduate students will assume leadership roles in the project, developing technical expertise to design experiments, contribute to peer-reviewed publications and other technical reports, and present results at conferences.  Not only will this project support the development of the next generation of scientists and educators, but also will support research which will lead to advances in the use of microplasma for commercial and biomedical purposes.

With this latest award, Dr. Remillard has been awarded over $1 million in external funding during his career at Hope College.  Congratulations, Dr. Remillard, on your accomplishment and your commitment to undergraduate research and mentoring!

Jeffrey Johnson, Professor of Chemistry, received a new National Science Foundation award in the amount of $273,855 for a project titled RUI: Carbon-carbon single bond activation as a route to new organic transformations.  The award period is 1 September 2018 through 31 August 2021.

The purpose of this project is to develop a broad understanding of transition metal-catalyzed carbon-carbon bond activation and to use this mechanistic information to guide the development of new organic transformations. These methods promise previously unknown avenues for the transformation of simple molecules into more complex species as well as the controlled fragmentation of larger molecules.   Dr. Johnson will develop a general methodology for the activation and functionalization of carbon-carbon single bonds, which may provide an inexpensive and easy way to produce synthetically-relevant complex molecules.

A primary impact of carrying out the proposed research at an undergraduate institution is the professional development of undergraduate student researchers.  Undergraduate students will have the opportunity to extend their classroom experiences with organic and inorganic chemistry, explore new subjects such as organometallic chemistry and catalysis, and also hone their oral and written communication skills.

Congratulations, Dr. Johnson, on your new NSF award!

Peter Gonthier, Professor of Physics, recently received a three year, $222,730 award from the National Science Foundation to study neutron stars.  Dr. Gonthier will collaborate with Dr. Matthew Baring at Rice University on this project.

“This proposal aims to develop state-of-the-art models for the atmospheric emission of magnetars, focusing on what observers can detect with current telescopes and planned facilities,” Dr. Gonthier said.  “The prime objective is to deliver a suite of observable signal predictions to enhance interpretation of data from X-ray telescopes.”

Congratulations, Peter, on your NSF award!

Kristin Dittenhafer-Reed received a new National Science Foundation award in the amount of $207,901 for a project titled RUI: Mechanisms of regulation of mitochondrial DNA transcription.  The award period is 1 August 2018 through 31 July 2021.

This project will explore how mitochondria work and provide significant advances related to genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that control mammalian cell function.  This work will have an impact on researchers examining certain diseases in which mitochondria cells are not functioning properly, including researchers examining neurological disorders, certain types of cancer, and rare genetic disorders involving mitochondrial DNA damage.

Not only will this project involve scientific advances in the fields of biology, biochemistry, and genetics, the project also will engage Hope students in undergraduate research experiences.  Each year, three undergraduate students will engage in summer research assistantships, with a special emphasis in placing women, first year undergraduate students, and underrepresented students in these positions each year.

Please join me in congratulating Kristin on her new NSF award and accomplishment!