skip the i-GuideIllinois State UniversityAdmissions at ISUAcademics at ISUEvents at ISUMap of ISUISU A to Z ListingISU AccessibilityISU 150th Anniversary
College of Arts and Sciences News
Article Details

College Announces Research Enhancement Awards
REA Award Winners
REA Winners from top left:
Jon Friesen, Corinne Zimmerman,
Marion Willetts, Kathryn Wehrmann,
Scott Sakaluk, R.K. Jayaswal,
and Charles Thompson.
Not pictured: Shang-Fen Ren.
The College recently announced the recipients of this year’s Research Enhancement Awards (REAs), highly competitive internal grant awards intended to promote high-quality research, scholarship, and creative activity by tenured and tenure-track faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences. The awards provide seed funds for scholarly or creative projects that will produce pilot data or other preliminary work for proposals to be submitted to outside funding agencies, and they fund excellent scholarly or creative activities of a one-time nature (such as completion of a significant book). The awards are funded up to a maximum of $3,000 toward one of two purposes: a course release or student assistants. "This year’s winners exhibit the rigorous research we pride ourselves on in the College," said Dean Olson. “I congratulate them all for being innovative and dedicated while advancing and creating knowledge.”

 

Olson awarded the REAs upon the recommendation of the CAS Research Proposal Review Committee. Criteria used in evaluating the proposals included: project and budget justification, significance of project outcomes, originality of concept, appropriateness of project design and methods, qualifications of applicant for implementing project, potential impact on applicant's discipline, probability of achieving project objectives, potential for generating future external funding, and appropriateness of schedule for project activities, if applicable.

Four tenured and four pre-tenure faculty received eight awards that will fund four course releases, four graduate students, and one undergraduate assistant. The following are this year’s winners:

Jon A. Friesen, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry

“Metal-Enzyme Interactions in CTP:phosphocholine Cytidylyltransferase”

R. K. Jayaswal, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
“Characterization of Fur Regulated Genes in Listeria monocytogenes using DNA Microarray”

Shang-Fen Ren, Professor, Department of Physics
“Theoretical Investigation of Thermoelectric Properties of Semiconductor Nanostructures”

Scott K. Sakaluk, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
“Genetic Variation in Female Resistance to Male-Derived Anti-Aphrodisiacs”

Charles F. Thompson, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
“Caroteoid Trade-Off Hypothesis”

Kathryn Conley Wehrmann, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work

“Relationships Between Foster Parents and Foster Children”

Marion C. Willetts, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
“Constructing a National Data Set of Heterosexual Licensed Domestic Partners”

Corinne Zimmerman, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

“Individual Differences in Scientific Reasoning Skills”



Return