Rachel Santiago (left) and Margaret Lange-Osborn are two of the 46 faculty members who received Research Council grants this year.
From August 2022 to May 2023, MU awarded 46 Research Council grants, investing in faculty initiatives leading to pilot data, book contracts, juried performances, art exhibits, articles and more.
Often these internal grants of up to $15,000 support research, scholarship and creative activities that contribute to the competitiveness of grant proposals for external funding. In the last five years, MU has supported 189 projects with $1.8 million in grants.
Margaret Lange-Osborn, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology, is among this year's grant awardees. Her team is researching how cells recognize viral components and signal the immune system to eradicate infections. Focusing on host-virus interactions and how they influence immune responses will help scientists develop more targeted therapeutics.
“Our cells express a variety of different receptors that contribute to these responses,” Lange-Osborn said. “We seek to determine how a specific receptor recognizes highly structured viral RNAs during infections to initiate immune responses. The funding will help us generate highly impactful preliminary data to support a future NIH proposal.”
Another grant recipient Rachel Santiago, assistant professor of educational, school and counseling psychology, is conducting a study that includes interviews with school officials to better understand factors that help or hinder their efforts to engage families in trauma-informed practices.
“I’m especially curious about how to bring families and schools together as partners to support youth who have experienced trauma,” Santiago said. “As a first-year faculty member, funding to run pilot studies is an essential first step in preparing for future grant submissions.”
Starting Aug. 1, faculty can submit Research Council grant applications through InfoReady. Aug. 21 is the deadline for the first round of grants. Questions? Email Internal Funding staff.
Funded projects, 2022-23 academic year
Arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences
- Megan Arns – Multimedia Recording Project: Commissioned Works for Solo Percussionist
- Amanda Collins – Composition, Education, and Performance: Expanding Representation and Diversity Within French Horn Music
- Viviana Goelkel‐Garcia – Sunlight on the Banana Plantations
- Loukas Grafakos – Research on Fourier Multiplier Theory
- Rabia Gregory – Christian Pulp: Material Religion in the Age of Paper
- Alexandra James – Assessing Geographical Distribution of Early Childhood Special Education Services for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Other Developmental Delays
- Alisha Johnson – Understanding Typology, Facilitators, and Barriers to Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Use in Missouri Long Term Care Facilities
- Elizabeth Kelley – Online Learning Modules to Support Speech‐Language Pathologists in Academic Vocabulary Intervention
- Johanna Kramer – Critical Wisdom: Reading the “Canterbury Tales” through Proverbs
- Se Woong Lee – Forgotten Leader: Examining the Challenges and Barriers of Assistant Principals of Color to Principalship
- Brian MacNeel – The Copy Box
- Victor McFarland – A History of Nuclear Fracking
- Ginny Ramseyer-Winter – Exploring Weight Stigma, Perceived Body Image, and Healthcare Utilization: Perspectives of Black Women
- Cheryl Sampson – Every.Single.One: Art, Cancer and Transformation
- Rachel Santiago – Barriers and Facilitators to Family-Engaged, Trauma‐Informed School Practices
- Carsten Strathausen – RC Summer Fellowship “Adapting Kafka”
- David Switzer – Drinking Water Behaviors, Concern for Drinking Water Infrastructure, and Support for Spending Among Local Elected Officials
- Michael Ugarte – Subvention for Translation of Celia en la Revolución
- Robert Walker – Discovering Ancient Amazonian Archaeological Sites
- Paul Weirich – Incomplete and Unstable Preferences
- Shuangyu Xu – Examining Communities’ Perceptions and Tourism‐Related Social Capital Associated With the Rock Island Trail Development
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics
- Mirna Becevic – Development and Testing of Fu‐VIT Cancer Survivorship Roadmap for Primary Care Clinicians
- Brenda Beernsten – Mosquito insecticide resistance in mid‐Missouri
- Guang Bian – Exploring Emergent Interfacial Magnetism in Artificial Heterostructures
- Charles Brown – 12/15‐LO in Resolution of Lyme Arthritis
- Pamela Brown – Identification and Characterization of Polar Growth Machinery in the Bacterial Plant Pathogen Agrobacterium Tumefaciens
- Jorge Gomez‐Gutierrez – Probiotic Bacterium‐Mediated IL‐10 Delivery into Colorectal Cancer
- Yicheng Guo -- Revealing the Origin of the Diverse Morphology of Distant Galaxies With the James Webb Space Telescope
- Tom Heitmann -- Emergent Multiferroicity in Novel Polar Magnets.
- Casey Holliday – 3D Biomechanics of the TMJ and Ear in Mammals
- Zach Holliday – Novel Approaches to Treating Chronic Pseudomonas Lung Colonization
- Yue Jin – Development of Innovative Physics‐Informed Data‐Driven Model for COBRA‐TF Critical Heat Flux Prediction in Support of Future Nuclear Energy Sustainability
- Gavin King – Establishing an Ice Lithography Research Hub at MU
- Margaret Lange-Osborn – ssRNA Interactions With TLR3 STEM
- Daniel London – Impact of Hand, Wrist, and Forearm Range of Motion on PRO after Non‐Hand Injury
- Lixin Ma – Targeting Early Markers in Cerebral Small Vessel Disease: Endothelial Dysfunction —› Cerebrovascular Remodeling —›BBB Dysfunction
- Andrew Meng – Mitigating Dielectric Breakdown in Wurtzite Alloy‐Based Ferroelectric Random‐Access Memories
- Rebecca North – Whence Cyanotoxins?
- Soyon Park – Understanding Inter‐kingdom Communication Among Beneficial Soil Fungi, Host Plant, and Parasitism
- Brandie Morgan-Jack – Untargeted Metabolomic Analysis of Blood Plasma for the Identification of Potential Therapeutic Biomarkers of CLN2 Disease
- Cheryl Rosenfeld – Do Extracellular Vesicles Act as Carrier Pigeons Between the Placenta and Brain?
- Tara Selly – A Multiproxy Approach to Examine the Ediacaran: Cambrian Boundary in the Death Valley Region
- Yi Wang – Customizable Multifunctional Neural Probe Accelerating Individualized Neuroscience Studies and Precision Medical
- Haojiing Yan – Pushing the Frontier With the James Webb Space Telescope
- Peifen Zhu – Exploration of Two‐Dimensional Halide Double Perovskites as Novel Photocatalyst for CO2 Reduction