Six ODU Graduate Students Receive New Summer Research Grants
April 16, 2018
Front: Kelsey Ellis, Alexander Shappie, Martina Zamponi, Reindetta Vaneendenburg
Back: Brian Pitman, Jonathan Bietsch
Old Dominion University's Graduate School recently announced the inaugural recipients of the Graduate Summer Research and Creativity grants, which help students work on summer research projects.
An interdisciplinary group of faculty members and administrators from the University reviewed the applications and chose six winners out of 43 applicants. The grant program was spearheaded by Elizabeth Groeneveld, an assistant professor of women's studies, who advocated for supporting graduate student research, much as the Honors College supports undergraduate research projects.
"The Graduate School and the Office of Research are pleased to announce the inaugural recipients of the Graduate Summer Research and Creativity Grant awards," said Robert Wojtowicz, dean of Old Dominion's Graduate School. "The six projects chosen represent the remarkable breadth of the research being conducted by our graduate students in the laboratory, the library and the field."
Each student will receive $3,000, with an additional $300 allowed for conference travel related to the work. Students will provide reports of their work to the Graduate School.
Bryan Porter, associate dean of the Graduate School, added: "Our graduate students are extremely talented, and their ideas and scholarship plans are worthy of support and admiration from us and the University community at-large. We plan to continue this grant program in the years to come, with hopes to increase the funding to allow more proposals to be supported."
The recipients, projects and faculty mentors are:
- Jonathan Bietsch, Chemistry/Biochemistry
D-Glucosamine based supramolecular gels as soft materials for 3D gel printing
Guijun Wang, professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Kelsey Ellis, Psychology
Examining the Role of ADHD Symptomatology in Harsh Parenting Preferences: An Analog Study
James Paulson, associate professor, Psychology
- Brian Pitman, Criminal Justice
'...make them disappear with a piece of paper': Understanding the Lived Realities of Indigenous Women in Federally Unrecognized Tribes in the Southeast
Mona Danner, professor and chair, Sociology and Criminal Justice
- Alexander Shappie, Psychology
The Feasibility of Recruiting a Nationally Representative Sample of Sexual Minority Men via Facebook Advertising: A Study of Demographic Characteristics and Health Variables
Robin Lewis, professor, Psychology
- Reinetta Vaneedenburg, Creative Writing
U.S. Navy Women Line Officers: Trailblazers in Uniform
Luisa Igloria, professor, English
- Martina Zamponi, Biomedical Engineering
Development of a porcine brain matrix-derived structure for the three-dimensional culture of neural stem cells and neurons
Robert Bruno, assistant professor, Medical Diagnostic and Translational Sciences
To be eligible for the Graduate Summer Research and Creativity Grant awards, students had to be enrolled in a graduate degree or graduate certificate program in good standing. They had to propose work of 20 hours per week over a minimum of six uninterrupted weeks in the summer during which time they would not be funded by the University to do other tasks.
