2024 Grant Awardees

October 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024 | $80,000 awarded: $20,000 per researcher x 4 new projects

The GREAT is offering seed grants to support new areas of research for faculty at UTSA. The primary goal of these awards is to assemble preliminary data that can be used to seek extramural funding and advance UTSA’s institutional research excellence goals (NRUF, AAU, etc.).

College for Health, Community, and Policy

Emily Nicklett, Ph.D., Department of Social Work
Strategies to Increase Inclusion in Fall Prevention for Older Adults who are Blind or Vision Impaired in San Antonio, TX: A Needs Assessment

Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design

Bin Wang, Ph.D., Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Quantum Computing for Power System Simulation

Gongchen Sun, Ph.D., Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering
Isolation and Enrichment of Live Chondrocytes for Personalized Cartilage Tissue Regeneration by Multi-phase, Multi-field, Machine Learning-assisted(3M) Microfluidics

College of Sciences

Lacy Barton, Ph.D., Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Decoding and Controlling Calcium flux in Primordial Germ Cell Migration

October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024 | $250,000 awarded: $125,000 per team ($50,000 UTSA; $75,000 SwRI)

The CONNECT Program is a joint effort between The UTSA and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The program encourages interaction between investigators in support of the acquisitions of established extramural, peer-reviewed research funding. This agreement provides unprecedented opportunities for researchers to work together in addressing issues of mutual interest and need.

Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design

Marzieh Hajiaghamemar, Ph.D, UTSA and Mark Libardoni, Ph.D., SwRI
Pushing the Boundaries of Assessment Techniques for Traumatic Brain Injury

Esteban Lopez Ochoa, Ph.D., UTSA and Stuart Stothoff, Ph.D., SwRI
Calibrating Satellite Data with Ground Environmental Metrics: A pilot in San Antonio’s Historic Westside.

October 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024 | $75,000 awarded: $5,000 per researcher x 15 new research projects

The Internal Research Awards (INTRA) program is part of the UTSA Office of Research coordinated efforts to promote research and scholarship of the highest quality. This program offers funding for faculty to gain experience in identifying and submitting proposals for extramural funding, gather preliminary data to support applications for extramural funding and enhance scholarly and creative activities. Proposals to this program are expected and encouraged for a broad range of research and creative activities.

Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design

John Alexander, Ph.D., School of Architecture and Planning
Research on the Roman Inventory of Della Chiesa's Goods

Wei Zhai, Ph.D., School of Architecture and Planning
Using Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences of Extreme Weather Events to Communicate Climate Change Risks

Alvarez College of Business

Zhongxia Ye, Ph.D., Department of Accounting
Does Mixed-Ownership Reform Affect Private Firms’ Demand for Audit Quality? Evidence from China

K.K. Raman, Ph.D., Department of Accounting
Do shared auditors facilitate strategic alliance formation/success among their audit clients?

Jennifer Yin, Ph.D., Department of Accounting
Internal Control Quality and Audit Fees: Does the CIO Matter?

Yuexia Zhang, Ph.D., Department of Management Science and Statistics
Exploring the Causal Relationship between Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Alzheimer’s Disease

College of Education and Human Development

Yi-Fan Li, Ph.D., Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching
Examining the Effects of an Email-Writing Intervention for Students With Cognitive Disabilities Using ChatGPT

College of Liberal and Fine Arts

Eva Wikberg, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology
The Relationship Between Gut Microbiome Composition and Health in a Wild Non-Human Primate (Colobus vellerosus)

Rebecca Bria, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology
The Rise of Civilization in Highland Peru: Reconstructing the ritual ecology of two early complex communities (3000–900 BC)

Julie M. Johnson, Ph.D., Department of Art & Art History
Light and Space and Air: Wit and interdimensionality in the Aesthetics of Vienna 1900

Annette Portillo, Ph.D., Department of English
Representations of Indigenous People: Museums, Visual Art, Media, Literature and Culture

College for Health, Community, and Policy

Tianou Zhang, Ph.D., Department of Kinesiology
Velocity-based Exercise Training on Body Composition, Physical Performance, and Metabolic Biomarkers in Older Adults from Senior Communities

Zhiyong Lin, Ph.D., Department of Sociology
Social Determinants of Unmet Care Needs among Older Adult

Bonita Sharma, Ph.D., Department of Social Work
Women’s Entrepreneurial Involvement in Addressing the Climate Change: Intentions and Drivers for Social and Environmentally Sustainable Enterprises

Stephen Pan, Ph.D., Department of Kinesiology
Healthcare Preferences and Utilization among Recent Chinese Immigrants in the United States: a Cross-Sectional Survey and Discrete Choice Experiment

October 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024 | $25,000 awarded: 1 new research project

The Transdisciplinary Teams (T2) Program is sponsored by UTSA in collaboration with the City of San Antonio (CoSA), is a grant opportunity offered to enhance greater intellectual collaboration between the two institutions and to increase both UTSA’s and CoSA’s research-funding base with inter-institutional collaborative programs. The program encourages interaction between investigators in support of the acquisitions of established extramural, peer-reviewed research funding.

Team

• Stephen Pan, Ph.D., College for Health, Community and Policy, Department of Public Health
• Shamshad Khan, Ph.D., College of Liberal and Fine Arts, Department of Communications, Mpox Vaccine Preferences among Men in Metro San Antonio, Texas

October 1, 2023 through July 31, 2024 | $60,000 awarded: $30,000 per researcher x 2 new projects

The Brain Health Consortium (BHC) Collaborative Seed Grant (CSG) program, sponsored by the REDKE at UTSA, is offering seed grants to support transdisciplinary research in areas that advance our fundamental understanding of the brain in health and disease, advance understanding of social determinants of brain health, lead to the development of interventions to advance brain health, or advance research to increase inclusion of diverse populations in brain health research, especially from underrepresented communities. CSG funding through this program is an opportunity for UTSA faculty to begin innovative transdisciplinary research that will open new areas of research strength.

College of Sciences

Soo Chan Lee, Ph.D., Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Investigation of the Association of the Commensal Fungus Candida Albicans in Alzheimer's Disease

College of Education and Human Development

Emily Bonner, Ph.D., Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching
The Brain Health Institute for Teachers (BRITE)