| |
Top Story
Farewell Message from VPR Jerzy Sawicki
This issue of the Research Newsletter coincides with the end of my 8-year tenure as Vice President for Research (VPR) and a decade of my work in the Office of Research. Reflecting on these years I find that my time has been highly rewarding, educational, and enjoyable. The VPR role has provided me with rare insight into the breadth and depth of scholarship and research at a public urban research university, and the extraordinary talent and energy that the faculty at Cleveland State bring to their work.
I have been incredibly honored and pleased to serve in this role and support our faculty and students in their research efforts. I am thankful to all of you for your unwavering support of the important work the Office of Research has done - and must continue to do - in building a strong research culture and galvanizing the research message over the past several years. These efforts are key to the University’s role as an anchor institution and an engine for regional growth. I am proud of the many initiatives we have launched to advance research, scholarship, innovation, and economic development. We have done great things, across disciplines, including bringing CSU research to broader national prominence via our rising NSF ranking.
Now, I look forward to being a part of the effort to define research and academic success in the Washkewicz College of Engineering in a way that will resonate with the CSU community, local and national industry, and throughout Northeast Ohio and beyond.
I will miss the daily interactions with faculty and the dedicated staff of the Office of Research when I move to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and will always value the friendships of so many talented individuals here.
Stay safe, stay strong, stay creative.
All the best,
Jerzy
[Return to Top]
|
Research Funding News
Thijs Heus Receives DoE Funding for Atmospheric Modeling
Dr. Thijs Heus, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics, has been awarded $130,478 under a Department of Energy grant. He will work with researchers at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) on the project, titled Coupled Observational-Modeling Studies of Land-Aerosol-Cloud Interactions in the Southeastern US.
The team will study land-aerosol-cloud interactions in the southeast US for atmospheric and climate research using data from the Third ARM Mobile Facility (AMF3). AMFs have instrumentation and data systems similar to fixed atmospheric observatories, and about 50 instruments are deployed with each facility to obtain continuous measurements of clouds, aerosols, precipitation, energy, and other meteorological variables. Dr. Heus will perform and analyze computer simulations for this project, focusing on land-atmosphere interactions, boundary layer processes, and shallow convection.
[Return to Top]
|
|
Meet CSU's New Faculty
Srinivas Allena, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Srinivas Allena joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) in August 2019. His research interests include the development of innovative structural materials including ultra-high performance concrete and engineered cementitious composites, performance-based design of advanced concrete materials, repair and rehabilitation of transportation infrastructure, concrete durability and shrinkage, concrete sustainability, and smart sensors for structural health monitoring.
Dr. Allena received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with an emphasis in structural engineering from New Mexico State University. He serves on numerous technical committees and as a reviewer for technical journals including the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, ACI Materials Journal, ASTM Journal of Advances in Civil Engineering Materials, and the Transportation Research Record. Dr. Allena also serves as a proposal reviewer for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Oak Ridge Associated Universities, and the Qatar National Research Fund.
[Return to Top]
|
|
Featured Researcher Alumni Series
Erick Butler
Dr. Erick Butler is an associate professor of environmental engineering at West Texas A&M University (WTAMU). He earned a B.S. in environmental science, an M.S. in environmental engineering, and a doctorate in civil engineering, all from Cleveland State University.
Dr. Butler received a Dissertation Research Award (DRA) in the 2012-2013 academic year, and recently received a grant from the Ogallala Aquifer Program, part of the Department of Agriculture, for work based on his DRA grant. He also has three publications based on work from his DRA grant.
If you know a former Cleveland State student researcher who has gone on to career success, please email Dan Simon or Joy Yard to let us know. |
Federal Research News
NIH and NSF Panel Review Guidance During COVID-19
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have both issued COVID-19 guidance for panel reviewers for research grants. NIH’s Review Policy Officer
and Extramural Research Integrity Liaison Officer, Dr. Sally Amero, clarified that reviewers should assume that potential issues resulting from the coronavirus pandemic should not affect scores.
NSF has posted an FAQ to assist review panelists with questions about serving on virtual panels and concerns related to travel arrangements made prior to the shift to virtual panel reviews.
[Return to Top]
|
|
CSU Scholar News
Valentin Gogonea, Department of Chemistry
Dr. Valentin Gogonea is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and an adjunct professor in the Department of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences at the Lerner Research Institute (LRI) at the Cleveland Clinic. He joined Cleveland State in 2001 after earning his Ph.D. at Toyohashi (Japan) University of Technology and postdoctoral work at the University of Erlangen-Nüremberg and Penn State University. His research focuses on the study of protein-protein and protein-lipid interactions in high density lipoprotein (HDL), and on discovery of biological pathways that link gut microbiota metabolism to liver and cardiovascular diseases in humans.
Dr. Gogonea collaborates with Drs. Hazen, Smith, Fox, and Brown from the Cleveland Clinic on multiple projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His 15-year collaboration with Dr. Hazen involves projects ranging from structural studies on nascent and spherical HDL to drug design and clinical studies of the impact of bile acid metabolism on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the cardiovascular system. Over the years, these joint projects led to publications in prestigious journals like Nature Medicine, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, European Heart Journal, and eLife.
[Return to Top]
|
|
Inspired Creativity
Online Student Art Showcase
The Illusion of Sight
by Victoria Wisniewski |
This year’s Student Art Showcase has been transformed into a virtual event in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This online student art showcase is an effort to celebrate the hard work and talents of CSU’s students, offer a safe alternate experience, and provide an opportunity to share their work.
University Marketing designed and organized this showcase webpage, and curatorial guidance was given by CSU Studio Art faculty. Financial support for creating the exhibition was provided by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), the Ohio Arts Council, and donors.
[Return to Top]
|
|
News from the Technology Transfer Office
|
|
Provisional Patent Application
The CSU Patent Review Committee held an online meeting on April 30 and approved the invention disclosure of Dr. Jerzy T. Sawicki, the Bently and Muszynska Endowed Chair and Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (MCE), and MCE graduate student Alican Sahinkaya, titled “Computational Cost Reduction of Generalized MIMO Controllers via Defined Controller Perturbations.” The novel controller removes the barriers for implementing high-order MIMO controllers by removing the high computational cost and complexity while maintaining desired robustness and performance features. The novel controller will have broad commercial applications in compressors, turbines, pumps, motors, generators, and potentially high end unmanned aerial vehicles.
Contact Jack Kraszewski for assistance with a disclosure to begin the process of protecting your invention or intellectual property.
|
NIH SBIR/STTR Awards
The State Science & Technology Institute (SSTI) has provided an overview of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Small Business Innovative Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs by state, including the success rate of applications, the share of NIH funding allocated to SBIR awards to for-profit companies by state, and the total number of awards by state. A useful measure of states’ SBIR/STTR activities is the rate at which applications for funding are awarded. Nationwide in 2019, NIH made SBIR/STTR awards to 1,329 successful applicants out of 6,084 total applicants – equating to a national success rate of 21.8 percent.
This information was assembled by SSTI from NIH’s vast repository of information offered on its website. You can read the entire story here and view the interactive SBIR state-by-state award map.
|
[Return to Top]
|
|
Research Events
2019-2020 Faculty Meetups
The Office of Research would like to thank all of the discussion leaders and participants for making the 2019-2020 Faculty Meetup Series a success. The in-person and online meetings brought together scholars from diverse fields to engage in focused discussions and generated several faculty teams that are pursuing new avenues of research and scholarship. Meetup topics and discussion leaders can be found here.
The Office of Research is making plans for research collaboration events for next academic year. Stay tuned for more information!
[Return to Top]
|
|
Internal Funding News
2020 COVID Rapid Response (CR3) Awards
Last month, the Office of Research announced the COVID-19 Rapid Response Research Grant (CR3) Program to engage CSU researchers in investigations of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our communities, economy, and governing structures, and the local, statewide, national, and international response to COVID-19. Many meritorious proposals were received, and we are pleased to announce that the following research projects have been funded:
- Pandemic Privacy (Brian Ray)
- Addressing African American Maternal and Infant Mortality Using Technology During the COVID-19 Crisis (Heather Rice)
- Qualitative Investigation of Asian International Students' Experiences of Racism and Xenophobia During the COVID-19 Pandemic (Julia Phillips)
- Agenda-setting and State Government in a Time of Crisis (Joseph Mead)
- Assessing the Impact of School Closure due to COVID-19 on LGTBQ+ Youth Health (Shereen Naser, Elisabeth Goncy, Kimberly Fuller, and Katie Clonan-Roy)
- Investigation of Sensor and Decision Technologies to Improve Mental and Behavioral Health Crisis During COVID-19 (Sathish Kumar, Miyuki Tedor, and Patricia Stoddard-Dare)
- Institutional Discord: Impact on COVID 19 Outcomes (Rama Jayanti)
- Impact of COVID-19 on Learners in Clinical Placements: Investigating Psychosocial and Educational Outcomes Using Mixed Methods (Wendy Green and Kelly Liao)
The Office of Research would like to thank all applicants for their proposals and congratulate all awardees, and we look forward to the results of these important studies during this highly uncertain time.
[Return to Top]
|
|
Summer Research
Summer Research at CSU
As the academic year closes, the Office of Research would like to thank all of CSU’s researchers and scholars for continued efforts during a challenging period. Our office will continue to serve the needs of faculty across all colleges and departments throughout the summer.
Associate VP for Research Dr. Dan Simon will serve as the main point of contact for the CSU Office of Research for the summer, and you can always reach out to our research staff with questions about grants, proposals, technology transfer, and more.
[Return to Top]
|
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Please share with us important news or updates on your research, scholarly, or creative activities. Updates may be related to a paper that has been accepted for publication in a high-impact journal, a book you've just published, your work that will be exhibited at a prominent institution, or other updates you wish to share with our office. Send details to j.yard@csuohio.edu and d.j.simon@csuohio.edu.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
This newsletter is compiled and published by
The Office of Research
|
|
