Grant Profiles

Important Information:

Dr. Declan McCabe
Biology Department
Vermont EPSCoR: Center for Workforce Development and Diversity
$3.65 M
July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2016
National Science Foundation

Summary:

The University of Vermont received a $20M grant, the largest in their history, from the National Science Foundation EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) to conduct innovative research and workforce development centered on the Lake Champlain Basin. Saint Michael's College is a key partner in that program with a focus on undergraduate research and workforce development.

Center for Workforce Development and Diversity (CWDD) will have as an integral part of its mission to increase the diversity of the STEM student population. CWDD will be housed at SMC with a Director and Manager, who will administer the programs that have been very successful at increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities among our summer and academic year research participants, e.g. the Streams Project.

The CWDD program will coordinate the various education outreach programs of VT EPSCoR and the Vermont Technology Council. CWDD will administer five programs and have the potential to develop partnerships and programs over time:

1. Recruit and integrate undergraduate students, teams of high school students and teachers, and middle school teachers into the RACC research
2. Facilitate the Technology Council’s new Internship Program to match undergraduates with opportunities in the Private Sector
3. Work with the Governor’s Institute to inspire high school students, especially those from low income households and girls, to consider college and STEM careers
4. Administer the scholarship program for first generation and Abenaki college students
5. Organize the mentoring program for postdocs, graduate students and new faculty and partner with INBRE to train mentors to mentor

Important Information:

Davis Educational Foundation
Dr. Karen Talentino, Vice President for Academic Affairs
June 2011 through May 2014
$214,000

Summary:

The Davis Educational Foundation has awarded Saint Michael's College $214,500 over three years to support a project titled Promoting Faculty Leadership and Governance in Learning Outcomes Assessment.

In this era of debate over the value of higher education, Saint Michael's College continues to focus on excellence in teaching and learning and on assessing how well student learning outcomes are achieved. Saint Michael's vice president for academic affairs, Dr. Karen Talentino, is leading the assessment efforts at the college. These include a grant to support training faculty to effectively assess student learning.

The grant allows for training and supporting faculty leaders (Faculty Fellows) who will guide their peers in the development of assessment strategies for each area of the new general education program, the Liberal Studies Curriculum. That program includes graduation requirements in writing, quantitative reasoning, scientific reasoning, experiential learning and more.

Important Information:

Dr. Alain Brizard
Department of Chemistry and Physics
U.S. Department of Energy Grant
August 1, 2011 through July 31, 2014

Summary:

Saint Michael's College Professor of Physics Dr. Alain Brizard received of a grant from the Department of Energy for $33,000 each of the next three years to support his research. The funding comes from the DOE's office of Fusion Energy Sciences of the Office of Science.

Research associates at University of Texas and University of Aix-Marseille

Dr. Brizard's work will include collaborations with the Institute of Fusion Studies at The University of Texas at Austin as well as the Centre de Physique Theorique of the University of Aix-Marseille (France).

His research, titled, "Hamiltonian Formulations and Momentum Conservation Laws of Reduced Plasma Models," will be carried out by Brizard at Saint Michael's College, as well as on occasional summer visits to Marseille. The models developed by Brizard and his collaborators "will be used in computer codes in support of the experimental development of thermonuclear fusion energy as a safe source of energy for future generations," Dr. Brizard said.

Important Information:

Liz Scott
Archivist, Saint Michael's College
National Endowment for the Humanities
April 11, 2012 through May 11, 2012
$2,500.00

Summary:

Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible opened at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, on September 23rd and runs until January 15, 2012 before traveling to the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. In addition, forty libraries around the country have received NEH grants to host a traveling panel version of the exhibition from 2011-2013 through a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association (ALA). Both exhibitions are accompanied by a richly-illustrated teaching website on the history and impact of the King James Bible, also made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Public program will include a series of lectures during the semester in which the exhibition is on campus. Scholars will include religious and history scholars, as well as professors of the Humanities. This series, which will encompass at least three separate talks and one panel discussion, will take place during the semester in which the exhibition is on campus.

Important Information:

Dr. Joanna Ellis-Monaghan
Dr. Greta Pangborn
$200,000
National Science Foundation
September 1, 2010 through August 31, 2013

Summary:

Principal Investigator, Professor Ellis-Monaghan of Grand Isle, VT, and co-principal investigator Dr. Greta Pangborn, SMC Assistant Professor of Computer Science, of Winooski, VT, have been awarded a three-year National Science Foundation grant of $200,002 for the period from September 1, 2010 through August 31, 2013.

The NSF funded project titled, "Collaborative Research: New Graph Theory from and for Nanoconstruct Design Strategies," focuses on using mathematics and computers to design nanoconstructs to carry out practical jobs in the future. These could be applied to such tasks as directing medicines within the body to precisely the right location for effective drug delivery, or any number of other challenges in chemistry, biology and other areas.

The professors, who have been collaborating for several years now, will include several paid research opportunities for Saint Michael's College Students throughout the duration of the grant.

Important Information:

Mark Lubkowitz 
$766,000
5 Year Grant
Saint Michael's College

Summary:

Saint Michael's College biologist Dr. Mark Lubkowitz and his students join a team of researchers from the University of Missouri, University of Florida, Purdue University and the University Nebraska-Lincoln, on a five-year project to study the genes that control the movement of carbohydrates in corn. Saint Michael’s College receives $766,000 NSF grant as part of this 5-year $6.6 million Plant Genome Grant.

Working with 45 Saint Michael’s students over the next five years, Dr. Lubkowitz and his co-investigators across the country will do research that could lead to increased corn yield, more drought resistant plants, larger plants and easier production of biofuels.

Additional benefits of the grant

1. The research has the potential to advance society’s understanding of drought stress, biofuel production, food production and carbon sequestration (binding)
2. The work integrates undergraduates at major research universities and at a liberal arts college into all areas of the research
3. And the project, in collaboration with Vermont EPSCoR, will run a workshop for high school teachers and students on the vital significance of plant genomics and Carbohydrate Partitioning (CP) in plants