Office of Research update: July 2022

July 12, 2022

Apply for campus grants, register for a free-to-attend National Science Foundation Expo and see the awards your colleagues recently received.

External Awards Received

The Office of Research is pleased to announce and would like to congratulate these faculty members on receipt of the following external funding:

Tim Kiska, associate professor of Communications, was awarded a grant of $15,000 by the Michigan Humanities Council in support of his project “Detroit History Podcast.” This funding will allow Kiska to use a podcasting format and a wide variety of topics to share the history of Detroit with a broad audience, telling the city’s story through its cultural, social, political, musical, and automotive heritage.

Claudia Walters, director of the Environmental Interpretive Center, received a grant of $5,000 from the Americana Foundation for her project entitled “Disseminating the Lessons Learned From Restoring the Rouge River.“ The funds will be used to support a tour for the newly published book titled "Rouge River Revived," which chronicles the revival of the Rouge River through strong citizen involvement and advocacy. The book will be placed in libraries in all 48 communities in the Rouge River watershed.

Lei Chen, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded $105,682 by General Motors for his project entitled “Development of a Software Tool to Simulate Li-Dendrite Growth in Li-ion Batteries.” Electrification of transportation vehicles requires a significant increase in the specific energy density of current Li-ion batteries. However, Li-dendrite formation severely limits the commercialization of such high energy batteries, because growing dendrites can penetrate the separator and lead to short circuits. The proposal aims to develop an “in-house” software tool to simulate Li-dendrite growth in the Li-ion batteries.

Yunus Zeytuncu, CASL interim associate dean and associate professor of Mathematics, received $14,000 from Math Corps in support of his Math Corps Summer Camp Program. The program will host 60 middle- and high-school students in Summer 2022. This program will expose students to a rich intellectual environment where they can practice using mathematical ideas to solve real life problems.

Announcements

Bold Challenges Applications Open for Fall 2022

Faculty seeking to participate in future phases of the Bold Challenges initiative are encouraged to apply by Aug. 1. During the Team Formation and Incubation phases this fall, OVPR will provide select teams with financial and staff support to focus their research problem, bring in new team members and engage the appropriate external partners. Learn more and submit your application. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected]

FY23 Open Invitation Campus Grants Accepting Applications

The next cycle of Open Invitation/Non-Competitive Campus Grant programs are now open to all UM-Dearborn tenured/tenure-track faculty to apply. Applications are accepted any time during the fiscal year while funds are available. The following Open Invitation Campus Grants are available to apply for via InfoReady:

  • Faculty Research Mini Grants provide up to $1,000 for non-salary resources that enable faculty research and other scholarly activities.
  • Special Circumstances Research Mini Grants provide up to $1,000 for non-salary resources that enable research-related activities not supported by the Faculty Research Mini Grant.
  • Research Assistant Grants provide funds to hire a student to assist full-time UM-Dearborn faculty members with work on research and scholarly projects. The program provides two levels of support: 
    • $750 for work leading to a scholarly product (data, book chapter, publication, etc). 
    • $1,500 requires that a related proposal for external funding will be submitted within one year.
  • Faculty Research Publication & Dissemination Grants provide up to $500 per year for peer-reviewed scholarly publication costs limited to: journal page charges (including surcharges for graphics), book publication charges, article reprints (hardcopy or electronic) of your publication, conference poster and presentation printing costs, copy editing for peer-reviewed scholarly publications, limited to editing required by publisher.

For additional information about the Campus Grants available, complete requirements and determining your eligibility to apply, please review our Campus Grants page. An update on the FY23 Competitive Campus Grants is expected to be announced in later August or early September.

Research Events in July & August:

More events and announcements can be found on the UM-Dearborn Office of Research website. For regular updates and research announcements, subscribe to our Research News email list.

Resources & Tools for Researchers

Every month, the Office of Research will feature a resource and/or tool that is available for researchers!

This month we are featuring the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) recently launched Research Data Stewardship Initiative (RDSI).

The U-M Research Data Stewardship Initiative has been launched to help the U-M research community navigate the evolving research data landscape. This initiative has a new online portal, which aggregates internal and external resources and best practice guidance into one location for ease of reference so that researchers can identify options for managing and sharing data based on their disciplines and the types of data they generate. This portal also helps researchers navigate sharing requirements from funding agencies and journals when preparing grant proposals or publications.

Some features of the new online portal are:

  • Best Practices for the Stewardship of Research Data that covers Study Design & Data, Data Security & Privacy Protections, Research Data Management & Storage, and Publishing, Licensing & Data Use Agreements
  • Research Data Stewardship Resources that includes Funding Agency Research Data Policies, Common Definitions, Relevant U-M Policies/Guidelines, and Communities of Practice.

Learn more about the initiative on the RDSI website. If you have any questions or feedback after visiting the website, you can submit them using this feedback form.

Upcoming Funding Opportunities

The Office of Research publishes a list of selected funding opportunities, organized by college, every month on our website under Announcements. In addition, yearly grant calendars organized by subject area provided by Hanover Research are available there as well. Contact the UM-Dearborn Office of Research if you would like more information about submitting a proposal to any of the programs.