Category: Recent Grants

Rika Anderson, Assistant Professor of Biology, is a recipient of a Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) Scialog Signatures of Life in the Universe (SLU) collaborative award for “Long term controls on the scope of Earth’s biosphere.” With Noah Planavsky and graduate students at Yale University, Prof. Anderson and an educational associate hope to enhance understanding of the scope of earth’s biosphere and evolution of biosignatures on early Earth-like exoplanets. Research Corporation’s SLU program considers this project as highly innovative with potential to transform its field of research and address critical global issues.

Ryan Terrien, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grant (AAG) (#2108569) for the project “Collaborative Research: Understanding exoplanets orbiting fully convective stars with the Habitable-zone Planet Finder.” This research, in collaboration with U California-Irvine, Pennsylvania State U, and U Texas at Austin, contributes to the search for planets around nearby low-mass stars, supports outreach and educational activities that engage with the public’s interest in exoplanet discovery, and funds undergraduate and graduate research from underrepresented minority populations.

Rika Anderson, Assistant Professor of Biology, is the recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) award for her project “CAREER: Temporal dynamics of microbial and viral function and adaptation in hydrothermal vents.” Her work will expand knowledge of how microbes and viruses from hydrothermal vents adapt and evolve over time, in hopes of providing insights into the early evolution of life on Earth and into the ways microorganisms respond to anthropogenic disturbances like deep-sea mining and climate change over time. Additionally, Prof. Anderson’s research engages undergraduate partners at all stages of the research process. CAREER grants are NSF’s most prestigious award to early-career faculty.

Ryan Terrien, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, will support the NASA-funded NEID spectrometer Data Reduction Pipeline (DRP). With a contract from the University of Arizona, over the summers of 2021 and 2022, Prof. Terrien will develop and implement software, and conduct tests for the NEID wavelength calibration subsystem and supporting modules.

Joe Chihade, Professor of Chemistry, received an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Undergraduate Research Award to purchase reagents and supplies used by David Wilson, one of his student researchers, during summer 2021.

Ryan Terrien, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has been granted support from NASA to work with Eric Ford at Penn State on research that advances knowledge of the effectiveness of multiple strategies for mitigating the effects of stellar variability and instrumental effects on the measurement of extremely precise radial velocities (EPRVs) in the search for extrasolar planets. Prof. Terrien’s contribution involves diagnosing instrumental effects, and analyzing the effects of magnetic fields on Solar spectra obtained with the NEID spectrograph.

Marty Baylor, Associate Professor of Physics, has been awarded an SPIE (The international society for optics and photonics) Education Outreach Grant for her project, “Understanding Interferometry with LEGO.” The funds, enabling purchase of a travel-ready interferometer, support outreach to middle and high school students underrepresented in STEM. The new interferometer along with simple landscapes made from LEGO will be used to teach about how light can be used to make precision measurements at BLAST (Northfield), STEAM (Faribault), and TORCH (Northfield).

Lori Pearson, Professor of Religion, is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend for her project, “Marianne Weber and the Origins of Religious Studies.” Prof. Pearson’s book, Sexuality and Secularization, uses the work of Marianne Weber (wife of Max Weber) to explore how debates about women’s rights informed early 20th-century theories of religion, and this grant will support her summer work to draft the final book chapter.

Layla Oesper, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER grant for her project, “Algorithmic Approaches for Phylogenetic Analysis of Tumor Evolution.” Her work will contribute to computational genomics and cancer research through the development of methods for comparison, summarization, and communication of clonal trees that reveal how tumors acquire mutations leading to uncontrolled cell growth. Additionally, Prof. Oesper’s research involves undergraduate researchers in computational biology through workshops, innovative classroom experiences, and cutting-edge research. CAREER grants are NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty and support those with the “potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.”

Michael McNally, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, has been awarded a fellowship from the Luce/ACLS Program in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs. This prestigious program aims to deepen public understanding of religion by advancing innovative scholarship on religion in international contexts and by equipping individual scholars and institutions of higher education with the capacities to connect their work to journalism and the media and to engage audiences beyond the academy. This support will enable Professor McNally to complete a book exploring Native American religions through the lens of their engagement with contested sacred lands and other current issues, rethinking the definitional conundrum of Native “religion” with the international possibilities of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.