University Research Awards, which provide “seed” grants for promising research, have been awarded to 15 projects for 2018-19. The projects range from an analysis of the roles of prisons in the Rochester region, to a new approach to genome editing, to new initiatives for advanced materials for powerful lasers.

The funding has been increased from $500,000 to $1 million. Half of the funding comes from the President’s Fund, with the rest being matched by the various schools whose faculty members are recipients.

The newly funded projects are:

• Inscriptr Genome Editing – Directed Non-homologous DNA Integration: Douglas Anderson, assistant professor, Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute.
• Particle Assembly of Mesomorphic Ceramics (Advanced Materials for Powerful Lasers Initiative): Mitchell Anthamatten, Shaw Chen, and Matthew Yates, professors of chemical engineering, and Thomas Brown, professor of optics.
• Robust Optical Devices Comprising Glassy Liquid Crystals with Photoalignment Polymer Films (Advanced Materials for Powerful Lasers Initiative): Shaw Chen, professor, and Alexander Shestopalov, associate professor, both of chemical engineering, and Tanya Kosc, scientist, Laboratory for Laser Energetics.
• Autonomic Nervous System Biomarkers Distinguish Epileptic vs. Psychogenic Seizures: David Auerbach, research assistant professor, Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute; Jean-Phillippe Couderc, associate professor of medicine; and Giuseppe Erba, professor emeritus, and Giovanni Schifitto, professor, both of neurology.
• How Is Rochester a Prison Town? Joel Burges, assistant professor of English; Kristin Doughty, assistant professor of anthropology; Kara Finnigan, associate professor of educational leadership; Evelyn Leblanc-Roberge, assistant professor of art and art history; Diane Morse, associate professor of psychiatry; Dena Swanson, associate professor of counseling and human development; and Joshua Dubler, assistant professor of religion.
• Pre-clinical mouse model for atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS): Ian Dickerson, associate professor of neuroscience, and Joseph Miano, professor, Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute.
• White Matter Integrity and Cognitive Performance in Adolescents with Primary Hypertension: Marc Lande, professor of pediatrics; and Heather Adams, associate professor, and Giovanni Schifitto, professor, both of neurology.
• Non-invasive quantitative assessment of tendon healing using ultrasound and machine learning: Alayna Loiselle, assistant professor, Center for Musculoskeletal Research, and Constantinos Ketonis, assistant professor of orthopaedics.
• Disparate Geographies: Spatial and Racial Landscapes in Rochester, New York: Kathryn Mariner, assistant professor of anthropology.
• Novel Supramolecular Hydrogels for Sustained and Localized Drug Delivery: Bradley Nilsson, associate professor of chemistry, and Takahiro Takano, research assistant professor, Eastman Institute for Oral Health.
• Quantum Optomechanical Networks: John Nichol, assistant professor of physics, and William Renninger, assistant professor of optics.
• Bifunctional tandem-catalysts for CO2 conversion to plastics, chemicals and fuels: Marc Porosoff, assistant professor of chemical engineering.
• Daily Emotional Reactivity among Adolescents: Genetic and Early Environmental Contributors and Longitudinal Outcomes: Lisa Starr, assistant professor of psychology.
• Brain Elastography with Optical Coherence Tomography: Kevin Parker, the William F. May Professor of Engineering; Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering; and Maiken Nedergaard, professor of neurosurgery.
• Computer Vision Enabled Quantitative Analytics for Ultra-Widefield Fluorescein Angiography: Ajay Kuriyan, assistant professor of ophthalmology; Rajeev Ramchandran, associate professor of ophthalmology; and Gaurav Sharma, professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Click here to read more about University Research Awards and past recipients.

A new hands-on learning and research lab envisioned for the Carlson Science and Engineering Library will give students and faculty a place to explore augmented and virtual reality—regardless of their level of expertise.

“We will have students and faculty going into that space who know exactly what they are doing and will create an app for a class project or a technology to use in their teaching,” says Zari Kamarei, the Sommerville Director of Science and Engineering Libraries. “We will also have students who may not know much about the technology but will be able to take a workshop on AR/VR and then decide if that’s for them.”

Faculty and students also will have a say in how the lab is designed.

Lauren Di Monte, a data and research impact librarian, is leading a steering committee that is tasked with coming up with a functional program by November.

The committee plans to hold a series of design charrettes—“facilitated brainstorming sessions”—in which faculty and students will be invited to move pieces around on a floor plan to help “get at the key things people want to see in this space,” Di Monte says.

The timeline for actual construction will depend on how soon funding can be secured.

AR/VR research is one of the University’s top research priorities. The lab, a joint project of the River Campus Libraries and Arts, Sciences & Engineering, would provide “on-ramps to faculty and students who want to engage in AR/VR technology and development,” says Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “Given the potential for AR/VR technologies to transform everything from education to health care to entertainment, this space will be a valuable addition to our campus. The River Campus Libraries is the perfect home for this space.”

Read more here.

Supriya G. Mohile, an oncologist at the Wilmot Cancer Institute and trailblazer in the growing field of geriatric oncology. She has been named the 2018 winner of the B.J. Kennedy Award by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Mohile will deliver the B.J. Kennedy Lecture on June 4 at ASCO’s annual meeting in Chicago. She plans to talk about the need for a transformational shift in geriatric oncology, by using data to improve communication between doctor and patient. Such data includes assessments of an older patient’s cognition/memory and other health issues like heart disease or diabetes, and nutrition, for example, to aid in making decisions about of the risks and benefits of cancer treatment, she said. Simultaneously, Mohile is being named to the Philip and Marilyn Wehrheim Professorship at Wilmot. The endowed chair was established nearly a decade ago to support a scientist involved in translational research. Read more here.

This Goergen Institute for Data Science series — open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members — will be held each Wednesday from noon to 1 p.m. at Wegmans Hall 1400 (auditorium) on the River Campus. Lunch is included.

The presenters will be:

• June 6: Zhiyao Duan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineer, “Searching Sound through Vocal Imitation.”
• June 13: Chenliang Xu, assistant professor of computer science, “When Computer Vision Meets Audition: From Cross-Modal Generation to Audio-Visual Scene Understanding.”
• June 20: M. Ehsan Hoque, interim director of the Goergen Institute, assistant professor of computer science, and Asaro Biggar (’92) Family Fellow in Data Science, “When Can a Computer Improve Your Social Skills?”
• June 27: Sreepathi Pai, assistant professor of computer science, “Identifying Differences in GPUs Using Performance Data.”
• July 11: David Temperley, professor of music theory at the Eastman School, “Information Flow in Music.”
• July 18: Gourab Ghoshal, assistant professor of physics, “Physics of Complex Systems.”

Kimberly Schauder, Psychology, “Initial Eye Gaze to Faces and their Functional Consequence on Face Identification Abilities in Autism Spectrum Disorder.” 2 p.m. June 4, 2018. Meliora 366. Advisor: Loisa Bennetto.

Today: 5 p.m. deadline to apply for pilot projects from the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Institute. Submission Guidelines.  Email applications to Chelsea Costanzo.

Today: 5 p.m. deadline to apply for a grant from the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program promoting recovery from chronic spinal cord injury (SCI). Submission Guidelines. Email applications to Chelsea Costanzo.

June 1: Deadline to submit applications as supplements to the Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s CTSA U01 grant. To learn more, contact the Research Help Desk.

June 1: Deadline to apply for pilot funding (up to $50,000 per award) from the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience for basic science and translational projects that advance understanding of both normal and abnormal brain functioning and for basic, clinical and translational projects that specifically support research on Autism Spectrum Disorder. For more information and to download the RFA, click here.

June 1-3: “Frontiers in Virtual Reality,” the 31st Center for Visual Science Symposium. Memorial Art Gallery. Click here for a list of speakers, and details about registration.

June 2: “An ‘Un-Meeting’: Addressing the Opioid Crisis through Translational Science.” 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saunders Research Building Atrium. Hosted by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the Center for Leading Innovation and Collaboration. There is no cost to attend. Register here by Wednesday, May 23.

June 6: “Searching Sound through Vocal Imitation,” presented by Zhiyao Duan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineer. Data Science Summer Colloquium Series, Goergen Institute for Data Science. Noon to 1 p.m., Wegmans Hall 1400. Open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members. Lunch included.

June 7: AS&E workshop for young investigators. Overview, resources, and tips for successful proposal development and submission to multiple funding sources. Panel discussion with University faculty who were recently awarded young investigator/early career awards or served on panels.  Noon to 2 p.m. Room 403 Frederick Douglass Building. Lunch provided. Space is limited. RSVP by May 31 to Toni Heininger at antonia.heininger@rochester.edu

June 13: “When Computer Vision Meets Audition: From Cross-Modal Generation to Audio-Visual Scene Understanding.” Chenliang Xu, assistant professor of computer science. Data Science Summer Colloquium Series, Goergen Institute for Data Science. Noon to 1 p.m., Wegmans Hall 1400. Open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members. Lunch included.

June 20:  “When Can a Computer Improve Your Social Skills?” M. Ehsan Hoque, interim director of the Goergen Institute, assistant professor of computer science, and Asaro Biggar (’92) Family Fellow in Data Science. Data Science Summer Colloquium Series, Goergen Institute for Data Science. Noon to 1 p.m., Wegmans Hall 1400. Open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members. Lunch included.

June 22: Deadline to apply for pilot and feasibility awards of up to $50,000 for innovative applications of technology (e.g. novel use of electronic health record data, wearable sensors, digital tools, human-machine interfaces, etc.) in research with human participants to yield new insights into clinical neuroscience. The Center for Health + Technology (CHeT), in conjunction with the Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. For more information and to download the RFA, click here.

June 27: “Identifying Differences in GPUs Using Performance Data.” Sreepathi Pai, assistant professor of computer science. Data Science Summer Colloquium Series, Goergen Institute for Data Science. Noon to 1 p.m., Wegmans Hall 1400. Open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members. Lunch included.

July 11:  “Information Flow in Music.” David Temperley, professor of music theory at the Eastman School. Data Science Summer Colloquium Series, Goergen Institute for Data Science. Noon to 1 p.m., Wegmans Hall 1400. Open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members. Lunch included.

July 18:  “Physics of Complex Systems.” Gourab Ghoshal, assistant professor of physics. Data Science Summer Colloquium Series, Goergen Institute for Data Science. Noon to 1 p.m., Wegmans Hall 1400. Open to all faculty, staff, students, and community members. Lunch included.