Clarkson University is proud to announce the 2nd Annual Clarkson Ignite Research Fellowship Competition Awards to five multidisciplinary teams. This grant program was first launched in the 2017–18 academic year to foster synergistic campus-wide research collaborations to spur innovative solutions across four multidisciplinary research focus areas: advanced materials development, healthy world solutions, data & complex systems analytics, and next-generation health technologies.
The aim of this program is to drive innovative research that can have a societal impact at the national and international levels. Additionally, this year Clarkson University also launched a competitive small grants initiative for faculty primarily working with undergraduate student researchers, called the Faculty Undergraduate Research Program. This program awarded three projects that were announced on January 29, 2019.
These two internal seed programs combined received 32 proposals from 59 unique faculty representing 19 department/units in our three schools, as well as Beacon, CRC, Syracuse University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
All Ignite Research Fellowship proposals were peer-reviewed for scientific merit, societal impact feasibility, and fundability; experts from other U.S. and foreign institutions were also invited to serve as reviewers to foster objectivity and integrity in the review process. An Internal Selection Committee, comprising University academic administrators and last year’s awardees, considered applications deemed meritorious by peer review, for programmatic balance (e.g., history of collaboration, productivity, student training, and thematic balance) to down select 12 teams for a final “shark tank”-style competition where they “pitched” their proposal ideas and needs.
Twelve multidisciplinary faculty teams from 16 departments/unit competed for funds to recruit and support highly talented Ph.D. students for up to five years the project. Each team had three minutes to pitch their collaborative proposal to a panel of judges on February 28 at the Multi-Purpose Room in the Student Center. They then had an additional four minutes to respond to questions from judges. At the conclusion of all twelve team presentations, judges announced the winners.
The judging panel for the 2019 competition includes Rose Coluccio ’92 (Director of Manufacturing, Processing and Engineering, Corning), Michael Hayduk ’91 (Deputy Director of the Information Directorate, Air Force Research Lab), Steve Johnson ’77 (Sr. VP, AECOM), Georgia Keresty ’83 (Global Head, Takeda Pharmaceutical R&D), Ken Solinsky ’71 (Managing Member, Rochester Precision Optics), Matt Watson (Director, Division of Science, Technology & Innovation, ESD) and Bob Ziek ’78 (President, ZSource Ltd.).
With an overwhelming response to the competition with excitement and energy during and following the presentations, President Collins announced the Ignite Research Fellows will bear the donor’s name and to support the research team’s success through deeper coaching and engagement opportunities with donors. “This is a fabulous initiative to continue building on the Ignite momentum, and I am so grateful to donors for jump-starting, and continuing to support an important and much-needed initiative to support faculty scholars and graduate research fellows,” Lee-Glauser said.
Following are five award-winning teams along with their proposal and respective multidisciplinary research focus areas.
Awarded Bob ’78 and Marcy Ziek-Ignite Research Fellowships
- Taeyong Kim (CBE & ISE), Stefan Grimberg (CEE) and Shane Rogers (CEE) in Healthy World Solutions project entitled, “Harvesting valuable resources during food waste anaerobic digestion using an electrochemical ammonia separation process”
Awarded Karel Czanderna ’77 and Dan Shirkey ‘80-Ignite Research Fellowships
- Silvana Andreescu (CBS), Stefan Grimberg (CEE), and Dhara Trivedi (Physics) in Healthy World Solutions/Advanced Materials Development project entitled “Advanced materials design for preventing water eutrophication”
- Sitaraman Krishnan (CBE), Taeyoung Kim (CBE & ISE), and Dhara Trivedi (Physics) in Advanced Materials Development/Healthy World Solutions project entitled, “Solar-Energy-Driven Water Deionization Using Photoactive Conjugated-Polymer Nanocomposite Electrodes”
Awarded Lawrence ’57 and Antoinette Delaney-Ignite Research Fellowships
- Sumona Mondal (MATH), and Shantanu Sur (BIO) in Healthy World Solutions/Data and Complex Systems Analytics project entitled, “Rheumatoid Arthritis in the Rural Setting: Elucidating the Impact of Comorbid Conditions, Socioeconomic Factors and Access to Health Care on Disease Outcome”
Awarded Rajan '82 and Ragini Raghavan-Ignite Research Fellowships
- Amir Mousavian (E&M), Lei Wu (Stevens Ins. Tech), and Golshan Madraki (Reh) in Data and Complex Systems Analytics project entitled, “Graph-theoretic Cyberattack Propagation Modeling & Robust Prevention & Mitigation Approaches in Interconnected Power & Electric Transportation Systems”
Click here for more on the death of one of the donors of the Clarkson Ignite Research Fellowship, alum Clark Nicklas '71.
