Proposal Stimulus Program

The Office of the Vice President for Research, in collaboration with the President of Texas Tech University, announced the recipients of the FY2013 Proposal Stimulus Program (PSP).

The goal of this program is to enhance the quality of currently unfunded grant proposal applications made to extramural entities during the past 24 months (for example, NIH, NSF, NEH, DoE, DoD, ACLS etc.). The funds will be provided to support research/scholarly activities that address specific criticisms of the original proposal application in order to generate a subsequent application that will be more competitive.

Five award levels were available. Level 1 ($5,000 or less), Level 2 ($10,000 or less), Level 3 ($15,000 or less), Level 4 ($25,000 or less), and Level 5 ($50,000 or less). More than $250,000 was distributed to FY2013 PSP recipients.

FY2013 PSP Award recipients are:

Level 1

• Lead PI: Kanika Batra, College of Arts & Sciences (English)
  Title: Revising Second Book Project for NEH Proposal Submission
  Agency: NEH
• Lead PI: Dustin Sweet, College of Arts & Sciences (Geosciences)
  Title: Testing a Two Phase Subsidence Model for the Ancestral Rocky Mountains in the Taos Trough Region of Northern New Mexico
  Agency: NSF - Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology
• Lead PI: Siva Vanapalli, Whitacre College of Engineering (Chemical Engineering)
  Co PI(s): Boyd Butler, College of Arts & Sciences (Biological Sciences)
  Title: Development of Low Cost Microfluidic Platforms for High Resolution Drug Screening
  Agency: CPRIT

Level 2

• Lead PI: Jamie Cooper, College of Human Sciences (Nutrition, Hospitality & Retailing)
  Title: Metabolic and Hormone Responses to Dietary Fatty Acids in Lean and Obese Females
  Agency: AHA
• Lead PI: Scott Holaday, College of Arts & Sciences (Biological Sciences)
  Co PI(s): Dylan Schwilk, College of Arts & Sciences (Biological Sciences)
  Title: Strategies of Nitrogen-Use Metabolism and Plant Invasion
  Agency: NSF
• Lead PI: Juske Horita, College of Arts & Sciences (Geological Sciences)
  Title: Molecular-scale Isotope Study of Light Hydrocarbons
  Agency: DOE/SC
• Lead PI: Chad Paton, College of Human Sciences (Nutrition, Hospitality & Retailing)
  Title: Effects of Fibrin E-fragment on Adipose Inflammation, Adipogenesis, and Fibrosis
  Agency: NIH
• Lead PI: Dylan Schwilk, College of Arts & Sciences (Biological Sciences)
  Co PI(s): External
  Title: Plant Functional Traits and Climate Change–Bridging the Gap Between Physiology and Distribution Models
  Agency: NSF - Division of Environmental Biology

Level 3

• Lead PI: Jerzy Blawzdziewicz, Whitacre College of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering)
  Co PI(s): Siva Vanapalli, Whitacre College of Engineering (Chemical Engineering); Kendra Rumbaugh, TTUHSC (Surgery)
  Title: Locomotion of the Nematode C. Elegans in Complex Media
  Agency: NSF
• Lead PI: Gordon Christopher, Whitacre College of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering)
  Title: A MEMS Based MicroRheometer to Characterize Synovial Fluid Gap Dependent Rheology
  Agency: NIH
• Lead PI: Juyang Huang, College of Arts & Sciences (Physics)
  Title: Connecting Model Lipid Membranes to Biomembranes
  Agency: NSF
• Lead PI: Naima Moustaid-Moussa, College of Human Sciences (Nutrition, Hospitality & Retailing)
  Co PI(s): Shaikh Mizanoor Rahman, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (Agricultural and Applied Economics)
  Title: Inactivation of Angiotensinogen Reduces Inflammation and Insulin Resistance
  Agency: AHA, NIH
• Lead PI: Ted Wiesner, Whitacre College of Engineering (Chemical Engineering)
  Title: Advective Mass Transport in Liquids
  Agency: NSF - Interfacial Processes and Thermodynamics

Level 4

• Lead PI: Sara Dodd, College of Human Sciences (Center for Adolescent Recovery)
  Co PI(s): Naima Moustaid-Moussa, College of Human Sciences (Nutrition, Hospitality & Retailing); Mary Murimi, College of Human Sciences (Nutrition, Hospitality & Retailing)
  Title: SEED-HL: "Share Explore Experience Do-Healthy Lifestyle" An Integrated and Innovative Program to Address Overweight and Obesity among Adolescents
  Agency: USDA-AFRI
• Lead PI: Zhaoyang Fan, Whitacre College of Engineering (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
  Title: Oxide/Quantum-Dots Superlattice Based Photoelectrodes
  Agency: NSF
• Lead PI: Daan Liang, Whitacre College of Engineering (Construction Engineering/Mechanical Engineering)
  Co PI(s): James Yang, Whitacre College of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering)
  Title: Simulation Model for Tornado Evacuation of the Elderly
  Agency: NIH
• Lead PI: Dimitri Pappas, College of Arts & Sciences (Chemistry)
  Title: Hypoxia Effects in Cancer Cells and Drug Susceptibility
  Agency: NIH-Parent R01
• Lead PI: Kamaleshwar Singh, College of Arts & Sciences (Environmental Toxicology)
  Co PI(s): Weimin Gao, College of Arts & Sciences (Environmental Toxicology)
  Title: Molecular Mechanism of SKCG-1 Function in Renal Cell Carcinoma
  Agency: NIH(NCI)
• Lead PI: Zhixin Xie, College of Arts & Sciences (Biological Sciences)
  Co PI(s): Huazhong Shi, College of Arts & Sciences (Chemistry)
  Title: Argonaute Protein Dynamics in RNA-directed DNA Methylation
  Agency: NSF