Sponsored Research News

July - August 2008

Dave Porter, Professor, Argyros  School of Business and Economics and the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics in the Wilkinson College of Letters and Sciences, was awarded a grant from the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics (IFREE) on July 18, 2008.  The grant in the amount of $25000 is provided to support a speaker series held at the Economic Science Institute at Chapman, of which he is a member. . 

Bart Wilson, Professor, Economics, ASBE, and Professor of Law in the School of Law, received an additional grant from the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics (IFREE) on July 18, 2008.  The grant in the amount of $17K is to provide additional support to workshops, directed by Professor Wilson, hosted by the Economic Science Institute at Chapman, of which he is a member. 

May - June 2008

Bart Wilson, Professor, Economics, ASBE, and Professor of Law in the School of Law, received a grant from the National Science Foundation on June 20, 2008.  The award in the amount of $169,066 over three years supports research to examine the hypothesis that nonhuman primates and humans share basic economic decision making strategies.  The NSF award number is SES-0833310.  Please contact Professor Wilson for details.

Christopher Kim, Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department, received an award from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Department of the Interior, on June 6, 2008.  The award, in the amount of $95,000 for one year, is to support a program to study the relationship of the grain size of mine tailings as it relates to the release of arsenic to aquatic environments.  This is BLM award number BAP080070.  Please contact Professor Kim for details.

Dave Porter, Professor, Argyros  School of Business and Economics and the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics in the Wilkinson College of Letters and Sciences, and Steve Rassenti, Professor, Economics, ASBE, received a subaward from University of Massachusetts, Amherst from an award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on May 30, 2008.  The award, in the amount 308,622 over three years, is to support research on market mechanisms and incentives, involving case studies and experimental testbeds for new environmental trading programs.  Both investigators are members of the new Chapman University Economic Science Institute.  Please contact Profs. Porter and Rassenti for details.

2008 Sponsored Research Million Dollar Club Award:  Frank Frisch, Professor, Biological Sciences, and Roxanne Greitz Miller, Assistant Professor, School of Education, once again were the recipients of this award, presented on May 9, 2008.  This award is given to faculty members who have obtained more than one million dollars in external support for their scholarly work.  Profs. Greitz Miller and Frisch received this award last year, and have, since then, achieved this honor again by winning grants in excess of one million dollars this year!

February - April 2008

Bart Wilson, Professor, Economics, ASBE, and Professor of Law in the School of Law, received a grant from the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics (IFREE) on March 15, 2008.  The grant in the amount of $94,000 is to support workshops, directed by Professor Wilson, hosted by the Economic Science Institute at Chapman, of which he is a member.  The program will entail a visiting graduate student workshop in experimental economics, a Vernon L. Smith High School Workshop in Experimental Economics, and a summer internship program for top high school students and undergraduates.  IFREE was established with funds from the Nobel Prize won by Vernon L. Smith, Ph.D., who has recently joined the faculty at Chapman along with Professor Wilson.  Please contact Professor Wilson, who has arrived this June, for details.

Fred Caporaso, Professor, Food Science, secured a grant for $3,400 from Puluome Wildwood, Inc. to support sensory testing on April 10, 2008. Pulmuone Wildwood Inc., a Korean based company selling organic food products will be conducting descriptive sensory testing for a TOFU project. 

Catherine Clark, Associate Professor, Chemistry, and Warrren de Bruyn, Associate Professor, Chemistry, were awarded a grant from the American Chemical Society - Petroleum Research Fund on April 4, 2008.  The grant in the amount of $64,681 over three years for a project entitled, "Solution medium effects on the kinetics and mechanism of photolysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in aqueous medium." The researchers will focus on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are carcinogenic fused ring compounds present in petroleum.  They will seek to further the understanding PAH processing in the environment, by elucidating photolysis kinetics and mechanisms in aqueous media as a function of solution medium. The results will be of broad interest to the scientific community. This work will significantly advance teaching at Chapman through the participation of undergraduate students in research.  The ACS-PRF grant number is 47790-B4.  Please contact Profs. Clark and de Bruyn for details.

January 2008

Dave Porter, Professor, Argyros  School of Business and Economics and the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics in the Wilkinson College of Letters and Sciences, was awarded a grant from the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics (IFREE) on Jan 1, 2008.  The grant in the amount of $50,000 is provided to support research to develop software and conduct experiments in financial economics.  IFREE was established with funds from the Nobel Prize won by Vernon L. Smith, Ph.D., who has recently joined the faculty in the Argyros  School of Business and Economics at Chapman, along with three others on his team, David Porter, Ph.D., Bart Wilson, Ph.D. and Stephen Rassenti, Ph.D.  Please contact Professor Porter for details on his research.

November - December 2007

Jennifer Funk, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences was awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on December 1, 2007 for a program entitled, "Mechanisms of success among invasive plant species: nitrogen partitioning, biochemical fingerprints, and remote sensing."  Prof. Funk transferred this award from Stanford University.  The research will examine inter-specific variation in nitrogen partitioning within leaves between photosynthetic, structural, and defensive compounds, and assess how differences in N partitioning contribute to carbon assimilation in invasive plants across environmental gradients.  The research will then investigate how this variation could be used to identify species distribution and dispersal using remotely sensed data. The research will specifically test the hypotheses that: 1) invasive plants display high ratios of photosynthetic to non-photosynthetic N pools, 2) invasive plants are more plastic in N partitioning in response to variation in resource availability, 3) patterns of N partitioning and associated plasticity are adaptive. The award is effective from December 1, 2007 through November 30, 2009, and the total funding is $124,955 for the two-year period.  The USDA Award Number is 2008-35320-18721.  Please contact Prof. Funk for details on the program.

October 2007

Roxanne Greitz Miller, Assistant Professor, School of Education and Frank Frisch, Professor, Biological Sciences were awarded a grant from the California Postsecondary Education Commission's (CPEC's) Improving Teacher Quality Program, formally announced on October 22, 2007.  The award is for $901,404 over four years for a program, entitled Project SMART: Integrating Science, Mathematics, Reading and Technology. In describing the project, Professor Miller states that in many schools, teachers have to place reading first and science last, if science is taught at all in the early grades where it is not measured by state achievement tests.  Then, when students get to the upper elementary grades where science is tested, they lack the foundation they need to succeed.  Project SMART aims to change this by showing teachers that science can be used in the early grades as the “center” around which reading, math, and technology instruction can be based.  The focus of the project is the improvement of science, reading, mathematics, and technology skills of Kindergarten through second graders in Anaheim public schools.  The total cost of the project is $1.16M, with the balance of support coming from the STAR Institute in Chapman's School of Education, which is co-directed by Profs. Miller and Frisch.  Please contact Roxanne Miller or Frank Frisch for details.

September 2007

National Endowment for the Humanities Presentation: On September 12, 2007, Nancy Martin, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, and Joseph Runzo, Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, led a discussion on pursuing grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities(NEH). They duscussed the structure and mission of the NEH, its current budget and how it is distributed among its programs, and how an NEH grant can enhance and validate scholarship.  They outlined their experience as grantees, project directors and reviewers, and gave tips on preparing a grant.  Finally, they gave details on each of the programs currently supported by the NEH.  They have also graciously provided their slides, which can be viewed from here.  There were approximately 8 attendees from various schools and departments.

Warren de Bruyn, Associate Professor and Catherine Clark, Associate Professor, both in Chemistry were formally awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation on September 4, 2007 for a program entitled, "The Production and Degradation of Acetone in Seawater."  The research will pursue a better understanding of the production and destruction processes that control acetone concentrations in the sea, which would ultimately allow scientists to estimate the global air-sea flux of acetone and its impact on tropospheric chemistry. The project has four short-term goals: to measure acetone at nanomolar levels in seawater using a method compatible with undergraduate student research capabilities; to measure acetone in surface seawater at coastal sites in Southern California over several diurnal periods in the dry and wet rainy season; to measure the biological and photochemical production rates of acetone in seawater; and to measure the photochemical and biological degradation rates for acetone in seawater. The long term goals are to improve our overall understanding of the processing of acetone in surface seawaters and ultimately the flux of acetone across the air-sea interface. The award is effective from September 15, 2007 through August 31, 2010, and the total funding is $251,222 for the three-year period.  The NSF Award Number is OCE-0727614.  Please contact Profs. Clark and de Bruyn for details on the program.

Mark Axelrod, Professor, English and Comparative Literature , received formal notice on August 27, 2007 of an award from the National Endowment for the Arts for the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing.  The award is made as part of the Challenge America: Reaching Every Community Program.  It's purpose is to support, through Chairman Gioia's extraordinary action award, an international writers reading series.  The amount of the award is $15,000, and, along with matching funds from Chapman University entities, will be used to host a series of prominant international writers, including Sir Salman Rushdie.  The project will run from September 1, 2007 to May 31, 2008.  The grant number is 07-7900-7035.  Please contact Professor Axelrod for details.

August 2007

Faculty Briefing, Chancellor Daniele Struppa and OSR Director, Ron DiMelfi hosted a breakfast for new faculty beginning their second year at Chapman University.  The Chancellor expressed his support for the enterprise of sponsored research as well as his recognition of other forms of scholarly pursuit.  Dr. DiMelfi gave a brief presentation on the procedures for handling proposals and grants, the services offered by his Office, and new avenues of support provided by the OSR.

Bill Wright, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences was formally awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for a program entitled, "Predation-induced sensitization in Aplysia californica" on Aug. 7, 2007.  The project has a goal of developing an understanding how we learn and remember.  Experiments will be performed on a widely used model system for learning and memory: the study of sensitization in the Opisthobranch mollusk, Aplysia californica. Sensitization refers to an enhancement in defensive behaviors after a noxious stimulus. The proposed experiments will, for the first time, bring an ecological approach to the study of sensitization in Aplysia. As in other systems that employ such an approach, this will likely deepen our understanding, both adaptive and mechanistic, of sensitization in this well studied model system.  The award is effective Aug. 15, 2007, and the project will be conducted over a three-year period.  The total budget for the project is $363,379.  Please contact Prof. Wright for details.

June - July, 2007

Walter Piper, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences was formally awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for a program entitled, "Long-term Investigation of Territorial Behavior and Population Dynamics in the Common Loon," on July 18, 2007.   The project has three goals: to investigate the ultimate cause(s) of fatal fighting among loons over territory; to investigate the function(s) of the territorial yodel, a complex, individually distinctive call given by male territory owners during aggressive interactions; and to continue a fruitful collaboration between behavioral ecologists and wildlife biologists who use loons to detect anthropogenic impacts on aquatic ecosystems. The research will be conducted over five years, beginning Aug. 1, 2007, and the total funding is $444,359 for the five-year period.  Please contact Prof. Piper for details on the program.

Drew Moshier, Associate Professor, Math and Computer Science was formally awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for a program entitled, "Supporting Non-CISE (Computer and Information Science and Engineering) Majors in a Computing Community," on July 20, 2007.  This project will focus on the potential of non-computing majors to make significant contributions to computing applications within their fields. Two programs to be developed in this project will be a Masters Seminar Series and a Center for Open Source Solutions. The Masters Seminar Series will bring to campus professionals from a wide variety of fields whose contributions in those fields have advanced the use of computation and technology. The Center for Open Source Solutions (COSS) will provide both physical space for collaboration and a virtual clearinghouse of resources for development of open source solutions in various disciplines. The program will be conducted over one year, beginning Aug. 1, 2007, and the total funding is $85,083 for this period.   Please contact Prof. Moshier for details of the program.

April - May, 2007

Fred Caporaso, Professor, Food Science, Frank Frisch, Professor, Biology, and Scientific Director of the STAR Institute in the School of Education, and Ken Sumida, Professor, Biology , were awarded a research grant for $500,000 from the Irvine Health Foundation on May 24, 2007.  The project is entitled, "Characterization of Bone Health in Orange County Residents." The researchers will identify populations of Orange County residents with osteoporosis and develop comprehensive and specific strategies for their treatment.   The grant will fund Phase I of a three-part study.  This phase, to be conducted over three years, will involve characterizing the bone health of specific groups: e.g., postmenopausal females, adolescents, mature males, female athletes, ethnic groups, etc.  Future phases will include the development of nutritional, exercise and pharmacologic strategies specifically for each group, and evaluation and testing to determine the efficacy of each strategy.

Christopher Kim, Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department, received an award from the National Science Foundation on May 11, 2007.  The award, in the amount of $33,613, is entitled "Acquisition of a Surface Area Analyzer for Undergraduate Research and Teaching in Earth Science."  The instrument purchased with these funds will be of immediate and significant benefit to Prof. Kim’s ongoing research projects in environmental geochemistry.  The award is from the Earth Sciences Division/Instrumentation and Facilities Program at NSF.

Lilian Were, Assistant Professor in the Food Science and Nutrition Program, was awarded a grant in the amount of $21,834 from the Education and Research Grant Committee of the Southern California Intitute of Food Technologists for the purchase of a gas chromatograph system on May 3, 2007.  Please contact Professor Were for further details on this grant. 

Dept. of Education Panel Discussion: On April 24, 2007, Dr. Joel Colbert, Professor and Director of the Ph.D. in Education Program in the School of Education at Chapman led a panel discussion on pursuing grants from the U.S. Department of Education.  The panel consisted of Professors Anaida Colon-Muniz, Dawn Hunter and Roxanne Greitz Miller.  They offered their collective wisdom based on their experience as grantees, project directors, reviewers and, in the case of Prof. Hunter, a Branch Manager at the Department of Education, handling a $31M budget.  There were approximately 15 attendees from various schools and departments.  Following this discussion, Dr. Ron DiMelfi gave a brief overview on using the eCivis Grants Network to which Chapman has a subscription. He also used it to link to grants.gov to show how application to a Dept. of Education grant is handled electronically.

January - March, 2007

First Annual Million Dollar Club Award: The first annual Sponsored Research Million Dollar Club Awards were presented to Chapman University researchers on Friday, February 23, 2007 in the Malloy Performance Portico at the Leatherby Libraries on the Chapman campus.  The award is given to Chapman scholars who obtain more than one million dollars in external support for scholarly work at the University. This year, the awardees are: Virginia Carson, Professor of Biological Sciences and Director of the W.M. Keck Foundation Science Education Initiative; Anaida Colon-Muniz, Associate Professor of Education and Director of Project Connect; Frank Frisch, Professor of Biological Sciences and Scientific Director of the Science Technology and Research (STAR) Institute in the School of Education; Roxanne Greitz Miller (unable to attend), Assistant Professor of Education and Education Director of the STAR Institute; and Marianne Smith, Director of Project I-TEACH in the School of Education.  The Million Dollar Club Award consists of a perpetual wall plaque to which awardees’ names are added, and an engraved crystal cube, which was designed by Christina Marshall, Department Assistant to the Provost.  On hand to present the awards and honor the awardees were Provost Daniele Struppa; Ron DiMelfi, Director of Sponsored Research; Don Cardinal, Dean of the School of Education; Roberta Lessor, Dean of Wilkinson College of Letters and Sciences; Jeanne Gunner, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education; Raymond Sfeir, Associate Provost for Academic Administration; Ellen Curtis-Pierce, Assistant Provost for Teacher Education; and several members of the Chapman community.

NIH Presentation: On March 1, 2007, The Office of Sponsored Research hosted a visit by Dr. Gary Kreps, Mandell Professor of Health Communication and Chair of the Department of Communication at George Mason University.  Prior to his appointment at Mason, he served for five years as Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Dr. Kreps gave Chapman University faculty and students a presentation on pursuing research funds from the NIH.  Lisa Sparks, Professor of Communication at Chapman also gave the group the benefit of her experience as a reviewer at the NIH, during her tenure as a faculty member at George Mason University.  Professor Sparks described the NIH review criteria at the meeting.

OSR Presentation:  On March 21, 2007, Ron DiMelfi gave a presentation at the Faculty Forum, entitled, “Sponsored Research at Chapman University."  He discussed the processes for submitting proposals and handling grants that have evolved since the Office of Sponsored Research was established.  He also gave a brief tutorial on proposal preparation and discussed near-future plans for encouraging the pursuit of extramural research at Chapman.  His slides may be accessed here.

November - December 2006

Christopher Kim, Assistant Professor of Physical and Applied Sciences, has received an award from the Research Corporation in the amount of $34,798, for a project entitled, "Aggregation-based growth of iron oxyhydroxide nanoparticles and associated metal sorption/incorporation processes."  The proposed work addresses important environmental issues. 

Lillian Were, Assistant Professor of Physical and Applied Sciences and Denise Foley, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, have received a subaward in the amount of $40,000 from the University of Florida for a USDA-funded project entitled, "Customizing Food Safety Training Programs for Ethnic Food Vendors."