Author: orandall

The University of Alabama will examine Black undergraduate women’s academic and career-related outcomes in the computing sciences (CS). Computing fields are currently in high demand with favorable workforce outcomes and a need for diverse perspectives. Nonetheless, Black women remain underrepresented along CS professional pathways. Some factors that influence Black women’s trajectories into computing professions are their college experiences, especially the challenges or biases that they face, as well as the strengths and supports that foster resilience. This project will also develop educational initiatives to promote public engagement in equity issues regarding Black women in these fields. Collectively, these activities will help to promote CS diversity and to expand opportunities in computing for the overall benefits to society. The mixed-methods research plan for this CAREER project includes a national survey to examine how Black undergraduate women’s challenges, multilevel psychosocial risks and multilevel psychosocial strengths combine to shape key academic and career-related outcomes in computing. This study will compare outcomes for Black women to other important groups (i.e., Black men and White women) given the dire need to better understand their unique experiences at the intersection of biases due to their race and gender. Moreover, qualitative data will be used to further explain Black women’s race-gendered experiences and how it impacts their academic and career-related outcomes. As a compliment to the research, the educational plan for this project will include initiatives to: 1) nurture a community of scholars in CS education to further the work of broadening CS participation; 2) combine STEM and the arts (i.e. STEAM) via production and dissemination of a documentary to increase awareness about the challenges and strengths that impact Black women’s CS academic and career-related outcomes; 3) create and disseminate a media-informed curriculum to provoke thought and dialogue about the experiences of Black women in computing, along with strategies for organizational transformation; and 4) create virtual platforms on social media for undergraduate Black women in computing to develop community and solidarity.

Funder: National Science Foundation

Amount: $607,995

PI: Krystal Williams, Institute of Higher Education

Currently, clinical applications of intravascular catheters suffer from major challenges: 1) infection; and 2) platelet activation and surface-induced thrombosis. Bacterial contamination of catheters causes more than 28,000 deaths per year in the United States, as well as costing the healthcare industry a staggering $2.3 billion. Thrombus formation can further lead to obstruction of blood vessels, catheter malfunction, or even lifethreatening situations such as embolism. Commercial catheters with heparin-bonded surfaces are available to prevent clotting, but do little to prevent infections. In addition, antiseptics or antibiotics catheter coatings or lock solutions decrease the risk of bacterial infection, but do not prevent biofilm formation that shields bacteria from antibiotics. Therefore, there is a necessity and opportunity to develop device strategies for preventing infection and thrombosis on indwelling catheters for enhanced patency and safety. Our work and others have demonstrated that nitric oxide (NO) release from polymer surfaces can prevent platelet activation and bacterial infection. This technology mimics the vascular endothelial cells lining the blood vessels, as well as other cells in our bodies, producing NO locally to prevent clotting and bacterial biofilm. Recently we discovered that all of the positive effects can be achieved from polymers physically blended with the NO donor molecule S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP), which is nontoxic, inexpensive, and easy to synthesize. Active NO release from the NO donors in polymers reduces infection and thrombosis on catheters; however, the NO-release polymer strategy alone is limited by the finite reservoir of NO donor functionalities within the catheter wall which limits the duration of the NO availability/release. Our recent work has shown the potential of developing a catheter hub device that utilizes photoactive NO-releasing polymers with side glowing fiber optics that enables controllable NO release levels. The goal of this proposal is to develop a catheter hub device comprised of a polymer utilizing a NO donor covalently bonded to the polymer with side glowing fiber optics to provide photoactive NO-release (without leaching) to provide long-term, tunable NO-release at the catheter interface to provide potent broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties and reduce thrombosis by inhibiting platelet adhesion/activation. The new device will be applicable to any catheter device; however, this proposal will focus on studying the combined photoactive NO-releasing catheter hub device in long-term intravascular catheters for the prevention of infection and thrombosis. Successful completion of this project will allow progression to early clinical trials and the development of a new generation of devices that can be inserted within the lumen of indwelling catheters to prevent these complications while improving patient care.

Funder: National Institutes of Health

Amount: $1,785,680

PI: Elizabeth Brisbois, College of Engineering

The goal of this research project is to further the development of a pan-Pneumovirus vaccine and to test our hypothesis that a chimeric Pneumovirus fusion (F) protein vaccine displaying immunodominant epitopes of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV) will induce broad protection against both viruses. RSV and hMPV are widely prevalent agents of childhood viral respiratory infection, causing thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations each year. There are currently no approved vaccines to elicit protective antibodies against either virus, and no specific treatment options are available. The F glycoproteins of RSV and hMPV have been well-studied as targets of neutralizing antibodies, and several vaccine candidates for RSV are in clinical trials. We have developed a novel vaccine candidate (RHMS-1) encompassing immunodominant epitopes of both RSV and hMPV F proteins and verified its protective efficacy in mouse and cotton rat models. The rationale for pursuing a chimeric vaccine candidate is based on several factors, including focusing the immune response to only those epitopes that elicit potent neutralizing antibodies rather than less potent or non-neutralizing epitopes to improve protection, reducing vaccine escape compared to previous chimeric vaccines incorporating a single epitope and the assessment of the first chimeric vaccine candidate beyond the mouse model. Additionally, we will determine immune correlates of protection for hMPV infection in a nonhuman primate model. These critical studies will provide a wealth of immunologic information in highly relevant, pre-clinical models that will guide an evidence-based path toward the optimization of a safe and effective pan-Pneumovirus vaccine. Our research will substantially advance the field by developing a vaccine for protection against the two leading causes of acute lower respiratory tract infection in children. As the pre-fusion RSV F protein has already demonstrated safety and the ability to elicit an effective immune response, we will build upon this success to extend this vaccine for protection against hMPV. In Aim 1, we will computationally stabilize and redesign our vaccine candidate, RHMS-1, using Rosetta to enhance protein stability and immunogenicity, and the best candidates will be rapidly screened in mice as both protein subunit and mRNA-lipid nanoparticle vaccines. In Aim 2, we will conduct structural and epitope analysis of our top vaccine candidate to verify the epitopes on RHMS are similar to RSV F and hMPV F proteins. In Aim 3, we will determine the protective efficacy of the top candidate RHMS vaccine in cotton rat and African Green Monkey models of RSV and hMPV infection. Our proposal is both conceptually and practically innovative as we are designing and testing novel vaccine candidates for protection against two important respiratory pathogens, and we are challenging current paradigms in the field by providing a single antigen for dual-virus protection. Furthermore, the innovation of the team is very high, as this proposal brings together diverse investigators and several state of the art technologies.

Funder: National Institutes of Health

Amount: $3,760,877

PI: Jarrod Mousa, College of Veterinary Medicine

This project will increase the number and diversity of mental health providers from the University of Georgia’s School Counseling and School Psychology programs who will provide contextualized mental health services in five high-need schools in a high-need LEA in rural northern Georgia. In collaboration with these schools and community partners, this project will provide a diverse group of trainees didactic and experiential training to prepare them to administer evidence-based mental and behavioral health services to K-12 students that are inclusive in terms of race/ethnicity, culture, language and sexual self-identity.
Proposed Project Outcomes: The project’s primary outcomes are the: (1) numbers and demographics of students trained and placed in high-need LEAs; (2) numbers and demographics of trainees hired by high-need LEAs and schools; (3) numbers and demographics of students and families served; and (4) trainees’ abilities to provide culturally-contextualized treatments to students from diverse groups. Number of LEAs to Be Served: One high-need LEA with Rural and Low Income School status (Madison County GA School District) and five high-need schools will be served (3 elementary, 1 middle school, and 1 high school). All are economically-impoverished, have high participation rates in free/reduced school lunch programs and have zero mental health professionals on staff.
Number of Students to Be Served: Across the participating high school, middle school, and three elementary schools, this project has the potential to interact with as many as 4,200 K-12 students.
Number of Providers to Be Hired: This project will train 50 graduate students in the University of Georgia’s School Counseling Program (N=40) and School Psychology Program (N=10). All trainees will be mentored to obtain employment as mental health professionals in high-need LEAs and high-need schools in Georgia or other states upon graduation.

Funder: U.S. Department of Education
Amount: $4,733,188
PI: Bernadette Heckman, Mary Frances Early College of Education

Dr. Cotwright will serve as Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity at the USDA to advance food and nutrition security, ensuring that all Americans have consistent and equitable access to healthy, safe, affordable foods essential to optimal health and well-being.

Funder: USDA

PI: Caree Cotwright

The oilseed legume crop, peanut or groundnut, is highly nutritious and of global importance for production of oil, peanut butter, and confectionery products. The US is the most advanced with respect to improved cultivars and production practices that lead to high yields. Nevertheless, challenges to maintain and improve yields and quality persist. Addressing these challenges requires genetic resources that can provide diversity for breeding and selection of cultivars. Peanut has a narrow genetic base with limited diversity in the primary gene pool. Expanding diversity through wide hybridization is advancing; however, creating diversity within the primary gene pool is another approach of potential value for shorter-term gains towards breeding goals. With this in mind, we propose to evaluate and preserve a mutant collection initially created to screen for mutations in allergen genes. With current technological advances, this mutant resource can now be characterized for genome-wide mutations while also taking the forward genetics approach to identify phenotypic changes that may be related to an underlying mutation. We propose to sequence, phenotype, increase, and make publicly available 768 mutant lines and mutant genotypes. An additional group of mutant lines will be recovered from stored mutagenized seeds for future characterization. This project is directly relevant to the Commodity board co-funding topic for peanut, “Characterize natural and induced genetic variation across the diversity of cultivated peanut germplasm using innovative genetic technologies to provide a resource base for peanut genetic improvement focused on traits for biotic and abiotic stress resistance, quality, productivity and other beneficial traits”.

Funder: USDA NIFA

Amount: $490,000

PI: Peggy Ozias-Akins

This study proposes a comprehensive resilience management framework that aims to bring stakeholders from different critical sectors and society together to collectively work under a common objective of achieving over-arching national resilience. Sub-project 1 aims at developing a national resilience framework for Qatar. Sub-project 2 will focus on the social, societal, and policy dimensions of national-level resilience-building as they cut across all other (physical, technological, informational, economic etc.) aspects of resilience. It will provide for a vital and dynamic bridge between Sub-project 1 and the cluster critical sectors. Sub-projects 3, 4 and 5 will serve two pivotal roles. They will be the source of technical knowledge and information about the networks that will be incorporated in the framework (Sub-project 1). At the same time, they represent the critical sectors for which we will develop score cards and help to demonstrate the efficacy of the national framework. The first sector is physical infrastructure (Sub-project 3) that includes water supply, power generation, and the transportation network. The second sector is manufacturing systems (Sub-project 4), which addresses strategic areas in the Qatar National Development Strategy 2018-2022. Sub-project 4 will also improve the preparedness of the supply chain network in order to open alternatives for enhancing the national resilience. The third sector (Sub-project 5) is industrial plants and facilities, including upstream (oil and gas production) and downstream products.  Our project is based on the merit that achieving a deep and truly effective national resilience framework with added value for policymaking and business continuity is only achieved by accounting for the human, social, behavioral and larger societal factors impacting physical and technological assets.

Funder: Qatar Foundation via Texas A&M for Proactive Resilience Plan (PReP)

Amount: $531,161

PI: Bjorn Birgisson

Project Summary According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the global burden of tuberculosis peaked in 2000 and has since declined by 2.0% per year. Although this progress is encouraging, tuberculosis remains a leading cause of death, as over 1.4 million people die per year of the disease. Moreover, low- and middle-income countries especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia bear a disproportionately high burden of tuberculosis compared to other parts of the world. The overarching goal of this proposal is simple: to reduce the burden of tuberculosis in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular Uganda. To reach this goal, we believe that we need new metrics for tuberculosis burden that lead to actionable steps to reduce transmission or prevent progression of infection to disease. We also need better ways to manage the disease by ensuring proper adherence to effective treatment regimens to achieve desired clinical outcomes. The current proposal is built upon the premise that digital mobile technologies, that were not developed with health purposes in mind, may be leveraged in imaginative and novel ways to provide useful information about tuberculosis transmission, infection, and disease. Indeed, over the past decade, we have developed a portfolio of research projects using cellular telephone metadata, GPS-enabled watches, and smartphone video apps to study central questions about tuberculosis persistence in Kampala and Uganda more broadly. These projects have generated large, complex and interconnected databases that require a high level of quantitative skills and sophistication to manage and analyze. Yet, the expertise to design studies and analyze these types of data currently lies in a small group of researchers from diverse disciplines, such as epidemiology, geography, network science, computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, among others. To realize the full potential of digital mobile technologies in measuring useful health information, we propose to build a critical mass of researchers with expertise across two or more disciplines who are dedicated to applying new methods to study the longstanding and stubborn questions about the persistence of tuberculosis in Africa. To create this critical mass of researchers in Uganda, we propose the following Specific Aims: 1. To train two Ugandan pre-doctoral trainees at the University of Georgia (UGA) in epidemiology, one with a special focus on geography of tuberculosis and the other with focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence to enhance digital adherence technology; 2. To train two to three master’s students per year enrolled at Makerere University by supporting their master’s thesis research in topics related to tuberculosis and geography, computer science, or modern digital technologies; 3. To conduct non-degree training to build and strengthen research capacity in digital mobile technologies and tuberculosis through annual recess-term short courses on relevant topics, monthly research seminars, and modern digital health technologies symposia at the Ugandan Society of Health Scientists’ annual conference.

Funder: NIH

Amount: $1,181,763

PI: Christopher Whalen

The overall purpose of the proposed project is to identify the needs of urban farmers in Georgia, building on the work of the UCOC pilot in Atlanta, and connecting urban farmers with customized resources from FSA, other agencies of USDA, UGA, and other state, federal, and non-governmental organizations who can help urban farmers in Georgia achieve their own locally identified goals through the development of projects addressing the needs presented. Through the project described in this application, Archway proposes to apply its time-tested model to urban agriculture in Georgia. While this proposed project complements both of FSA’s goals for this program, the Archway Partnership model aligns most closely with Goal 1: Increase equity in urban food systems by expanding FSA’s outreach efforts to commercial urban producers through technical assistance, outreach, education, and research. For approximately the first six months to one year of the project, Archway Partnership faculty will conduct a thorough needs assessment of urban farmers in Georgia, utilizing the UCOC pilot in Atlanta as a hub to connect with urban farmers from around the state. The first step of this process will be partnering with UGA’s J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development to conduct a series of listening sessions with urban agriculture producers in Georgia. The Fanning Institute provides access to a computer system that can collect information from all participants and share that information in real-time, leading to more in-depth conversations and results within a community. We will widely advertise these listening sessions to urban agriculture stakeholders throughout Georgia, taking great pains to ensure diverse, representative participation. At these listening sessions, we will ask stakeholders about the trends, forces, and factors they are facing in urban agriculture in Georgia and what needs they have to help them build more equitable urban food systems in the state.

After the needs assessment is completed, we will spend the remaining two to two-and-a half years of the project period working with stakeholders to implement customized solutions like those described above to meet the locally identified needs of urban farmers in Georgia.

Funder: USDA

Amount: $1,500,000

PI: Michelle Elliott

While the model is based on a theory of change, which reflects a growing initiative to establish a national Romanian model of outreach and engagement, this overall endeavor has the potential to establish a paradigm shift in the Romanian university system to drive valuable research into the collaborative realm with rural farming communities. The Romanian agricultural landscape provides a rich heritage worthy of preserving and the capacity for significant growth and viability within the European market. Therefore, it is exciting to be a host institution that provides Romanian scholars the space, time, resources, and structure to thoughtfully and critically explore avenues through which a national model can be established. The objectives for this project are 1) for UGA to serve as a host institution that provides a rich and fully immersive semester-long experience in Georgia’s statewide UGA Extension system, and 2) for Fulbright-RAF Scholars to be fully equipped to actively engage in the design and implementation of programming focused on rural economic development in Romania.

Funder: Council on International Educational Exchange

Amount: $105,000

PI: Abigail Borron