2007 - 2008
Past Grants
- Asia
Department of Psychology: Dr. Rachel Barr
Dr. Rachel Barr will travel to Dunedin, New Zealand to study mnemonic networks during infancy. The research will examine how infants are able to link information into meaningful connections and how these memory connections form during this early period. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Harlene Hayne, Professor and Head of the Psychology Department at the University of Otago. - Europe
Department of Economics: Dr. Behzad Diba
Dr. Behzad Diba is traveling to Switzerland and France to research international asset portfolios in general-equilibrium models. In collaboration with co-authors including Professor Harris Dellas (at the University of Bern, in Switzerland) and Professor Fabrice Collard (at the Toulouse School of Economics, in France), their project entitled “Goods Trade and International Equity Portfolios” proposes a resolution to the “Portfolio Home Bias Puzzle,” which has been widely regarded as one of the most important puzzles in international finance for over two decades. - Asia
Department of Biology: Dr. Janet Mann
Dr. Janet Mann will travel to the University of Queensland in Australia to examine the relationships between various factors that contribute to female dolphin reproductive success by using non-invasive techniques such as blow samples. This study is methodologically innovative and could set the standard for the field and for future research. - Europe
Department of Sociology and Anthropology: Dr. William McDonald
Dr. William McDonald will travel to Germany and England to research a comparative analysis between the two countries and the United States on the connection between immigration, crime and the police. The project will analyze the responses to the problem in these three countries. Dr. McDonald is conducting the project in collaboration with Dr. Dita Vogel of the Hamburg Institute of International Finance in Germany and Dr. Bill Jordan of the University of Plymouth in England. - Latin America
Department of Spanish and Portuguese: Dr. Joanne Rappaport
Dr. Joanne Rappaport will travel to Colombia to transcribe the documentation of the Cacique de Turmequé, which is vital to understanding the subtleties of racial attribution less than two decades after the Spanish conquest, when they were just being defined. This documentation constitutes the most lengthy example of an indigenous colonial voice outside of the more well-documented colonial centers of Lima and Mexico City. The transcription will be modernized so that it is legible to a wide variety of readers. Dr. Rappaport will be collaborating with Juan Felipe Hoyos, an indepenent anthropologist affiliated with the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History. - Europe
Department of Chemistry: Dr. Paul Roepe
Dr. Paul Roepe will travel to England to research the relationship between membrane biomechanics and ion channels in order to unify the drug resistance and bioavailability research fields. The objective is to demonstrate that the mechanism of drug resistance relies on cell membrane biomechanical properties and that certain mechanical properties of membranes are changed by alteration of ion channel activity. This will help the design of new therapeutic strategies aiming to overcome biological barriers to drugs. The study is being performed in collaboration with a team led by Dr. Cyril Rauch at the University of Nottingham. - Europe
Department of Linguistics: Dr. Andrea Tyler
Dr. Andrea Tyler will travel to work with Dr. Vyvyan Evans, Professor of Cognitive Linguistics at the University of Brighton (UK), to explore spatial language in English from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics. In their co-authored book, The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition, they developed a theory of semantic extension termed the Principled Polysemy model. Dr. Tyler is currently applying the model to Russian prepositions. - Latin America
Department of Physics: Dr. Jeffrey Urbach
Dr. Jeffrey Urbach will travel to Bahía Blanca, Argentina to study the cholesterol-dependent dynamics of nictonic acetylcholine receptors in cell membranes and their interactions with cholesterol. This research will be conducted in the lab of Dr. Francisco Barrantes, which has been a leader in applying biophysical techniques to acetylcholine receptors structure and function, and has performed pioneering studies on the interaction between these receptors and the environment. - Asia
Department of Physics: Dr. Edward Van Keuren
Dr. Edward Van Keuren will travel to Japan to develop new nanoparticle contrast agents to detect very small tumors that are not visible with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), preventing earlier treatment where the success rate is high. This project is being conducted with a group led by Professor H. Oikawa of the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials (IMRAM) at Tohoku University in Sendai. It builds on Dr. Van Keuren's previous work with this group on porous nanoparticles.