Category: CMS-Research

GRANTS, GRANTS, GRANTS!

A number of UCO faculty were recently awarded a $1,187,961, six-year grant from the National Science Foundation as part of its Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. This project titled “Master Teachers Conducting STEM Practices and Action Research” will create a new partnership among the University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Public Schools, and the Central Oklahoma STEM Alliance to serve the national need of developing highly effective biology and mathematics teacher leaders in secondary education in Oklahoma.

The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. Fourteen central Oklahoma high school biology and math teachers will become Master Teaching Fellows. They will conduct STEM research and educational action research, do leadership training, and continue professional development and community building with each other while teaching in high-need schools. The program will orient these teachers to effectively support and mentor other teachers, especially those with emergency and alternative certifications.

Program organizers include UCO’s: Allyson Fenwick, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology; Liz Lane-Harvard, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mathematics & Statistics; Elizabeth Allan, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology, and Mike Nelson, Ph.D., Professor and Assistant Dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies. The program evaluator is Cynthia Murray, Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics and Statistics. Additional UCO faculty are senior personnel on the project and will mentor Fellows.

Dr. Ben Tayo, Associate Professor of Engineering & Physics was awarded a National Institutes of Health, R-15 grant. The grant, a three-year, $425,928 research grant will bring deeper insights on a new class of materials for DNA detection. The ability to detect and discriminate DNA bases by reading it directly using simple and cost-effective methods is an important problem whose solution can produce value for areas such as cancer and human genetic disorder research. Despite progress in sequencing techniques, there are still several challenges to be overcome. Because of the challenges, the need for cheaper and faster approaches for automated sequencing is crucial. This research will employ high-performance computing and machine learning resources to investigate the potential of several two-dimensional crystalline materials for DNA sequencing. The knowledge gained from this research will provide deeper insights that will help guide the integration of these materials as active components of electronic devices for fast, direct-read, and affordable DNA sequencing. This award will strengthen the research environment at the University of Central Oklahoma and engage students in computational research.

Dr. Emily Hendryx from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics was awarded a three-year, $410,515 grant from the National Institute of Health. Titled “Summarizing Cardiac Data: An Automated Approach for Identifying Representative Heartbeats in the Clinical Setting,” this project involves a collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital to use applied mathematics and data science in removing noise and summarizing pediatric electrocardiogram data recorded at hospital bedsides. This project will provide a way to present a representation of a patient’s recent cardiac health history to clinicians and deliver clinical decision support toward improving patient outcomes. Co-advised by Dr. Tyler Cook from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, this project will also offer undergraduate students an opportunity to participate in innovative interdisciplinary research.

Dr. John Rhee from the Department of Computer Science received a $87,873 grant from Sandia National Laboratories as part of his effort to build better cybersecurity services for cloud-based software systems. Once completed, the tools developed in his project titled “TelScope: Discovering Blind Spots of Telemetry Diagnosability” will be used to reveal gaps between telemetry requirements and implemented telemetry collection for cloud services.

Dr. Morshed Khandaker from the Department of Engineering and Physics received an Oklahoma Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) grant for his project “Anti Corrosion Behavior of Mg and Zn nanoparticle incorporated nanofiber membrane.” This $5,000 award will be used to evaluate the structural efficacy of magnesium- and zinc-loaded nanofiber membrane coating on steel in reinforced concrete.

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Tami Jackson

Dr. Christopher Butler Receives Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Grant

Dr. Christopher Butler, professor of biology, has received a four-year $332,100 grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. His project, “Comparing detectability and efficiency of multiple methods for surveying rails,” will improve detection rates of Black Rail and King Rail species on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The specific objectives of the project are: to conduct present-absence surveys using multiple approaches that include both detection and occupancy rates for rail species; evaluate whether FLIR-equipped (thermal) UAVs may be used to detect multiple rail species; refine a survey technique for long-term monitoring that, afterward, might be continued by TPWD staff for various rail species; and assess potential habitat associations that relate back to management practices conducted on state and federal lands.

 

Posted on February 22, 2021 by

Dr. Andrew Taylor Receives OK Department of Wildlife Conservation Grant

Dr. Andrew Taylor, assistant professor of biology, received a $119,361 grant from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. Dr. Christopher Butler, professor of biology will serve as a Co-Principal Investigator on the grant. The two-year project, “Detection and Occupancy of Bluntface Shiner (Cyprinella camura) in Wadeable Streams of Northeastern Oklahoma,” will update the known distribution and habitat associations of Bluntface Shiner. The extent of the species’ current geographic distribution is unknown. This project will perform targeted field collections of Bluntface Shiner across streams in 15 north central and northeastern Oklahoma counties. Over the course of the project, sampling will be focused among locations within the Verdigris River basin, upper Arkansas River basin, and the Ozark Mountains ecoregion.

Posted on February 4, 2021 by

Dr. Gang Xu’s Research Continues after U.S. Dept. of Energy Grant

In summer 2019, Dr. Gang Xu received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for his proposal, “Flagella-Driven Cellular Motility, Transport, & Biomixing: Computational Studies.”  The funding provided Dr. Xu and two of his former research assistants, Erin Drewke and Joseph Wagner, with full support to spend 10 weeks working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, California.  There they worked with Drs. Ann Almgren and Johannes Blaschke in its Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering to develop a novel simulation capability based on combining state-of-the-art algorithms with empirical models for beating flagella and swimming cells. The new codes are ideally suitable for high-performance computing resources such as those at the Berkeley Lab and also UCO. The results will improve the understanding on the hydrodynamic impacts of flagellar beating and flagella-actuated cell swimming, and provide biophysical and mechanistic basis for development of novel microfluidic and biofuel devices. This experience paved the way for continued collaboration and expanded Dr. Xu’s research capacity.  Erin, a 2020 UCO biomedical engineering graduate, is pursuing her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at the University of Arkansas. Joseph, a prospective 2021 mechanical engineering graduate, is planning to pursue a Ph.D.

Posted on December 7, 2020 by

UCO Professors Collaborate on U. of Kansas NSF EPSCoR Grant

Drs. Robert Brennan and Sean Laverty are part of a multi-institutional NSF EPSCoR grant to research tick-borne diseases including Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The four-year $3,921,229 grant, “Marshalling Diverse Big Data Streams to Understand Complexity of Tick-borne Diseases in the Southern Great Plains,”  is a collaboration among six universities in Kansas and Oklahoma, with the University of Kansas (KU) serving as the lead institution. Along with KU and UCO, the consortium includes Kansas State University, Pittsburgh State University, Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma. According to the project abstract, major components of the research include assembling detailed large-scale datasets on the occurrences of different tick species, genomes of the ticks and pathogens, and environmental variation across the region. Dr. Brennan, biology professor, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Education and Research (CIBER) and associate dean of the UCO College of Mathematics and Science, serves as a Co-Principal Investigator on the grant. Dr. Laverty, associate professor of mathematics and statistics and CIBER member, will provide data analysis.  

 

Posted on November 17, 2020 by

CMS Faculty Receive OK-INBRE Grants

Three CMS faculty have received OK-INBRE grants totaling $189,160 for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Dr. Mohammad Hossan, Associate Professor of Engineering & Physics, received a Research Principal Investigator grant for $189,160. His project “Flow Analysis of a Bioresorbable Pipeline Embolization Device for Treatment of Aneurysms,” involves the design and development of bioresorbable pipeline embolization devices (PEDs) that will control aneurysm-specific hemodynamic parameters and degrade after completely dissolving the aneurysm.

Dr. Hari Kotturi, Professor of Biology, received a $31,389 grant for his project, “Incorporation of Mycobacteriophages in Electrospun Nanofiber.” The goal of the study is to develop an antimicrobial dressing by incorporating bacteriophages that can kill Mycobacterium abscessus, a common causative agent of soft tissue infections in hospitals. Dr. Kotturi’s research team will be able to enhance the antimicrobial property of polycaprolactone/collagen I (PCL/Col I) nanofiber by integrating mycobacteriophages into the nanofiber used as a wound dressing.

Dr. Christina Hendrickson, Coordinator of the Human Physiology Lab in the Department of Biology, was funded $27,083 for her project, “Investigating Anti-carcinogenic Effects of Taraxacum officinale.” The specific aims of the research are to: determine cancer cell viability and apoptosis; determine whether cancer cell apoptosis is activated by intrinsic or extrinsic pathways, and whether leakage of pro-apoptotic factors from mitochondria or induction of oxidative stress on cancer cells are involved in induced cell death; and determine cancer cell migration and invasion.

Posted on October 15, 2020 by
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