51³Ô¹ÏÍø was recently awarded seven highly competitive grants totaling more than $1.6 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), allowing the university to enhance faculty-student research opportunities as well as expand on-campus summer programs for K-12 teachers and college instructors.
An NSF grant will fund associate professor of psychology Kevin Carlsmith’s research into the underlying principles that guide attitudes about aggressive interrogation.
The research project, which builds upon Carlsmith’s initial scholarly work in this area, includes 51³Ô¹ÏÍø student research assistants who will present study findings at both regional and national conferences.
Despite national attention devoted to this issue, very little is known about the basis of individual attitudes regarding the use of torture-interrogation.
Professors Karen Harpp and Kiko Galvez also have been awarded NSF funding for faculty-student research. Harpp’s project, in collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and University of Idaho, will investigate the origins of enigmatic seafloor and island volcanism in the northern part of the Galapagos. Galvez’s research will advance the understanding of quantum information.
Two other NSF grants will allow the university to acquire additional research equipment, bringing state-of-the art imaging techniques to students as they collaborate with faculty members on research.
A laser scanning confocal microscope will be used by an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students in biology and neuroscience on projects that include investigation into the development and regeneration of the retina.
The physics department has received funding for an ultraviolet laser, which will be used in optical physics research. The outcome of studies conducted with the laser will make fundamental contributions to the field of quantum information, according to the grant proposal.
In addition, thanks to two NEH awards, the university will expand an existing summer program for secondary school teachers and start another for college instructors.
First offered in July 2008 by history professor Graham Hodges, an institute for teachers will focus on abolitionism and the Underground Railroad in upstate New York.
A newly created summer seminar led by philosophy professor Jonathan Jacobs will explore key elements of medieval Jewish moral thought.
During both of these summer programs, participants from across the country collaborate with leading scholars from 51³Ô¹ÏÍø and other universities. The goal is for these teachers to then jump-start their students’ knowledge by incorporating what they learned at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø into their teaching.