Welcome to the February 2024 issue of the CLAS Research Resource Newsletter! 

As usual, there is a lot of interesting and useful information to browse, including recent CLAS awards, upcoming grant and fellowship deadlines with helpful links, a chance to “meet” three of our prominent faculty and learn about their work, and a variety of stories highlighting CLAS research, scholarship, and creative activity.

The hits keep on coming, so I’d like to highlight just a couple of “late-breaking” items here as well: Kendall Heitzman, DEO of Asian and Slavic Languages & Literatures, was awarded the Japan-United States Friendship Commission Prize for his Translation of Fujino Kaori’s Nails and Eyes; and Physics and Astronomy Assistant Professors Keri Hoadley and Casey DeRoo were both awarded prestigious Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellowships from NASA!

Finally, I’m thrilled to note that—only seven months into the fiscal year—total CLAS external funding is over $44 million, which already bests our number for the entirety of 2019 and each of the years prior to that.

Enjoy exploring the articles and, as always, don’t hesitate to connect if I can help.  

Joshua Weiner 
Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure  
Professor of Biology 
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Upcoming grant and fellowship deadlines

Check out this extensive list of grant opportunities available internally and externally. Deadlines are approaching quickly for several listings. CLAS Grant Support Office maintains this list and its staff are happy to help if you have questions or need support. 

Recent grant awards

CLAS is a powerhouse of research, discovery, and creativity. That is reflected in the grants our faculty receive as they work to advance scholarship in their areas of study. Please congratulate the following faculty on their recent awards.

Meet the new CLAS facilities manager and senior IT director

Maggie Vogel joined in November as facilities manager, and Jonna Higgins-Freese joined in December as senior IT director. Learn more about these two key staff members and their roles in CLAS. 

HHP professor researching four-day work week for 50 years

Computer science, CSD faculty receive $1.2M NSF grant

Octav Chipara and Bijaya Adhikari, both from the Department of Computer Science, and Inyong Choi and Yu-Hsiang Wu, both from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, are working together to advance research on personalized hearing aids. 

Classics, religious studies faculty member receives NEH fellowship

Three CLAS faculty receive humanities scholar awards

Jenna Supp-Montgomerie, religious studies; Stephanie Miracle, dance; and Jonathan Wilcox, English; each received a Developmental Sciences Hybridoma Bank (DSHB) Humanities Scholar Award. These awards are granted to tenured CLAS faculty for an approved humanities research project. Learn more about each project. 

Five CLAS faculty receive AHI grant awards

Kembrew McLeod, communications studies; Kenneth Tse, music; Andrew Casto, art and art history; Lina-Maria Murillo, gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; and Lisa Schlesinger, theatre arts; recently received Arts and Humanities Initiative grants. The UI Office of the Vice President for Research backs AHI, a grant program that supports scholars in the humanities or creative, visual, and performing arts.

Computer science and law faculty collaborate on $300,000 NSF grant

Meet CLAS artists and researchers

CLAS faculty are doing amazing work. Learn more about the research and creative projects of Zahra Aminzare, assistant professor of mathematics, Jorge Montilla Moreno, assistant professor of clarinet, and Isaac Petersen, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences.