The W Awards
A new grant program encourages professors to explore new directions in research
At Northwestern University and academic institutions across the country, many faculty members know the challenge well: once an academic defines a particular research track, it can often be difficult to enter compelling new areas of study.
The Weinberg College Research and Innovation Grants — the “W Awards” — look to change that sometimes-frustrating reality.
Launched earlier this academic year by College leadership, the new internal grant program provides seed funding for exploratory research, including innovative new work, significant changes in research direction and new collaborative ventures.
The College received nearly 30 proposals from faculty in disciplines spanning the sciences, humanities and social sciences and awarded six Weinberg College faculty members grants totaling nearly $170,000 in May.
“We are extremely pleased by the strong response to the W Awards program in its first year, and are very impressed by the creative and innovative scholarship that was proposed and by the cross-disciplinary nature of many of the studies,” said Kelly Mayo, associate dean for research and graduate studies.
Selected by a faculty review committee, the inaugural winners of the W Awards are:
- Erik Andersen, assistant professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences, who looks to sustain and grow his collection of Caenorhabditis elegans (nematode) strains to further facilitate collaborative biomedical discovery
- Ana Arjona, assistant professor, Department of Political Science, who will study how criminal groups in Latin America govern subnational territories, how local societies react and how these dynamics impact the expansion and strength of criminal organizations
- Robert Braun, assistant professor, Department of Sociology, and Ben Frommer, associate professor, Department of History and director of the Holocaust Education Foundation, who aim to bring careful, large-scale data analysis to bear on the Holocaust
- Franz Geiger, professor, Department of Chemistry, and Andy Jacobson, associate professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, who plan to examine links between the Chicago area’s fleet of heavy-duty diesel trucks and the high rate of asthma occurrence among local youth
- Monica Prasad, professor, Department of Sociology, who will investigate the “non-riot” in Bhagalpur, India, of 2015 to produce a deeper scholarly understanding of ethnic violence
- Kelly Wisecup, assistant professor, Department of English, who plans collaborative, multimedia research into Chicago’s indigenous stories
A pilot program, this year's W Awards were open to all full-time continuing Weinberg College faculty.
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