RIVERSIDE,
Calif. – UC Riverside researchers received $109.8 million
in sponsored awards in 2004-2005, a record amount that
reflects the growing stature of the university as a
world-class academic research center.
Overall, sponsored awards for the campus grew by nearly 34 percent since last
year. In 2003-2004, UCR received $82 million in sponsored awards, and in 2002-2003,
$87.1 million.
Among the major awards received during 2004-2005 are awards, totaling more than
$22 million, from the U.S. Department of Defense for nanoscience research under
the direction of Robert Haddon, director of the Center for Nanoscale Science
and Engineering and distinguished professor of chemistry and chemical & environmental
engineering; and a nearly $11.6 million award for five years from the U.S. Department
of Education to sponsor teacher training and assessment under the direction of
Linda Scott-Hendrick, director of UCR Teacher Induction Programs.
“UCR has a strong tradition of research excellence, reflected this year in our
passing the $100-million milestone for sponsored awards,” said Charles Louis,
vice chancellor for research. “The sustained increase in our research funding
is because our faculty are highly competitive for the most sought-after funding.
I look forward to their continued success in this endeavor.”
This year's funding includes awards to 390 investigators. Federal agencies provided
about 72 percent of funding dollars, including $3.9 million from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, $8 million from the U.S. Department of Education, $23.6 million
from the U.S. Department of Defense, $13.7 million from the National Institutes
of Health, and $22.1 million from the National Science Foundation.
Among the funding recipients from colleges and disciplines across the campus
are:
· Julia Bailey-Serres, professor of genetics in the Department of Botany
and Plant Sciences, received nearly $500,000 of a $1.8 million award from the
National Science Foundation to continue research that will eventually assign
a function to every gene in a plant called arabidosis thaliana.
· Scott Coltrane, professor of sociology and associate dean of the College
of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, received nearly $400,000 of a $1.8 million
award from the National Institutes of Health to study how fathers impact the
mental health and behavioral problems of their adolescent children.
· Joel Martin, interim dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social
Sciences, received $1 million from the Gluck Foundation to continue the Gluck
Fellows Program which has brought UCR faculty and students in the Departments
of Art, History of Art, Creative Writing, Dance, Music, and Theatre to elementary
and secondary schools, nursing homes, hospitals and those communities underserved
by the arts.
· Gary Zank, professor of physics, director of UCR's Institute of Geophysics
and Planetary Physics and now director of the systemwide IGPP, received $1.7
million from the National Science Foundation to advance computational physics
and lay the groundwork for a Center for Computational Sciences.
· Norman Ellstrand, professor of genetics, received a $1.5 million award
from the National Science Foundation to examine the natural and human factors
related to the dispersal of genes in the agricultural ecosystem; his research
team includes UCR faculty and graduate students in botany and plant sciences,
economics, sociology and statistics, as well as anthropologists from UC Santa
Barbara.
· Yushan Yan, professor of chemical and environmental engineering, with
funding from private industry is leading a research team to develop zeolite materials
at the nanoscale which will revolutionize the fields of energy, environment,
and microelectronics.
· Among UCR's promising young professors who each received a prestigious
CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation are Roland Kawakami, assistant
professor of physics, and Stefano Lonardi, assistant professor of computer science
and engineering.
· Anthony Norman, distinguished professor of biochemistry and biomedical
sciences and presidential chair in biochemistry, received nearly $500,000 of
a $1.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health to continue studies
on Vitamin D and calcium metabolism.
· Alexander Raikhel, professor of entomology, received more than $800,000
from two awards totaling more than $3 million from the National Institutes of
Health to continue his research on mosquitoes and the menacing mosquito-borne
diseases.
“With the many new campus initiatives, from the Health Sciences Research Institute
to the Public Policy Initiative , the new
faculty UCR will be recruiting, as well as the outstanding undergraduate and
graduate students the university attracts, we expect our sponsored funding to
continue to grow,” said Louis,
who joined UCR in July 2004 .
The University of California, Riverside is a major
research institution and a national center for the
humanities. Key areas of research include nanotechnology,
genomics, environmental studies, digital arts and
sustainable growth and development. With a current
undergraduate and graduate enrollment of nearly 17,000,
the campus is projected to grow to 21,000 students
by 2010. Located in the heart of inland Southern
California, the nearly 1,200-acre, park-like campus
is at the center of the region's economic development.
Visit www.ucr.edu or
call 951-UCR-NEWS for more information.
Media sources
are available at http://www.mediasources.ucr.edu/ .
News Media Contact:
Name: Iqbal Pittalwala
Phone: 951.827.6050
Email: iqbal@ucr.edu
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