Five faculty members from the School of Information Studies (iSchool) have been selected to receive research funding from the University under a new internal grant program to help support and advance collaborative scholarship. Campus-wide, a total of 48 proposals out of 139 submitted have been recommended for awards under the new program, which was initiated by Syracuse’s Office of Research earlier this fall.

The program originally called for allocating a total of $150,000 in funding to support preliminary expenses for faculty research. Because of the enthusiastic response from applicants, however, the Office of Research allocated an additional $50,000 and the Office of the Provost allocated $45,000, increasing the total available amount to $245,000.

iSchool faculty members receiving awards:

  • Associate Professor Carlos Caicedo received a small-scale fund award for a joint proposal with faculty members in the Psychology department titled “Development and Testing of the Sleep Experience and Assessment Application.”
  • Assistant Professor Yun Huang won a small-scale fund award for her proposal, “Accessible Online Social Learning via Crowdsourcing.”
  • University Professor of Practice Jeff Saltz was awarded a small-scale fund award for a joint proposal with faculty at the Whitman School of Management and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs titled “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Proposal to Create an Index of Connectivity.”
  • Assistant Professor Yang Wang received a seed fund award for his proposal, “Towards Privacy-Friendly Drones.”
  • Associate Professor Bei Yu was given a small-scale fund award for her proposal, “Toward Building an Interactive, Individualized Pediatric Pain Communication Tool.” 

“This was a highly competitive program that received 139 proposals and funded 48,” said iSchool Associate Dean for Research Jason Dedrick. “I am very proud of our faculty members who submitted proposals and who received funding in this inaugural year of the program.”

 “The program is a fantastic way to foster research, scholarship and creative activity in support of the University’s research excellence initiative,” said Gina Lee-Glauser, the University’s Vice President for Research. “It provides an important source of support for faculty to explore compelling intellectual questions that tap into many areas of expertise and lead to great research activity.”

Seed funds and small-scale funds provide support for travel, costs associated with collecting preliminary data, the logistics associated with fostering new collaborations or acquiring external expertise, or other potential expenses relating to the development of new scholarly initiatives.

Funding requests were reviewed by the University’s associate deans for research. Funding recommendations were made to the vice president for research, who made the final selections.