Seed Grant Awards Description FY 2024

For over a century, the American Academy in Rome has awarded the Rome Prize to support innovative and cross-disciplinary work in the arts and humanities. Each year, the Rome Prize is awarded to about thirty artists and scholars who represent the highest standard of excellence. The Rome Prize states that, “The jurors’ primary criterion is excellence. They will … select candidates who are not only outstanding in their respective fields, but also at a point in their careers where the Rome Prize is likely to be crucial to their future growth and development.” One can submit an application to the Rome Prize Fellowship online. There is a fee to submit the application and excellence must be demonstrated. Similarly, artists can apply to the Pollock-Krasner Foundation by submitting an online application. The foundation states that, “Professional exhibition history will be taken into consideration. Artists must be actively exhibiting their current work in professional artistic venues, such as gallery and museum spaces.” It is my intent to utilize these funds to produce new work as well as to put up exhibitions at multiple international and national exhibition spaces and disseminate these creative ideas through publication, talks, workshops and other opportunities.

Table Manners is a research project that uses architectural design and curatorial practices to iterate on modes of social interaction and relations, reflecting on the climate crisis and architecture’s agency to shape culture and society. The project challenges normative academic structures and prioritizes bringing people together in unexpected ways that foster connection, interaction, and knowledge-building through playful means. The main purpose of this work is to create coalitions of climate activists who can overcome today’s crisis of imagination.

Understanding and enhancing human creativity holds great potential, but the neurological basis of this complex cognitive function remains mysterious despite extensive research. Prior attempts to study creativity using lucid dreaming have achieved fascinating results but lack adequate sensing modalities and quantification. The precise cognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are still unclear. Emerging evidence links creativity to dynamic Brain Regional Networking (BRN) via hemodynamic imagining, such as via Blood Oxygen Level- Dependent (BOLD) signals. Several efforts have utilized functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to capture BOLD data. However, inherent constraints on study duration and environment variability with this modality preclude the continuous assessments requisite to capture unpredictable creative moments. Alternative hemodynamic imaging techniques allowing unobtrusive, prolonged data collection in naturalistic contexts are necessary to advance mechanistic characterizations of creative cognition and its neural correlates. Among those, emerging photoacoustic imaging achieves noninvasive hemoglobin oximetry sensing in compact, lightweight systems and shows promise for quality BOLD signal detection in early studies. On the other hand, other conventional wisdom targets electrophysiological signals, including electroencephalography (EEG), for enabling portable and seamless measurement of neural activity. However, this sensing modality is limited in localizing regional brain activation. Furthermore, a substantial mismatch between EEG and hemodynamic imaging like BOLD data limits the opportunities to characterize essential dynamic regional brain network activities regarding creative cognition. Accordingly, developing an integrated spatiotemporal neural imaging approach, which leverages the strengths of both EEG and BOLD signals, will advance the complementary information from the two domains. The outcome of this pioneering joint model promises significant advances in understanding, characterizing, and decoding dynamic human brain function in creative cognition. The proposed research will provide critical access to brain states linked with enhanced creativity in a seamless setting. By enabling the continuous tracking of BRN activations and the corresponding biomarkers, findings in this domain may unlock vital new insights for deciphering the creative thought process. Knowledge gained stands to contribute to the future development of creativityenhancing technologies. Ultimately, this contribution promises broader scientific impacts by accelerating advancements in exploring a longstanding scientific challenge regarding human cognitive functions. To address the challenges and realize the vision, the PIs propose to address the challenges of effectively capturing BOLD signals indicative of creative thinking by exploring (1) A novel wearable photoacoustic sensing device optimized to detect BOLD signals; (2) Advanced modeling techniques and analytical approaches to achieve a high-resolution understanding of the coordination between BOLD activation patterns and EEG dynamics during creative thought; (3) Innovative algorithms capable of deducing brain creativity functions and states from joint models of BOLD and EEG signals.

Composite materials are widely used in industries including aerospace, automotive, and wind energy, due to their excellent mechanical performance. Continuous carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CCFRP) composites, known for their exceptional strength-to-weight ratio, stiffness, and durability, have been widely used in lightweight aircraft and automobiles. Recently, there has been considerable interest surrounding the 3D printing of composite materials, as 3D printing provides a high level of flexibility in design and an efficient use of materials for creating the next generation of aircraft and automobiles. For context, the global 3D printed composites market size was valued at $170.25 million in 2022 and is expected to hit around $4.3 billion by 2032. However, 3D printing of CCFRP composites is currently at an early stage, encountering manufacturing quality issues such as low dimensional accuracy (how closely the printed part matches the original design), low fiber content (too few fibers make a printed part weak), and internal voids and gaps (air pockets also make a printed part weak). These deficiencies can significantly reduce the mechanical performance of CCFRP composites and impede their applications in an industrial setting.

Lanthanides and Actinides make up the bottom two rows of the periodic table, and due to their complex arrangement of electrons, exhibit some unusual chemical properties. They have many and varied applications, from novel power sources to optical devices, but could be underutilized due to how dicult they are to study. Most Actinides do not occur naturally, and both species are dicult for theorists to model due to their heavy nucleus and large number of electrons. One computational method which shows promise in tackling this problem is the Dirac B-Spline R-Matrix suite of codes, a world-leading method in determining the atomic structure of complex atoms, and modelling electron collisions with them. Motivated by the desire to produce more atomic data related to Lanthanides and Actinides, the purpose of this Seed Grant proposal is to obtain funding for CU Denver undergraduate students to generate atomic data for Lanthanum and Actinium, which can be used in future grant proposals. Target funding agencies include the National Science Foundation and United States Department of Energy, who will have interest in this data from either a fundamental physics (NSF) or applications (DOE) perspective.

For over a million individuals in the United States, the manual wheelchair (MW) serves as a major cornerstone in their everyday mobility, participation, and quality of life. Current clinical practice takes a protracted trial-and-error approach to MW prescription and training, often putting manual wheelchair users (MWUs) at higher risk of developing upper-extremity injury and limiting their capacity for mobility. This proposed project builds off of prior funded work, with the long-term goal of optimizing MW selection, configuration, and training via data-driven methods to rapidly provide better patient outcomes for MWUs. Prior work involved implementing a robotic testbed that compared, across distinct straight and turning maneuvers, the energetic cost of propelling MWs with different components and/or configurations. Study findings indicated there is no perfect, universal set of MW components. Instead, MW selection and configuration needs to be personalized based on each MWU’s unique, everyday mobility patterns

Insulin is a central hormone of mammalian metabolism, normally secreted by the β-cells of the pancreas in response to increased blood glucose (e.g., after a meal). If insulin secretion fails, then diabetes ensues. Type 1 diabetes results from immune-mediated destruction of β-cells, and type 2 diabetes results from insufficient insulin secretion from β-cells coupled with a decreased responsiveness to insulin in the rest of the body. Clearly, the molecular and biochemical mechanisms of insulin secretion are important to understand, both for developing future diabetes treatments and for understanding the fundamental physiology of β-cells. Yet, our collective understanding of how β-cells work is incomplete in key areas. For example, it was only discovered in 2020 that β-cells contain two populations of secretory vesicles with different proteins in their membranes, most notably distinguished by different versions of a calcium sensor protein called synaptotagmin (Syt, pronounced “sit”). One population of secretory vesicles contains Syt-7, a protein that the Knight lab has studied for years; we are still discovering interesting features about this high-sensitivity calcium sensor. The other population contains Syt-9, a protein whose calcium-sensing properties are still not well described. The Knight lab plans to continue our long-time collaboration with Prof. Arun Anantharam (U. Toledo, USA) by applying for a collaborative grant to NSF to study the functions of Syt-9 and Syt-7 as calcium sensors, both in vitro (Knight) and in mouse β-cells (Anantharam). This seed grant will provide funding to support Knight lab students collecting preliminary data as well as a short trip in Summer 2024 dedicated to collaborative proposal writing. Current Knight lab student Vrishank Bikkumalla, who is graduating this semester, will conduct experiments and train a new student, who will continue through the summer. The experiments will use steady-state and kinetic versions of a fluorescence-based membrane binding assay with synthetic lipid vesicles and purified protein domains; this is a method that the Knight lab has used and developed extensively in our prior publications. At the completion of this project, we expect to have submitted a competitive, fundable proposal (3y, ~$350,000) to the NSF or another funding agency with Knight as PI.

In 2004, dozens of countries ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the world’s first treaty focused on a public health issue. As of March 2024, Malawi and 179 other countries have ratified the FCTC. The US is a non-party to the FCTC. FCTC Article 17 pertains to the conditions of tobacco farmers and farm workers as well as the need to identify alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers and farm workers. My research examines the transition from tobacco farming to legal medicinal cannabis farming in Malawi and workforce development issues associated with the search for alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers and farm workers in the country. Malawi is the world’s most tobacco reliant country with over 60 percent of its foreign earnings deriving from the cultivation of tobacco leaves. My research question is: What are the sustainable development opportunities and limitations associated with the transition from tobacco farming to legal medicinal cannabis farming in Malawi pertaining to the promotion of alternative livelihoods for local tobacco farmers. Using qualitative research strategies and policy anthropology approaches, I plan in 2024 to conduct interviews in Malawi with 20 key stakeholders engaged in the search for economically sustainable alternatives for tobacco growing, including representatives in the government body Cannabis Regulatory Authority. Interviews topics include the reasons a farmer exits tobacco and switches to medicinal cannabis and other crops, licensing systems for non-tobacco crops, and potential for decent work and economic growth associated with medicinal cannabis as a crop to replace tobacco. In 2020, Malawi legalized medicinal (non-psychoactive) cannabis and several tobacco farmers switched to medicinal cannabis. One of my goals is to reduce the tension between the global policy priority to reduce tobacco farming and health policymakers’ reluctance to support legal cannabis due to its traditional drug status as a viable alternative to tobacco. Interview data will be integrated into a peer-reviewed manuscript, a scholarly documentary film (up to 30 minutes) and a future funding proposal. This research and creative work will contribute new text and visual-based knowledge about alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers and farm workers and offer a set of policy suggestions on economically sustainable alternatives for tobacco growing.

Older Black and Latino vs. White adults have faster rates of cognitive decline and dementia prevalence. But, older adults who manage mild cognitive impairment (MCI) through meaningful social activities, bringing purpose to their lives, may improve their quality of life. Employment promotes purpose in life, physical activity, and social support, while reducing cognitive declines and dementia risk. However, we do not know if employment can slow cognitive declines for older adults with MCI and dementia and reduce racial/ethnic disparities. My aim for this research stage is to explore mental distress associated with employment and/or job cessation perceptions and experiences of older adults aged 55+ with MCI or early-stage dementia, if they vary by race/ethnicity, and how these issues impact their cognitive functioning over time. The research questions include:

1) Do participants experience mental distress in their jobs, possibly impacting their desire to work? If so, how?
2) Are they more likely to quit their jobs after their diagnosis? If so, what are their reasons for job cessation?
3) Do they believe their employment experiences and perceptions help maintain cognitive functioning or prevent further cognitive declines over time? If so, how?
4) Do the prior experiences vary by race/ethnicity for Black and Hispanic vs. White older adult workers?

Lanthanides and Actinides make up the bottom two rows of the periodic table, and due to their complex arrangement of electrons, exhibit some unusual chemical properties. They have many and varied applications, from novel power sources to optical devices, but could be underutilized due to how dicult they are to study. Most Actinides do not occur naturally, and both species are dicult for theorists to model due to their heavy nucleus and large number of electrons. One computational method which shows promise in tackling this problem is the Dirac B-Spline R-Matrix suite of codes, a world-leading method in determining the atomic structure of complex atoms, and modelling electron collisions with them. Motivated by the desire to produce more atomic data related to Lanthanides and Actinides, the purpose of this Seed Grant proposal is to obtain funding for CU Denver undergraduate students to generate atomic data for Lanthanum and Actinium, which can be used in future grant proposals. Target funding agencies include the National Science Foundation and United States Department of Energy, who will have interest in this data from either a fundamental physics (NSF) or applications (DOE) perspective.

Several areas of basic science are in desparate need of a high-efficiency neutron detection system sensitive to 0-1 MeV neutrons. The best current neutron detection system has the ability to measure neutron energies with efficiencies of 0.17%. My research group has designed a novel prototype that will have an efficiency of 15%–about 100 times better than the best current available systems. The goal of the project is to develop this prototype and publish the results to support an external Department of Energy (DOE) grant for the development of a more advanced design. This new neutron particle detector can also be implemented in industry or by the government for nuclear safeguards applications.

Nearly 17 million people worldwide have a first stroke each year (Feigin et al. 2014). Up to 80% of stroke survivors experience upper extremity impairments such as spasticity, weakness, abnormal muscle activity patterns, and limited tactile perception and range of motion (Dobkin & Dorsch 2011). Impairment of the upper extremity is often chronic and a cause of long-term disability (Ward 2017). Stroke survivors view the recovery of their upper extremity as a priority to improve their quality of life (Au-Yeung & Hui-Chan 2009). We propose to develop a noninvasive vibrotactile stimulation therapy with wearable technology for upper extremity stroke rehabilitation. Vibrotactile stimulation is a mechanical vibratory input produced with small motors on the skin that create a sensation similar to a phone gently vibrating. We have designed a shirt that has 14 vibrating motors incorporated on the sleeve (on the side of the impacted limb) and a glove that has 5 vibrating motors on the fingertips. We will conduct a randomized control trial to compare the efficacy of the therapy (vibrotactile stimulation in addition to conventional therapy) and a control group (conventional therapy only). We will have 24 patients recruited within 1-week post-stroke be randomized 1:1 to each group. In the therapy group, patients will receive 3 hours of stimulation with the shirt and 2 hours of stimulation with the glove per day (7 days per week) during their stay in the inpatient rehabilitation unit (on average, between 2-3 weeks). The primary outcome measure is the Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer Assessment conducted at baseline and at discharge from the inpatient rehabilitation unit. Our secondary outcome measures include the Modified Ashworth Scale and measurements of upper extremity kinematics. We hypothesize that the therapy group will have greater improvements in upper extremity kinematics, spasticity, tactile perception and range of motion compared to the control group at discharge from the rehabilitation unit. Given the evidence that repeated upper extremity muscle vibration can significantly improve motor function and spasticity in stroke patients in laboratory and clinical settings (Annino et al. 2019, Calabro et al. 2017, Marconi et al. 2011, Noma et al. 2009), a wearable device has the potential to increase the duration and length of the therapy, which seems critical to improve recovery (Hayward et al. 2021). This will be the first study to investigate the effects of vibrotactile stimulation in the upper extremity with a wearable device. Furthermore, given that post-stroke spasticity is common on the muscles of the upper and lower arm (Thibaut et al. 2013), our device has the potential to yield further improvements than a stimulation limited on the knuckles (Seim et al. 2021). The cost of the wearable device (approximately $80) could allow the widespread adoption of the therapy.

This proposal seeks support for development of an interactive website, E.A.R.T.H. Lit (Eco-literacies for Accountability and Responsibility Together with Heart; www.earthlit.org), with a dual focus on advancing environmental justice literacy learning in elementary education and serving as a dynamic data collection platform. Working with my Co-PI (non-UC Denver faculty), we aim to empower educators to teach and advocate for environmental justice.

This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of faculty and student researchers who aim to investigate the impact of the recent trend toward decriminalization and legalization of psychedelic drugs across different geographic regions in our country on the use of these substances and their associated outcomes. Ultimately, this project will examine how drug use and subsequent mental health and labor market outcomes differ across those regions in the aftermath of these laws. In the preliminary work to be funded by the ORS Seed Grant program, these researchers will use the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), collected annually by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), as the primary data source for this analysis. In addition to detailed individual sociodemographic information the NSDUH provides information about psychedelic use in general and psilocybin use in particular. Access to geographic data necessary for this analysis is available through application to a Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC). This interdisciplinary project applies econometric methodologies including Difference-in-Differences and Two-way Fixed Effects models to compare usage patterns and links with outcomes in regions that have relaxed penalties for psychedelic drug usage with those that have not. The analysis will also include synthetic control group methods with case studies to address any methodological concerns about balance between treatment and control groups. We draw upon our team’s criminal justice and public policy expertise to explore the relationship between legislative changes and their impacts on the links between psychedelic drug usage that may have therapeutic benefits on the one hand, and criminal behavior of illicit drug use on the other. By funding necessary expenses associated with gaining access to confidential data through the FSRDC that allows researchers to access the geographic location of survey respondents, seed grant funding from ORS will allow the research team, in collaboration with student researchers, to extract initial data and gather evidence of current psychedelic usage patterns across regions, assess how prelegalization patterns differ across regions linked to decriminalization, and to design statistical models to measure the impacts legislation on usage and subsequent outcomes. The findings will be used to inform future research projects examining the impact of psychedelic drug usage on mental health and labor market outcomes, including plans to seek external funding through an R03 application to the National Institutes of Health through the National Institute of Mental Health and/or the National Institute of Drug Abuse These activities will greatly improve a subsequent grant application by providing evidence that the proposed analysis strategy will be successful at understanding the impact of decriminalization legislation.

The development of floating wind turbines has recently been designated a matter of national importance by the Biden-Harris Administration in an effort to establish the United States as a global leader in offshore renewable energy. Due to their location within harsh marine environments, it is paramount that an accurate understanding of their structural and hydrodynamics is obtained via the use of numerical modeling. Yet, current modeling methodologies are largely based on linear wave theories which assume that the superstructure experiences only rigid body motion and are subject exclusively to nonbreaking waves. While this simplification significantly reduces the time and cost of analysis, it ultimately presents an incomplete understanding of the underlying physics governing the dynamics of floating structures. The overarching objective of this project is to elucidate the dynamic response of floating wind turbines under breaking wave impact while explicitly accounting for its structural flexibility (i.e., natural period of vibration). Wave breaking is a highly nonlinear phenomenon which impart impulsive loads that can significantly amplify the dynamic accelerations and forces attracted by the superstructure. To reveal its effects, advanced numerical methods constituting nonlinear finite element modeling (FEM) and Lagrangian smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) will be adopted to respectively capture the structural and hydrodynamics associated with breaking wave impact upon a floating wind turbine. Following validation of the numerical scheme against experimental data in the literature, the SPH-FEM method will be implemented to simulate the 3D dynamics of the semisubmersible DeepCwind-OC4 floating wind turbine developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Dynamic forces, accelerations, and vibrations of the turbine tower and blades will be ascertained under breaking wave conditions. This will enable comparisons against equivalent linear models commonly used for design to quantify the nonlinear dynamic effects unable to be captured when assuming rigid body motion and nonbreaking waves. Ultimately, this project aims to address the importance of accurately capturing the nonlinear dynamics of floating wind turbines to improve their efficiency, resiliency, economy, durability, and safety within US waters.

The purpose of this application is to request funding for the first phase of The Racial and Ethnic Socialization Lab. The first phase includes collecting data to obtain insight into the intergenerational processes of racial/ethnic socialization (RES) messages that monoracial/monoethnic Black/African Americans, Hispanic, and/or Latine/x parents (henceforth referred to as participants) receive from their families of origin and provide to their children. Racial/ethnic socialization can be operationalized as bidirectional communication between parents of color and their children that prepares children for the bias they will encounter and instills cultural pride (Anderson & Stevenson, 2019; Hughes et al., 2006). Such communication can act as a buffer for negative outcomes related to race-based traumatic stress (e.g., higher rates of depression, anxiety; Bannon et al., 2009; Davis & Stevenson, 2006). Current sociopolitical events (e.g., “stop woke” policies, attacks on DEI initiatives, removal of affirmative action protections) may be creating unique circumstances whereby subsequent generations must navigate racial/ethnic discrimination with fewer safety nets than their predecessors, thus potentially leading parents to adjust RES messages. To the best of our knowledge, no study has examined how and if RES messages change across time and generations. This existing gap in the literature along with recent historical events, represents a unique data collection time point.