SMARC faculty members, Marcus Foston, Arpita Bose, Dino Christenson, Mary Ruppert-Stroescu and Fuzhong Zhang have received awards from the Fall 2024 Here and Next Seed Grant Program, sponsored by the Research Development Office, housed within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.
This program’s broad goal is to encourage novel and innovative interdisciplinary research excellence amongst Washington University researchers, aiding them in laying the groundwork to be competitive and successful in submitting proposals to external funding opportunities. Research must address five key areas of focus within the Here & Next agenda: public health, global health, environmental research, digital transformation, and research impacting the St. Louis community.
The awards to the SMARC faculty are as follows:
Transcend Initiative Grant Awardees — Fiscal Year 2024
Formerly, Tier 3: University-Wide Research Initiatives, five teams have been awarded Transcend Initiative Grants from the Fiscal Year 2024 cycle. These grants are meant to support collaborative teams of research in interdisciplinary research that will position WashU as a leader in the region, the nation, and the globe.
Teams that show great promise have been awarded partial Transcend Initiative Grants to further develop their initiatives.
- EnviroTex: Advancing Interdisciplinary Environmental Solutions in Textiles Design to Adoption, Environmental Research; Leadership: Marcus Foston (SMARC), Arpita Bose (SMARC), Dino Christenson (SMARC), Mary Ruppert-Stroescu (SMARC)
- WashU Synthetic Biology Initiative of Plants and Microbes, Environmental Research; Leadership: Joseph Jez, Fuzhong Zhang (SMARC), Himadri Pakrasi
See the full list of winners here.