Seven SSOE Faculty Receive 2023-24 Pitt Momentum Funding

Research at the University of Pittsburgh is always on the rise, but researchers from the Swanson School of Engineering truly gained momentum this spring. 

Seven Swanson School faculty members are recipients of the 2023-24 Pitt Momentum Funds, which are designed to support interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and creative endeavors across the entire Pitt campus. The grants are sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research, and proposals are strongly encouraged to address Discourse and Dialogue, Pitt’s academic theme for 2023-24.

The funds’ three-tiered structure enables funding at all stages of the research cycle: Priming Awards help start projects, Teaming Awards help establish collaborative teams, and Scaling Awards help support the detailed work necessary to pursue large external funding. All awardees will be honored in the Internal Funding Showcase next fall.

Scaling Grants 

Scaling Grants support the detailed project planning, gathering of proof-of-concept results, and reduction of technical risk that positions teams to competitively pursue large, complex extramural funding. Awards are made up to $400,000 for two years.

SSOE Scaling Grant Winners:

• Melissa Bilec, William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Co-Director, Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation; and Special Assistant to the Provost for Sustainability, Co-Applicant.
  • The Rust to Resilience (R2R) Environmental Chemical Research Center.
• Takashi Kozai, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Co-Applicant. 
  • Establishing Next-generation Intracortical Microstimulation for Research and Clinical Applications.

Teaming Grants 

Teaming Grants help multi-disciplinary teams plan and build capacity to successfully pursue large-scale external funding and must include faculty from at least three schools, as defined in the application materials. Awards are made up to $60,000 for one year.

SSOE Teaming Grant Winner:

• Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Co-Applicant.
  • YODD Pittsburgh Deep Learning Triangulum.
     

Priming Grants

Priming Grants support scholarly projects by individuals or small groups of faculty members. Awards are made up to $25,000 for one year.

SSOE Priming Grant Winners: 

• Christopher Kefalos, BSEE ’24, Co-Applicant. 
  • Augmenting STEM Education in Rural Sierra Leone
• Inhee Lee, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Applicant. 
  • Innovating Small-Animal Monitoring for a Sustainable Future.
• Guanyi Lu, Visiting Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Applicant.
  • Measuring the Shear Creep Characteristics of Rocks through Novel Laboratory Experiments. 
• Susheng Tan, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Applicant.
  • Atomistic Insight into the Interface Atomic Mixing between Substrate and Additively Manufactured Titanium Alloy. 
• Christopher Wilmer, Associate Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Co-Applicant.
  •  Expanding the Impact of Accessible Open-Source Chemistry Software: New Capabilities for Avogadro.