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Research News

July 2, 2009

External research funding rises 5.3% in 2008-’09

UWM researchers attracted nearly $32.2 million in extramural funding in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, a 5.3 percent increase over 2007-’08 and the second highest total ever, according to information released by the Graduate School. See the UWM Awards and Expenditures Web page for more detailed reports.

May 4, 2009

Graduate School Research Fellows 2009

Intended for researchers who have had some prior exposure to grant-writing, the Graduate School Research Fellows program addresses practical and conceptual aspects of the proposal-writing process, with emphasis on idea development, identification of the most appropriate granting agency, how to write for reviewers, and proven tips and strategies for presenting an applicant's case to reviewers.

The following 29 faculty and academic staff have been selected from the program's initial pool of 164 in January. They will continue to develop technical proposals, based on consultant feedback, for submission to funding agencies after November 1.

School of Continuing Education
Caroline Joyce

School of Education
Elizabeth Drame, Exceptional Education
Maria Hamlin, Curriculum and Instruction
Sandra Martell, Educational Psychology

College of Engineering and Applied Science
Lei Ying, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Graduate School
Rebecca Klaper, Great Lakes WATER Institute

College of Health Sciences
Kyle Ebersole, Human Movement Sciences
Marcia Firmani, Health Sciences
Wendy Huddleston, Human Movement Sciences
Kevin Keenan, Human Movement Sciences

College of Letters and Science
Humanities
Garry Davis, Foreign Languages & Linguistics

Natural Sciences
John Berges, Biological Sciences
Margaret Fraiser, Geosciences
Peter Geissinger, Chemistry & Biochemistry
Carol Hirschmugl, Physics
Emily Latch, Biological Sciences
Paul Lyman, Physics
Lindsay McHenry, Geosciences
Ava Udvadia, Biological Sciences
Jörg Woehl, Chemistry & Biochemistry
Erica Young, Biological Sciences

Social Sciences
Noelle Chesley, Sociology
Woonsup Choi, Geography
Kathy Dolan, Political Science
Christine Larson, Psychology
Devin Mueller, Psychology

College of Nursing
Teresa Johnson
Kathy Sawin

School of Social Welfare
Lisa Berger, Social Work

April 20, 2009

Good news on research expenditures

From Colin Scanes, Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development and Dean of the Graduate School

Based on the first three quarters of FY 2008-'09, we have the following:

• UWM as a whole saw a 14% increase in externally funded research expenditures.
• The rank ordering of the top 5 increases were the following:
  1. Engineering with a 52.7% increase.
  2. Education with a 38.8% increase.
  3. Health Science with a 37.2% increase.
  4. Lubar School of Business with a 31.1% increase.
  5. Letters and Science with an 18.3% increase.

March 23, 2009

Graduate School/UWM Foundation Research Awards call for nominations; April 30 deadline

From Colin Scanes, Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development and Dean of the Graduate School

We are pleased to announce that the UWM Foundation will again provide awards to recognize outstanding research and creative activity. This is the 31st year that the Foundation has provided support for this purpose.

These awards have been established to recognize and encourage UWM assistant and associate professors who have shown the potential to achieve distinction in their academic disciplines through scholarship, creative activity, and the dissemination of knowledge. The awards are not intended to recognize established faculty members who already have achieved distinction in their disciplines. Restrictions include:

• Previous research awardees are ineligible.
• Individuals holding the title of Distinguished or Wisconsin Distinguished Professor are ineligible.
• One individual may be nominated from a single department or program.

The Committee of UWM Distinguished Professors will review the nominations and make recommendations to the Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development and Dean of the Graduate School for the final selections. The individuals selected as recipients will receive a cash award and will be honored at the UWM Awards Ceremony in the fall of 2009.

We encourage you to consider nominating a member of your department/program for an award. In addition to providing a means of honoring outstanding scholars, these awards recognize our collective commitment to academic research and to the importance of UWM's research mission.

Please send nominations to Vicky Everson, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development, and Dean of the Graduate School, 320 Chapman Hall, by 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 30, 2009. The nomination materials should include a letter of nomination, two letters of support, and an updated vitae. You may secure letters of support from UWM faculty members or from colleagues outside UWM. If you submit or quote from confidential letters written for another purpose, you must secure the permission of the author(s) prior to doing so.

Graduate School/UWM Foundation Research Awards Web page

February 11, 2009

Five UWM researchers among first group of CTSI awardees

Five UWM researches are among the first 25 grant recipients from the Southeastern Wisconsin Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Of the nine awards, made under the Pilot and Collaborative Grant program, the following three include UWM researchers:

• David Klemer, College of Engineering and Applied Science, working with Jerome Gottschall, Medical College of Wisconsin, and Bradley Pietz and Brian Curtis, BloodCenter of Wisconsin on “A Novel Microelectronic DNA Sensor for Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia Predisposition Screening.”
• J. Carson Smith, College of Health Sciences, working with Piero Antuono, Medical College of Wisconsin on “The Effects of Exercise on Brain Function and Metabolic Profile in Dementia: A Collaborative Pilot Clinical Trial.”
• Nitin Walia, Mariam Zahedi, and Hemant Jain, Lubar School of Business, working with Reza Shaker, Medical College of Wisconsin, on “Developing CTSI-Second World and Testing its Efficacy.”

The CTSI is a partnership of the major academic institutions in the region—Marquette University, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee School of Engineering, UWM—as well as the Blood Center of Wisconsin, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, and the Zablocki VA Medical Center. Formed in 2008, the institute is developing an intrastructure for collaborations among researchers across the various institutions.

February 5, 2009

Research Fellowship Awards Announced

The UWM Research Foundation announced its first seven awards under its Research Fellowship Program. The program is designed to help UWM researchers attract and retain the best and brightest research assistants and post-doctoral researchers to improve the scientific productivity of their research efforts.

The program will provide $7,500 in funds to a post-doctoral researcher and $10,000 over two years for a research assistant working in the laboratory of a UWM researcher. Awards will be made to the research assistants or post doctoral researchers working in the laboratories of the following researchers:

• Luis Anchordoqui, Physics
• Jian Chen, Chemistry
• Junhong Chen, Mec Eng
• Yi-Qiang Cheng, Bio Sciences
• Adel Nasiri, Elec Engineering
• Abbas Ourmazd, Physics
• Wilfred Tysoe, Chemistry

November 6, 2008

Grantwriting expert Lowman to visit UWM

Robert Lowman, associate vice chancellor for research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be on campus Friday, Nov. 14, to lead two sessions on federal funding and grant writing as part of the Fall 2008 Research Initiatives & Development Workshop series.

Sponsored by the Graduate School, the sessions will be in Lubar Hall S151.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, Lowman oversees the areas of research policy and planning, training, infrastructure, regulatory compliance (including human subjects, laboratory animals and research integrity) and intramural small grants.

Twelve Keys to Successful Grantwriting

8:30 a.m. - Noon

Designed for the grantwriter with limited experience, this workshop starts from the premise that nothing succeeds like a good idea. But a good idea is not enough. There are other important ingredients of success, from assembling a winning team to achieving a strong match between the idea and a potential sponsor. This workshop presents 12 key concepts related to success in grantwriting. It stresses the importance of planning over writing, and presents the sponsor as a potential ally, not an adversary.  » Register

Inside Federal Funding

1:00 - 4:30 p.m.

Grant funding from the federal government seems like a giant alphabet soup, with NSF, NIH, NEA, NEH, DOE and USDA all being important players. While there are many similarities in procedure and practice from one federal agency to another, there are also many differences, and a person seeking funds cannot assume that NEH and NSF will operate in the same way. This workshop compares and contrasts funding programs at six important federal agencies: the Departments of Agriculture and Energy, the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. It looks at the mission statements and strategic planning goals of each agency, explores their structures and funding mechanisms, identifies unique attributes of their various funding programs, examines sample solicitations, and discusses their methods of merit review.  » Register

September 26, 2008

Keating appointed Associate Vice Chancellor

UWM took a step toward further strengthening its research and economic development missions with the September appointment of Jack Keating as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development.

As chancellor at UW-Parkside for the past 10 years, Keating oversaw enrollment increases and bolstered the university's private-public partnerships and research infrastructure, service learning initiatives, and student internship opportunities.

"I am very excited to have someone of his stature and experience assisting UWM in the areas of research and economic development," says Colin Scanes, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the Graduate School. "I look forward to working closely with him to expand UWM's initiatives in these vital areas."

June 6, 2008

New graduate degrees approved

The UW Board of Regents today approved a new UWM doctoral program in Africology and master’s degree programs in Spanish and Women’s Studies during its annual June meetings at UWM.

Adding more doctoral programs and Ph.D. students is another way to attract the best researchers to come here, said UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago.

“We’re going to build up this research university in a different way than our sister institution in Madison did,” he said. “UWM’s research infrastructure will be built with a very focused strategy tied to meet local and state needs.”

Since 2004, UWM has added five new doctoral programs, bringing the total to 25. Santiago would like to see more than 30.

— University Communications & Media Relations

• Africology news story

April 16, 2008

Grants Project completed

UWM Staff and Faculty,

With your help, we have completed the transition to PeopleSoft Grants. After a nearly two year conversion process, the entire grant lifecycle is now managed by one central system. From proposal development to award closeout, any stage in the grants process can be viewed and tracked online. This upgrade is particularly timely because UW Milwaukee now receives over $32 million in research funding on a yearly basis.

This implementation presented several challenges to the UWM project team working with its partners (UW-System, UW-Madison, UW-Extension, and Huron Consulting) to bring this system online. Here at UWM, there was a large amount of information on current projects that needed to be converted as accurately and completely as possible. They also needed to integrate across the functional areas of proposal submission, post-award accounting, and our business and financial systems. Despite the many requirements of this large scale conversion, PeopleSoft went live on schedule on February 25. There are a number of successes to celebrate about this project.

Most notably, the PeopleSoft Grants implementation was on time and under budget. This is the first large scale, system-wide implementation that has been completed on time at the University of Wisconsin. The conversion was completed within the scheduled time window (February 8-25). During this time, all (100%) 920 projects were successfully converted into PeopleSoft Grants. Communication to the campus prior to system shutdown effectively kept campus community aware of pre-shutdown timeline, such as last days to enter new awards, issue checks and submit P-card transactions.

Other noteworthy accomplishments during this transition occurred across the full lifecycle of grant activity:

• WISPER, an electronic routing system for proposal and other research-related documents, was implemented to replace the previous paper transmittal form.
• Communication to each school and college on WISPER allowed deans/administrators to adapt WISPER to its own business processes.
• Data entered in WISPER flows seamlessly into the PeopleSoft Grants management system when an award is received, incorporating enhanced award and budget tracking information into Post-Award processes.
• With the new WISDM enhancements for grants, we rolled out grants-centric reporting interface designed with input from PIs, administrators, and other users to provide centralized reporting for grants with one on-line interface to view award information such as financial transactions, award terms and conditions, funding actions, and cost share.
• Accounting Services was able to streamline a number of processes, enabling some transactions to be posted daily, thereby improving grant financial monitoring and reporting. The Graduate School and Business and Financial Services continue to work together and with the campus community to evaluate, review and improve grant management processes.

For further information on these changes, please visit our Web site (http://www.graduateschool.uwm.edu/research/researcher-central/grant-management/peoplesoft-grants/) or send e-mail to grants-project@uwm.edu.

You will find various reference documents and Webcasts on the new systems at http://www.graduateschool.uwm.edu/research/researcher-central/proposal-submission/wisper/.

Thank you for your continued interest and support.

Christy Brown, Interim Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administrative Affairs

Colin Scanes, Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate School

Rita Cheng, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

April 7, 2008

RGI Awards Announced for 2008-2009

Thirty-one proposals have been chosen for funding in the 2008-2009 Research Growth Initiative, an internal seed-funding competition aimed at enhancing the university's research and scholarly work and supporting the state's economic development through innovation.

The winners were chosen from the original pool of 137 by independent review panels consisting of experts and scholars from prominent U.S. research institutions.

The projects are drawn from a wide variety of disciplines, from biological sciences, engineering, and physics, to History and French, Italian, and Comparative Literature.

View the list of winning projects.

January 14, 2008

Three grants awarded under Catalyst advanced automation program

By Peter Hansen

The UWM Research Foundation will fund three research projects in 2008 under the Catalyst Grant Program in Advanced Automation.

The $170,000 in Catalyst program funds are part of the five-year, $1 million gift to UWM from Rockwell Automation announced in January 2007. Rockwell envisions the gift as a first step toward a technology research program at UWM that will bolster the region's manufacturing industry.

"We had a difficult job in selecting just three," says UWM Research Foundation President Brian Thompson, noting that external reviewers ranked two thirds of the 15 proposals among the top 10 percent nationally. "I believe these funded proposals strongly represent the three focus areas that Rockwell identified."

Advanced Materials: Professor Carolyn Aita

Smart Nanostructure Ceramic Coatings for Corrosion Protection of Electronic Components

Aita's work is aimed at preventing a particular kind of corrosion in four types of steel important to electronic and electromechanical components used for automation and control systems. Her use of a smart nanolaminate coating to inhibit pitting corrosion addresses one of the key challenges identified by the Rockwell technical team.

Aita's work could also benefit other area companies, including Harley-Davidson, Kohler, and Badger Meter. Aita suggests that these firms will form the basis for a local "corrosion consortium."

Sensors and Devices: Assistant Professor Junhong Chen

Novel Hybrid Nanomaterials and Their Application for Miniaturized Gas/Vapor Sensors

Chen's work involves the development of a nanoscale gas sensor that combines and improves upon two existing sensor technologies.

Miniaturized sensors that rapidly and accurately detect and differentiate trace amount of gases or their mixtures are attractive for many applications, such as environmental monitoring, medical diagnosis, food processing, and control of other industrial processes.

Chen's proposed hybrid combines nanocrystal-based sensors and carbon nanotube sensors, two technologies on which his research group has already worked extensively.

Software and Manufacturing Informatics: Professor Fatemeh Zahedi

Developing Strategy-to-Data Ontology for Enterprise Strategy Support System

Advances in automation and computational capabilities in manufacturing industries has resulted in massive collection of data, including shop floor operational data, business transactions data, and data extracted from environmental scanning.

"The wealth of available data has rarely translated into knowledge required to articulate strategies at top levels of the decision hierarchy," Zahedi observes, and her ambitious manufacturing informatics project addresses the challenging question of connecting the "shop floor" with the "top floor."

Rockwell is also supporting the manufacturing informatics work of Professor Hemant Jain, and Thompson predicts that these projects will strengthen a core area of expertise at UWM.

In addition to bolstering UWM's advanced automation research, long-term objectives of the Catalyst program include strengthening regional corporate partnerships, promoting collaborative research, and creating internship and employment opportunities for UWM students and graduates.

The Research Foundation continues to seek support from other regional companies to expand the program.

Modeled on the University's successful Research Growth Initiative, the Catalyst Grant Program employed an external scientific review panel to judge the scientific merit of proposals, as well as a program review committee in the Research Foundation to ensure that proposals met the intent of the program objectives, including the intent of the donors.

September 24, 2007

Effort Reporting: UWM Administration Message

Dear UWM Faculty and Staff Researchers,

As leaders of a major urban research university, we greatly appreciate the important stewardship responsibilities associated with managing extramural funds. These responsibilities include complying with federal requirements to certify faculty and staff effort on sponsored projects.

Effort certification is our means of assuring sponsors that:

• the salaries charged to the sponsor are reasonable in relation to the work performed, and
• faculty and staff have met their commitments to externally funded projects.

Currently, effort certification is a subject of intense scrutiny by federal auditors. Although effort certification is sometimes viewed as an undue administrative burden, failing to seriously address requirements may jeopardize the university's federal research funding.

To ease the administrative burden, the university is launching a new Web-based information system for certifying effort. This fall, the university will provide training for faculty and staff, as well as for the effort coordinators who will assist with the certification process.

Because success in the effort realm results from attention to a number of issues throughout a sponsored project's life cycle, the training will address both effort certification and how to manage effort from the proposal phase through award closeout.

Faculty and staff members on our Effort Project Steering Committee, along with the Research Policy Committee, have provided input regarding the new system, the university's updated policies and the training programs, including a Web-based training option. Training for researchers will begin in November; all faculty and academic staff who work on sponsored projects are expected to complete the training by January 31, 2008. More information about effort certification and the new system will be coming your way during the next several months.

When the new system debuts in the fall, please familiarize yourself with both the system and the university guidelines regarding effort commitments and certification. We recognize the transition to the new system requires an investment of your valuable time and attention, and we appreciate your making this investment to enhance the university's status as a premier research institution.

If you have questions in the meantime, please contact your dean's office or Dave Harris in the Graduate School at extension 5667 or dnh@uwm.edu.

Thank you,

Carlos E. Santiago
Chancellor

Rita Cheng
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Colin Scanes
Vice Chancellor for Research & Economic Development and Dean of the Graduate School

John R. Johnson
Chair of the university Committee and Professor of Communication

Tracy Moraine
Chair, Academic Staff Senate and Clinical Instructor, College of Health Sciences

September 20, 2007

UWM Research Funding Hits Another Record in 2006-'07

UWM faculty and staff attracted a record $33.8 million in external research funding in the 2006-'07 fiscal year, a 31 percent increase from the old record set the previous year.

Increasing UWM's research funding has been a top priority for Chancellor Carlos Santiago since his arrival on campus in 2004.

The record comes less than two years after launch of his Research Growth Initiative, a program that provides seed funding for research projects considered likely to attract and sustain external funding.

The total extramural funding of $67.9 million, which also includes instructional as well as extension and public service funds, marks an 8.5 percent increase from 2005-'06 and a 5.9 percent increase from the previous record set in 2003-'04.

July 17, 2007

Board of Regents designates UWM Research Foundation as manager of UWM's intellectual property

The UW System Board of Regents on Friday designated the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Research Foundation to manage UWM's intellectual property.

"This is a critical step forward to fulfill our research mission," said Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago. "The UWM Research Foundation will provide us with the flexibility to manage our intellectual property in ways that are most beneficial to UWM, its faculty and staff, and the economic vitality of the region."

The action by the Board of Regents came in two steps.

Regents approved a resolution designating the UWM Research Foundation as the intellectual property management organization for UWM.

It also approved a resolution to allow UWM to withdraw from the WiSys Technology Foundation Inc., the organization that promotes scientific investigation and research at all UW System universities except the University of Wisconsin-Madison. WiSys is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which supports scientific research at UW-Madison. Regents also brought to an end the pilot-project phase of WiSys.

Both resolutions were unanimously approved.

"The interim WiSys agreement and support from WARF helped UWM reach a point where it can address the commercialization of university technology and manage its own intellectual property," said Santiago.

"We are very grateful for the operational expertise that was shared with us and hope the UWM Research Foundation will have the same tremendous impact on the Milwaukee region that WARF is having on Madison."

UW System President Kevin Reilly offered his strong support of the UWM proposal, and reiterated that the change would not affect the operation of WiSys with other campuses. "Both WARF and UW System are 100% committed to WiSys providing all necessary tech-transfer activities for the remaining campuses," said Reilly.

The UWM Research Foundation was launched in 2006 with strong support from corporate partners including We Energies, Harley-Davidson and Rockwell Automation. The foundation is building its capabilities in patenting and licensing and is working closely with the University and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research to ensure alignment with the University's research agenda.

The law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich, which has extensive experience in the field of intellectual property and technology commercialization, will provide legal services to the UWM Research Foundation.

"The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Research Foundation is off to a great start, with more than $3 million in initial funding," said John Torinus, UWM Research Foundation Chairman and CEO of Serigraph Inc., West Bend.

"The decision by the Board of Regents will allow UWM to shape its own destination in the world of research and technology transfer. We believe that we can increase the number of patents, licenses and business start-ups if we have local energy behind the development of UWM's intellectual capital."

Brian Thompson, UWM Research Foundation President, further elaborated on advantages for UWM that will result from the action by the Board of Regents:

• Flexibility—Local control of the UWM Research Foundation gives UWM the flexibility to tailor its licensing programs to specifically meet UWM's needs. UWM seeks to build its research program, in part by reaching out to local corporate partners.
• Focus—The UWM Research Foundation is solely focused on UW-Milwaukee. The Research Foundation Board of Directors and staff leadership are focused on supporting the objectives set forth by Chancellor Santiago. Given UWM's aggressive objectives, this sort of focus is essential to helping UWM achieve its goals.
• Incentives—The UWM Research Foundation measures its success broadly, not simply measuring success by license revenue, but also including measures such as sponsored research projects and impact on the region's economy.
• Economic impact on UWM—The UWM Research Foundation will allow all of the revenue generated from licenses to accrue to the inventors or the campus. Previously, 40% was allocated to WiSys. This will now go to the UWM Research Foundation, and will help support programs such as the catalyst grant program, fellowship programs and other programs aimed at fostering UWM's research mission.
• Economic impact on the region—The UWM Research Foundation and UWM believe they have an important role to play in local economic development. Where possible, preference for licensing will be given to companies in the region such that high technology and advanced manufacturing jobs will be created or retained in Wisconsin. The UWM Research Foundation will actively encourage start-up companies based on University research.

For more information:

Contact:

• Brian Thompson, President, UWM Research Foundation Inc. (briant@uwmfdn.org or (414) 229-3397).

On the Web:

• UWM Research Foundation
• WiSys Technology Foundation
• Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation