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Nearly half a million dollars in seed grants were recently awarded through USC’s Environmental Research Initiative Committee (ERIC), and proposals for a second round of awards will be solicited in the spring.
The initiative, created by Harris Pastides, vice president for research and health sciences, will make available a total of $1.5 million over three years for grants to University researchers engaged in interdisciplinary research on environmental topics. Twenty-six proposals were received in the first round of funding; six were recommended for awards after an exhaustive internal and external review process.
“To be considered, the proposed research has to cross at least two departments; the larger grants have to involve faculty from three colleges,” said Bruce Coull, dean of the School of the Environment and co-chair of ERIC with Will Graf, a geography professor. “Obviously, we’re trying to foster more interdisciplinary environmental research projects that will be able to compete for external funding.”
Many USC faculty were involved in reviewing proposals and culling the number for serious funding consideration to 13. External reviewers were then used to make final funding recommendations.
“Some prestigious universities have congratulated us on how innovative this [initiative] is,” Coull said. “A lot of people are saying, ‘We wish we had a project like this.’”
“The funded proposals share several common characteristics,” Graf said. “They represent team-building efforts that cross disciplinary boundaries, focus on important environmental quality issues, and are likely to lead to external funding.”
The first six projects funded through ERIC are:
• “NIEHS SuperFund Basic Research Program—Center Grants Competition: Community and Environmental Health Risks Associated with SuperFund Sites in Southeastern Coastal Systems,” $149,961. Principal investigator: John Vena, epidemiology and biostatistics, with Wilfred Karmaus and Andrew Lawson, epidemiology and biostatistics; Walter Piegorsch, statistics; Susan Cutter, geography; Lee Ferguson, Timothy Shaw, and John Ferry, chemistry and biochemistry; Joe Quattro, biological sciences; Tom Chandler, Margorie Aelion, Charles Feigley, Kris Zierold, Lee Newman, Alan Decho, and Craig Stow, environmental health sciences.
• “Predicting Biodegradation of Phenanthrene Using Stable Carbon Isotopes: Incorporation of Mathematical Modeling,” $74,648. Principal investigator: Marjorie Aelion, environmental health sciences, with Joseph Flora, civil and environmental engineering; Brian Kirtland, environmental health sciences; Alexander Prokopenko, geological sciences; and Miguel Goni, geological sciences.
• “Communities, Toxins, and Enzymes: Structural, Functional, and Evolutionary Relations,” $75,000. Principal investigator: John Dawson, chemistry and biochemistry, with Bert Ely, biological sciences; Lukasz Lebioda, chemistry and biochemistry; David Lincoln, Sarah Ann Woodin, and Yung Pin Chin, biological sciences
• “Radioactive Contaminants, Antioxidants, and Mutation: A Comparative Analysis of Birds, Flies, and Humans of Chernobyl,” $39,776. Principal investigator: Tim Mousseau, biological sciences, with Clarke Millette and Mike Wyatt, School of Medicine; Travis Glenn, Savannah River Ecology Lab; John Baynes, chemistry and biochemistry; Mike Walla, chemistry and biochemistry; John Vena, epidemiology and biostatistics; and other scientists from Ukraine, France, and Scotland.
• “Characterizing the Hydrologic Properties of Faults in Single- and Multiple-Aquifer Systems,” $73,753. Principal investigator: Charles Pierce, civil and environmental engineering, with Erik Anderson, civil and environmental engineering; and Pradeep Talwani, geological sciences.
• “Assessing Contaminant Impacts at the Molecular Level Using Grass Shrimp as a Marine Sentinel,” $73,934. Principal investigator: Joseph Quattro, biological science, with P.L. Ferguson, chemistry and biochemistry; Tom Chandler, environmental health sciences; Geoff Scott and T.W. Greig, NOAA; R.W. Chapman, MUSC/Hollings Marine Lab; and P. Sandifer, NOAA/Hollings Marine Lab.
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