The 2023-2024 Pitt Momentum Fund awards, announced this week, will give money to 27 of the 77 projects submitted for consideration.

Peer reviews were coordinated by members of the University Research Council and prior awardees.

The three-tiered structure of the awards provides funds at all stages of the research cycle:

• Priming Awards help start projects

• Teaming Awards help establish collaborative teams

• Scaling Awards help projects do the detailed work necessary to pursue large external funding

The Momentum Funds, which have given internal funding to projects since 2019, are a collaboration between the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research and the Office of the Provost.

Each year’s competition welcomes proposals aligned with the University-wide annual themes developed by the Provost. For 2023-2024, the Momentum Funds are funding four projects reflecting this year’s theme — the Year of Discourse and Dialogue.

This year’s winners are:

Scaling projects

The Rust to Resilience (R2R) Environmental Chemical Research Center: Alison Sanders (team lead), Department of Environmental & Occupational Health, School of Public Health. Additional team members are from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the Department of Geology & Environmental Sciences.

Establishing Next-Generation Intracortical Microstimulation for Research and Clinical Applications: Alberto Vazquez (team lead), Department of Radiologym School of Medicine. Additional team members are from the Department of Bioengineering, the Department of Neurobiology, the Department of Neuroscience, and the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

Teaming Grants

Artificial Intelligence Integrated in Learning of Rehabilitation Science Skills: Reivian Berrios Barillas (team lead), Department of Physical Therapy, SHRS. Additional team members are from the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems; the Department of Psychology; the Department of Physical Therapy; and the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Leading.

Creating Synergies and Collaborations to Advance Race-Based Research at the University of Pittsburgh: Kyaien Conner (team lead), School of Social Work. Additional team members are from the Department of Africana Studies; the Department of Anthropology; The Department of Educational Foundations, the Department of Organization & Policy; the Department of Epidemiology; and the Department of Social Work.

Pittsburgh Deep Learning Triangulum: Michael Lotze (team lead), Department of Surgery, School of Medicine. Additional team members are from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, the Department of Immunology, and the Department of Psychology/LRDC. This project is aligned with the themes of the Year of Discourse and Dialogue.

Priming Grants

• Elizabeth Monasterios, Department of Hispanic Languages & Literatures, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: Understanding Death in the Andes. Indigenous and Western Conceptions of Life, Death, and Religiosity, 16th-21st Centuries

• Marta Ortega-Llebaria, Department of Linguistics, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: Dialogue, Discourse and Diversity: Changing Social Judgements through Listening Effort

• Aakash Gautam, Department of Computer Science, School of Computing and Information: Enhancing Reentry Support Programs through Community-Based Participatory Action Research

• In Hee Lee, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Swanson School of Engineering: Innovating Small-Animal Monitoring for a Sustainable Future

• Guanyi Lu, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Swanson School of Engineering: Measuring the Shear Creep Characteristics of Rocks through Novel Laboratory Experiments

• Manisha Nigam, Pitt–Johnstown Department of Chemistry: Green Chemistry in Undergraduate Research

• Sabrina Streipert, Department of Mathematics, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: Models of Different Time Scales and the Importance of Time Synchrony in Ecology

• Susheng Tan, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Swanson School of Engineering: Atomistic Insight into the Interface Atomic Mixing Between Substrate and Additively Manufactured Titanium Alloy

• Christopher Wilmer, Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, Swanson School of Engineering: Expanding the Impact of Accessible Open-Source Chemistry Software: New Capabilities for Avogadro

• Ricky Burgess, Department of Organizations and Entrepreneurship, Pitt Business: Addressing Workplace Bias through Bystander Training

• Priscila Da Silva Castanha, Department of Infectious Diseases & Microbiology, School of Public Health: A Human Skin Model of Tick-Borne Virus Transmission

• Christopher Imes, Department of Acute & Tertiary Care, School of Nursing: Examining Multidimensional Sleep Health and Stakeholder Engagement to Inform a Behavioral Sleep Health Intervention among Nurses Working Night and Rotating Shifts

• Andrea Mora, Department of Psychology, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: MAPI Study: Linking Neighborhood Violence to Mexican Adolescent Psychological and Immune Health

• Anthony Schwacha, Department of Biological Sciences, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: Forward Genetic Screen to Identify Novel Factors Involved in R-loop Formation and Resolution

• Linda DeAngelo, Department of Educational Foundations and Organizations & Policy, School of Education: Determining Change Agents: Understanding and Enhancing the Environment for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in Engineering

• Claire Duquennois, Department of Economics, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: Racial Bias Impacts on Mental Health: Can Child Media Representation Help?

• Ashley Gomez, Department of Organizations and Entrepreneurship, Pitt Business: Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Immigrant Latina/o/x Entrepreneurs

• Kuo-Ting Huang, Department of Information Culture & Data Stewardship, School of Computing and Information: Augmenting STEM Education in Rural Sierra Leone

• Russell Phillips, Pitt–Greensburg Department of Psychology: The Creation of a Reliable and Valid Cross Cultural Religious Fundamentalism Scale

• M. Yasir Khan, Department of Economics, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: Mental Health and Community Health Workers' Performance

• Fernando Tormos Aponte, Department of Sociology, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences: Measuring Power Outage Frequency and Duration, Assessing the Social and Technical Drivers of Power Restoration Timescales, and Predicting Future Power Outages

• Elaine Wilson, Pitt–Johnstown Department of Special Education: Exploring Immersive Behavior Vignettes