Recent Grant Awards
2021
Associate Professor William Riggs, Assistant Professor Shivani Shukla, Assistant Professor Majid Dadgar, and Assistant Professor Longyuan Du. School of Management, have received a grant of $ 845,660 from the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) through a collaboration with The City of Oakland. This grant aims at the development and implementation of neighborhood – level climate sustainability plans and projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, foster public health and environmental benefits, and catalyze economic opportunity and shared prosperity within the East Oakland neighborhoods. The above-named faculty members will help the City of Oakland and its Partners in providing evaluation, technical assistance, and data analysis for implementation of the projects and transformative plans undertaken.
Derick Brown, Leo T. McCarthy Center, School of Arts & Sciences, has received an award of $50,000 from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. This award is for the Equity Scholars Program: a collaboration between the University of Delaware’s Biden Institute, the University of San Francisco’s Leo T. McCarthy Center and the YMCA of San Francisco to reduce the achievement gap and prevent COVID-19 learning loss in under-resourced communities. The goal of this two-year pilot program is to bring together public service minded college students as trained Equity Scholars who will offer interactive virtual summer learning opportunities for children entering grades K-8.
Judith L. Pace, School of Education, has received an award of $ 9,500 from the Spencer Foundation based on a cross-national study, the first study to investigate both preparation for teaching controversial issues in university methods courses and preservice teachers’ efforts to teach issues in citizenship, history, and social studies classrooms. This grant aims at conducting webinars, podcasts, writings, a website, and social media to prepare educators at all levels in the U.S. and internationally for teaching controversy.
William Karney, School of Arts & Sciences, received a grant amounting to $202,564 from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This award aims at conducting research with an intention to clarify heavy-atom tunneling in reactions of annulenes and other conjugated systems. The work promises to deepen the understanding of heavy-atom tunneling and to broaden the scope of reactions in which tunneling plays a major role. With Dr. Karney’s expertise in the computational elucidation of reaction mechanisms, the work addresses new problems in this area while training undergraduates in numerous aspects of chemical research.
2020
Alessandra Cassar, College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $300,817 award from the National Science Foundation for a 3- year collaboration with Rutgers University. Funding from this award will support economic research on gender differences in competitiveness and status-seeking behavior. This research will help design economic institutions that contribute to further gender equality.
David Saah, College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $219,717 award from the California Energy Commission through a collaboration with Spatial Informatics Group (SIG). This award will be applied towards research and development to fill gaps in knowledge of fire science and apply that new knowledge to improve models to assess wildfire risk for grid operations and planning. The research will help to ensure resiliency of the electric grid in the near- and long-terms in the face of the growing wildfire risk under climate change.
Evelyn Y. Ho, College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $30,709 award from Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI) in collaboration with University of California San Francisco (UCSF). This award aims at conducting pragmatic research of acupuncture and counseling to reduce pain among hospitalized patients with cancer. The research will help to know whether using non-pharmacologic treatments alongside pain medications can better address patients’ pain.
Deneb Karentz, School of Arts and Sciences, has received $35,000 from the National Science Foundation. The grant helped fund participant travel to SCAR XIII International Symposium on Antartic Earth Sciences in Incheon, Republic of Korea in July 2019. SCAR is an international organization of which the US is a member, and Dr. Karentz is one of two national delegates.
Deneb Karentz, College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $1,178,625 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This grant will support and strengthen US participation in Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). This grant will help to develop new directions and establish new frontiers in the international framework of polar science. SCAR is an international organization of which the US is a member, and Dr. Karentz is one of two national delegates.
Naupaka Zimmerman, College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $199,108 award from the National Science Foundation. This grant will help to understand the magnitude of changes in soil carbon fluxes to predict the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in a changing climate. This project aims to increase the number of educational modules in ecosystem science.
Nicole Thometz, School of Arts and Sciences, has received a $60,426 grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in collaboration with UC Santa Cruz. This grant will help to collect data through comparative and comprehensive physiological research. The research will advance current knowledge of the physiology capacities and constraints of ice-dependent seals in Alaska.
Nicole Thometz, School of Arts and Sciences, has received a $4,939.88 grant from the Sea Otter Foundation and Trust. This grant will help fund the scientific research for conservation of sea otters. The research involves study of a segment of the southern sea otter range with the goal of expansion and species recovery.
Xiaosheng Huang, School of Arts and Sciences, has received a $189,889 grant from The Space Telescope Science Institute. This grant is awarded to provide funding for the program titled "Confirming Strong Galaxy Gravitational Lenses in the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys". This research will help to tackle the cosmologically significant problems of studying substructures in dark matter and measuring the Hubble Constant.
David Donahue, McCarthy Center, has received a $20,000 grant from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. This award will help fund the publication, distribution, and celebration of Engage San Francisco’s Changemakers book project which honors the history of Black San Francisco.
Alexa Curtis DNP, Trinette Radasa DNP, School of Nursing and Health Professions, has received $2,462,647 from Health Resources and Services Administration. This award funds clinical training for Nursing professionals to provide accessible behavioral health care in medically underserved populations in Northern California and the California Central Valley.
Angela Banks, School of Nursing and Health Professions, has received a $120,000 grant from the Office of State Health Planning and Development. The University of San Francisco Song Brown RN Program strives to increase education opportunities for ethnic minorities, such as Hispanic/Latinos, underrepresented in the nursing field. This grant supports USF’s partnership with Immaculate Conception Academy to identify potential Hispanic/Latino nursing students, as well as training and retention activities for the nursing program.
Bill Hing, School of Law, was given a $303,260 subaward from the Central American Resource Center of Northern California as part of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative. Funding from this award will support legal representation of unaccompanied children, families, and individuals with cases in San Francisco’s Immigration Court.
George Gmelch, School of Arts and Sciences, was awarded $14,900 from the National Science Foundation. This award will fund the editing and post-production costs of a film demonstrating anthropologists at work in the field. The film is intended to show the nature of contemporary ethnographic field research.
Alison Cohen, School of Management, has received a $20,816 grant from the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation. This award will help to conduct a community-based health needs assessment. This project is aimed to promote health, well-being and social justice in underserved communities of San Francisco.
Angela Banks, School of Nursing and Health Professions, has received a $3,250,000 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Funding from this grant will provide scholarships to nursing students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This grant will help to increase the number of BSN graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds practicing in medically underserved areas, and primary care settings.
Jesse Anttila-Hughes, Economics, College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $73,800 grant from The World Food Programme to support his collaborative project, “Study on the Economic Aftermath of Disaster.” Support from this grant will allow Dr. Anttila-Hughes and co-PI, Solomon Hsiang from UC Berkeley, to further develop their research on economic and infant mortality costs of typhoons in the Philippines.
Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon, Leadership Studies, School of Education, has received a $553,000 grant from The California Endowment for a statewide school discipline learning project. This collaborative grant with researchers from UCD and UCLA aims to increase understanding of school learning environments and efforts to reduce school suspensions and expulsions that support student health and academic success across California. Findings from an in-depth comparative case study of 14 Northern California schools and 14 Southern California schools will be shared in research and professional conferences.
Bill Ong Hing, School of Law, has been awarded additional funding of $150,000 from the California Department of Social Services to continue providing legal services to unaccompanied undocumented minors as part of USF’s Immigration Law Clinic. This will be Professor Hing’s fourth year of funding. The Refugee Programs Bureau funds nonprofit legal organizations to provide these services and USF’s Immigration Law Clinic will represent 30 unaccompanied undocumented minors in Northern California over the next year.
2019
Sophie Engle, Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences, along with co-PI’s Alark Joshi, Matthew Malensek, Malik Henfield, and Christina Tzagarakis-Foster, have received a $650,000 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation which will fund scholarships for 12 STEM students. This grant aims to prepare low-income academically talented students for the technology workforce by offering a comprehensive suite of structured opportunities to learn from and contribute back to the departmental, technical, and broader local community.
James Wilson and David Uminsky, College of Arts and Sciences, have received a $15,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant will help fund the 2nd Annual Data Institute Conference held at USF drawing leaders of industry and academia to explore the latest theoretical advances and technological applications in data science to promote the next generation of cross-disciplinary research. This conference will focus on recruiting and increasing diversity in data science with attendees that are not traditionally represented in STEM fields.
Bill Ong Hing, School of Law, has been awarded additional funding of $260,000 from The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC). Funding from this award will support legal representation of immigrants in select Bay Area counties who are at risk of deportation. The project will cover the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo. This will be Professor Hing’s third year of funding in collaboration with ILRC.
Bill Ong Hing, School of Law, has been awarded $120,000 from Vital Immigrant Defense Advocacy and Services (VIDAS) as part of the Sonoma County Secure Families Collaborative. Funding from this award will support legal representation of immigrants who live in Sonoma County in removal defense actions.
Alexa Curtis, DNP, School of Nursing and Health Professions, has received a $56,743 subaward for a training grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse, and Mental Health Services Administration for a 3-year collaboration with the UCSF, School of Medicine, and the CSU Sonoma, School of Nursing. Funding from this grant will help NP trainees learn about safe opioid prescribing and help them to receive their buprenorphine waiver certifications.