Momentum Funds 2022-2023 Awardees

Scaling Grants 

These grants support the detailed project planning, gathering of proof-of-concept results, and reduction of technical risk so that teams can competitively pursue large, complex extramural funding. Congratulations to this year's awardees! 

César Escobar-Viera: Examining Psychosocial Correlates of Loneliness and Perceived Isolation Among Marginalized Youth

D-Scholarship: Examining Psychosocial Correlates of Loneliness and Perceived Isolation Among Marginalized Youth
 


Team members include:

  • César Escobar-Viera (team lead), School of Medicine
  • Xu Qin, School of Education
  • Robert W. S. Coulter, School of Public Health
  • Nadine Melhem, School of Medicine
  • Sophia Choukas-Bradley, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
  • Marta Peciña, School of Medicine
  • Kar-Hai Chu, School of Public Health
  • Patricia Documét, School of Public Health
Shannon Wanless: Linking University-Community Initiatives to Promote a Child's Thriving Pipeline Across Early Developmental Stages

D-Scholarship: Linking University-Community Initiatives to Promote a Child's Thriving Pipeline Across Early Developmental Stages
 


Team members include:

  • Shannon Wanless (team lead), School of Education
  • Daniel Shaw, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
  • James Huguley, School of Social Work
  • Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

Teaming Grants 

These grants support the early-stage planning and capacity building of large multidisciplinary projects. Congratulations to this year's awardees! 

Ann Sinsheimer: Testing the Effectiveness of Faculty as Facilitators of Psychosocial Resilience Interventions for Students in Professional and Graduate Program

D-Scholarship: Testing the Effectiveness of Faculty as Facilitators of Psychosocial Resilience Interventions for Students in Professional and Graduate Programs
 


Team members include:

  • Ann Sinsheimer (team lead), School of Law
  • Omid Fotuhi, Learning Research and Development Center
  • Ming-Te Wang, formerly of University of Pittsburgh School of Education
  • Andrele Brutus St. Val, School of Law

This is a Year of Emotional Well-Being project.

Rachel Robertson: Supporting Mental and Physical Wellbeing in Autistic Adults through Community-Based Mindful Movement

D-Scholarship: Supporting Mental and Physical Wellbeing in Autistic Adults through Community-Based Mindful Movement
 


Team members include:

  • Rachel Robertson (team lead), School of Education
  • Marissa Vogel, Open Up Pittsburgh
  • Caitlin Conner, School of Medicine
  • Carla Mazefsky, School of Medicine
  • Sally Sherman, School of Education

This is a Year of Emotional Well-Being project.

Priming Grants

These grants (formerly Seeding) provide up to $25,000 per year and support significant and innovative scholarship by individual or small groups of faculty at all ranks at the University of Pittsburgh. In constructing each year’s portfolio of awards, attention is given to supporting early career faculty and areas where opportunities for extramural funding are extremely limited. Proposals are reviewed in four tracks: Creative Arts, Performing Arts and Humanities; Engineering, Technology, Natural Sciences, and Mathematical Sciences; Health and Life Sciences; and Social Sciences, which includes business, policy, law, education, and social work. Congratulations to this year's awardees! 

 

Anthropocene Stewardship: Linking Ecological Sustainability, Social Justice, and Well-Being in Settler-Colonial Hawai’i

Tomas Matza, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Anthropocene Stewardship: Linking Ecological Sustainability, Social Justice, and Well-Being in Settler-Colonial Hawai’i

This is a Year of Emotional Well-Being project.

 

Measuring the Prevalence of Earnings Manipulations: A Novel Approach

Nicole Cade, Katz Graduate School of Business
Joshua Gunn, Katz Graduate School of Business

D-Scholarship: Measuring the Prevalence of Earnings Manipulations: A Novel Approach

 

Resisting Racist Police Violence: An Oral History of the Ferguson Rebellion

Joshua Bloom, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Resisting Racist Police Violence: An Oral History of the Ferguson Rebellion

 

The Labor of Commoning: Women Against Authoritarian Populism in Hungary

Gabriella Lukacs, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: The Labor of Commoning: Women Against Authoritarian Populism in Hungary

 

The "New" New York: Race, Space, and Power in Gentrifying Brooklyn

Amanda Boston, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: The "New" New York: Race, Space, and Power in Gentrifying Brooklyn

 

Unpacking Racial Disparities in the Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment of Youth and Young Adults in Allegheny County

Catherine Greeno, School of Social Work
Nev Jones, School of Social Work

D-Scholarship: Unpacking Racial Disparities in the Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment of Youth and Young Adults in Allegheny County

 

Imagination PLAYce: Towards Critical Liberatory and Digitally Mediated Pedagogies of Higher Education

Veena Vasudevan, School of Education
Bea Dias, School of Education
Tinukwa Boulder, School of Education

D-Scholarship: Imagination PLAYce: Towards Critical Liberatory and Digitally Mediated Pedagogies of Higher Education

 

Investigating the Environmental Exposure Risks of Asthma

Peng Gao, Graduate School of Public Health

D-Scholarship: Investigating the Environmental Exposure Risks of Asthma

 

Enhancing Resilience and Healthspan Through Listening Sessions with Community Engagement Centers

Rose Constantino, School of Nursing
Willa Doswell, School of Nursing
Betty J. Braxter, School of Nursing
Mario C. Browne, School of Pharmacy
Claudia M. Kregg-Byers, School of Nursing

D-Scholarship: Enhancing Resilience and Healthspan Through Listening Sessions with Community Engagement Centers

This is a Year of Emotional Well-Being project.

 

Training Health Sciences Faculty to Deliver the Pitt Personal Wellness Program to Graduate Students

Laura Dietz, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

D-Scholarship: Training Health Sciences Faculty to Deliver the Pitt Personal Wellness Program to Graduate Students

 

Distributional Equity Analysis of Residual Risk for National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) and Stakeholder Engagement

Christina Ndoh, Graduate School of Public Health

D-Scholarship: Distributional Equity Analysis of Residual Risk for National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) and Stakeholder Engagement

 

Exploring New Metallic Quantum Spin Liquid in Intermetallic Compounds

Xin Gui, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Exploring New Metallic Quantum Spin Liquid in Intermetallic Compounds

 

Bringing Mobile Health to the Underdeveloped World

Longfei Shangguan, School of Computing and Information

D-Scholarship: Bringing Mobile Health to the Underdeveloped World

 

The Geochemistry and Petrogenesis of the Braganca and Morais Massifs of Northern Portugal: Examining Islands of Rock to Understand How Mountains are Built

Ryan Kerrigan, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

D-Scholarship: The Geochemistry and Petrogenesis of the Braganca and Morais Massifs of Northern Portugal: Examining Islands of Rock to Understand How Mountains are Built

 

Experimental Studies and Kinetic Modeling of Co-pyrolysis of Biomass and Plastic Wastes with the Combined Scheme of Kinetics and Machine-Learning

Hui Liu, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

D-Scholarship: Experimental Studies and Kinetic Modeling of Co-pyrolysis of Biomass and Plastic Wastes with the Combined Scheme of Kinetics and Machine-Learning

 

Improving Quantum Sensing Using Variational Quantum Optimization Algorithms

Kaushik Seshadreesan, School of Computing and Information
Gurudev Dutt, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Improving Quantum Sensing Using Variational Quantum Optimization Algorithms

 

Preserving Fairness of Deep Learning Under Environmental Changes

Xiaowei Jia, School of Computing and Information
Hassan Karimi, School of Computing and Information

D-Scholarship: Preserving Fairness of Deep Learning Under Environmental Changes

 

Freshwater Bivalve Shells as Monitors of River Contaminant Sources Over Time: Application of Barium Isotopes

Brian Stewart, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Freshwater Bivalve Shells as Monitors of River Contaminant Sources Over Time: Application of Barium Isotopes

 

Synthetic Tuning of Ligand Field for Precise Control of Molecular Zero-Field Splitting

Wesley Transue, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Synthetic Tuning of Ligand Field for Precise Control of Molecular Zero-Field Splitting

 

Toward the Two-Way Coupling of Swimmer and Surface Gravity Waves

Lei Fang, Swanson School of Engineering

D-Scholarship: Toward the Two-Way Coupling of Swimmer and Surface Gravity Waves

 

Emission-Management for Sustainable Computing Systems

Stephen Lee, School of Computing and Information

D-Scholarship: Emission-Management for Sustainable Computing Systems

 

Hemispheric Conversations Urban Art Project

Caitlin Bruce, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
Oreen Cohen, Independent Artist
Shane Pilster, Rivers of Steel
Max Gonzales, Rivers of Steel

D-Scholarship: Hemispheric Conversations Urban Art Project

 

Reconstructing the Early Career of Jorge Luis Borges as a Public Speaker: Talks and Courses from 1949 to 1955

Daniel Balderston, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Reconstructing the Early Career of Jorge Luis Borges as a Public Speaker: Talks and Courses from 1949 to 1955

 

Archive of Pittsburgh Language and Speech

Daniel Villarreal, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: Archive of Pittsburgh Language and Speech

 

War Risks: Understanding War Trauma through a Comprehensive Study of War Risk Insurance Claims by American Veterans of the First World War

Bridget Keown, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

D-Scholarship: War Risks: Understanding War Trauma through a Comprehensive Study of War Risk Insurance Claims by American Veterans of the First World War

This is a Year of Emotional Well-Being project.