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- Business of Science
The Business of Science
The members of Willamette’s science faculties are extremely prolific because they have to be. Alongside institutional funding, they collect operating resources from aggressive grant writing, usually with the help of the university’s Office for Faculty Research and Resources.
But it’s tricky business. The grants below, for example, are one-time infusions of money that facilitate projects that are already supported by institutional resources (like the Willamette Fund, for example). Foundations and other groups, logically enough, often won’t give money if they don’t feel that projects have the institutional backing to be sustainable afterward.
Here are some recent grant acquisitions to come out of the science departments.
David Altman
(physics)
Nearly $72,000 in grants from the Murdock Trust and Research Corporation for his work with students in researching myosin, which stimulates motor function
Chris Smith
(biology)
$149,674 grant from the National Science Foundation for work researching the evolution of Joshua trees and their unusual pollination mechanisms
Drew Duncan
(chemistry)
$50,000 Undergraduate New Investigator Grant from the American Chemical Society-Petroleum Research Fund to support his work in pharmaceutical synthesis
Sarah Kirk
(chemistry)
Murdock Charitable Trust award of $15,000 for the “Partners in Science” program, which allows a South Salem High School science teacher to join Kirk in summer research
Karen Arabas
(environmental and
earth sciences)
$211,749 award from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board for working with students restoring endangered Oak Savannah at Willamette’s Zena Forest
Stasinos Stavrianeas and Mark Stewart
(exercise science/psychology)
National Science Foundation grant for $121,000 (2007) and $250,000 from the W.M. Keck Foundation for the development of iScience and a faculty networking component to expand programming to incorporate regional peer institutions