2024 IRC Funding Results

Fifty proposals were submitted and reviewed by the Associate Deans for Research of the participating colleges or their designee. Eighteen proposals (36% of those submitted) were selected for funding, awarding $590,812 for these pilot awards. These proposals involve 49 UK faculty and 15 colleges: 9 Pigman College of Engineering, 8 College of Medicine, 5 Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, 4 College of Communication & Information, 4 College of Arts and Sciences, 4 Libraries, 3 College of Design, 3 College of Public Health, 2 College of Health Sciences, 2 College of Pharmacy, 1 College of Dentistry, 1 College of Fine Arts, 1 College of Social Work, 1 Gatton Business & Economics and 1 Graduate School.

The projects selected were:

Title

Investigators

Tackling the antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella infections in food animals, humans, and the environment in Central Kentucky, a one health perspective

Yosra Helmy (CAFE), Vaneet Arora (Medicine), Melissa Morgan (CAFE), Scott Berry (Engineering)

Analyzing synaptic structure and Tau pathology interactions via DiOlistic labeling in a new humanized Alzheimer's mouse model

Adam Bachstetter (Medicine), Kristen McLaurin (Pharmacy)

Longitudinal tracking of mutations in the blood as a biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease risk

Yasminka Jakubek Swartzlander (Medicine), David Fardo (Public Health)

The Curious Case of Energy Transition and Climate Action Policy Design in Kentucky:  Policy Mixes, Framing, and Public Support

Jeongyoon Lee (Graduate School), Jihye Kim (Communication and Information)

A multidisciplinary approach to environmental change and bee conservation

Clare Rittschof, Beryl Jones (CAFE), Catherine Linnen (A&S)

Developing a novel moisture sensing fabric for biomedical and sports applications using 3D machine-knitting

Kristi Bartlett, Jennifer Meakins (Design), Zhi Chen (Engineering)

Prediction Models to Inform Empiric Antibiotic Therapy Selection for Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Ashlan Kunz Coyne (Pharmacy), Yosra Helmy (CAFE), Hana Khamfroush (Engineering)

Improving Archival Discovery Using a Natural Language Query Interface for Finding Aids

Muhammad Siddique (Engineering), Andrew McDonnell, Cindi Blyberg, Megan Mummey, Neal Powers (Libraries),

The silica empire: An invisible invasion

Pedram Roghanchi (Engineering), Paul Rodgers (Fine Arts)

Finding networks in large volumes of text: An AI approach to relationship extraction

Andrew Pilny (Communication and Information), Daniel Halgin (B&E)

Development of Novel Screening Protocols to Distinguish Limbic-Predominant Age-Related TDP-43 Encephalopathy (LATE) from Alzheimer's Disease in Living Older Adults

Valentinos Zachariou (Medicine), Thomas Adams (A&S), Jennifer Stevenson (Medicine), Siva Gandhapudi (Medicine)

Transformer-based temporal action localization for functional motion classification and localization for stroke rehabilitation

Justin Philip Huber (Medicine), Sen-ching Samson Cheung, Jihye Bae (Engineering)

Large Language Models for Understanding Medieval Manuscripts

Muhammad Siddique (Engineering), Abigail Firey (A&S)

Young Adult Females Responses to Image-Based Sexual Harassment (IBSH)

Jennifer Scarduzio (Communication and Information), Christal Badour (A&S), Kimberly Parker (Communication and Information)

Air pollution exposures and cognitive function among older Americans

Yeon Jin Choi (Social Work), Yisi Liu, Tianjun Lu (Public Health)

Integrating design, manufacturing, and sustainability in undergraduate education

Kristi Bartlett (Design), David Parsley (Engineering)

Understanding Mechanisms of Oral Mucosa Wound Healing in Diabetic Patients: A Step Toward Preventing Complications and Enhancing Clinical Outcomes

Mauro Santamaria (Dentistry), Travis Thomas (Health Sciences)

Unraveling Asprosin's influence on skeletal muscle metabolism: Insights for metabolic health

Jean Fry (Health Sciences), Ila Mishra (Medicine)