The Pitt Momentum Funds are a collaboration between the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research and the Office of the Provost and support researchers and scholars in fields from creative arts and humanities to the social sciences, to STEM and the health sciences.
The three-tiered structure of the awards makes it possible to fund work 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 Priming Grant Awardees are:
Elizabeth Monasterios from the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures with other faculty from the department on: “Understanding Death in the Andes. Indigenous and Western Conceptions of Life, Death, and Religion, 16th – 21st Centuries.”
Marta Ortega-Llebaria from the Department of Linguistics with additional faculty from the Department of Psychology for research on: “The Dialogue, Discourse, and Diversity: Changing Social Judgments Through Listening Effort.”
Sabrina Streipert from the Department of Mathematics for research on: “Models of Different Time Scales and the Importance of Time Synchrony in Ecology.”
Christopher Wilmer whose team includes faculty from the Chemistry Department for research on: “Expanding the Impact of Accessible Open-Source Chemistry Software: New Capabilities for Avogadro.”
Andrea Mora from the Department of Psychology including other faculty from the same department for their research on: “MAPI Study: Linking Neighborhood Violence to Mexican Adolescent Psychological and Immune Health.”
Anthony Schwacha from the Department of Biological Sciences for his team's research on: “Forward Genetic Screen to Identify Novel Factors Involved in R-Loop Formation and Resolution.”
Claire Duquennois from the Department of Economics for her research on: “Racial Bias Impacts on Mental Health: Can Child Media Representation Help?”
M. Yasir Khan from the Department of Economics for his research on: “Mental Health and Community Workers’ Performance.”
Fernando Tormos Aponte from the Department of Sociology for his research on: “Measuring Power Outage Frequency and Duration, Assessing the Social and Technical Drivers of Power Restoration Timescales, and Predicting Future Power Outages.”
The Teaming Grants Awardees are:
Reivian Berrios Barillas and her team including faculty from the Department of Psychology. Barillas’s team is working on: “Artificial Intelligence Integrated in Learning of Rehabilitation Science Skills.”
Kyaien Conner’s team also includes faculty from the Department of Africana Studies and the Department of Anthropology for: “Synergies and Collaborations to Advance Race-Based Research at the University.”
Michael Lotze’s team which includes faculty from the Department of Psychology. The team is working on the Pittsburgh Deep Learning Triangulum.
The Scaling Grant Awardees are:
Alison Sanders and her team which includes faculty from the Dietrich School’s Department of Geology and Environmental Science for their work on: “The Rust to Resilience (R2R) Environmental Chemical Research Center.”
Alberto Vazquez and his team including faculty from the Department of Neuroscience for their work on: “Establishing Next-Generation Intracortical Microstimulation for Research and Clinical Applications.