The University of Notre Dame has received $172.5 million in new research funding awards for fiscal year 2020 鈥� the second highest in its history.
The awards received throughout fiscal year 2020 support an array of research, scholarship听补苍诲 creative endeavor, with many researchers working to address globally significant issues, including climate change, drug development, epidemiology听补苍诲 technology ethics. Toward聽the end of the fiscal year a call to focus on understanding and combating COVID-19 led to several new research funding opportunities.
鈥淭his year鈥檚 awards highlight how the University鈥檚 research programs are able to be flexible in the face of new and unforeseen challenges,鈥� said , vice president for research and professor in the . 鈥淎t Notre Dame, we are fortunate to have faculty who are driven by the University鈥檚 mission of being a powerful means for doing good in the world and are willing to pivot their research in order to address the most pressing issues of the day.鈥�
When the University鈥檚 laboratory and research operations went into hibernation in March 2020 due to the ongoing pandemic, some Notre Dame researchers had already begun to change their focus toward understanding and combating the novel coronavirus. Whether researchers are working from home or back on campus as Notre Dame continues its , some of the new research awards that support coronavirus-related studies 鈥� all of which were funded by the National Science Foundation to date 鈥� include:
- Funding to , associate professor and the Wanzek Collegiate Chair in the , for wastewater-informed epidemiological monitoring. Bibby and his research team have been monitoring wastewater via samples throughout the Great Lakes region to develop methods of virus detection. They are working with Alex Perkins,聽associate professor in the , to connect their measurements to epidemiological models in order to compare rates of exposure, the onset of symptoms, transmission and detection.
- An award to , professor in the , for the development of a meta-population level model that simulates the spread of the coronavirus and for utilizing reinforcement learning to design optimal congregation restriction policies for physical distancing. The goal of this research is to answer questions such as what are appropriate congregation restriction policies for social and physical distancing; and when should they be appropriately implemented.
- Funding for , the Andrew J. McKenna Family Associate Professor in the , for the study of varying state policy responses to the coronavirus. The research team is collecting data on state and local government reactions to ever-evolving information about the virus and on cases, fatalities and recoveries. The goal is to understand how those responses may have affected how the disease spreads.聽
- An award for , the Keating Crawford Endowed Professor in the , to create a new material for antimicrobial masks. Through a collaboration with the University of Iowa, Myung will translate his existing water filtration technology to create a new fabric that will not only capture viruses, like the coronavirus, but also deactivate them.聽
- Funding to to develop agent-based models, which simulates individuals and their movement patterns, for short-term projections. Perkins and his research team are aiming to build more accurate projections of how the coronavirus could spread based on how people live, work, and move, especially as various interventions such as shelter-in-place, school closures, and social distancing, are implemented and lifted.
Of the University鈥檚 739 awards received in fiscal year 2020, approximately 77 percent came from federal funding, while 14 percent came from foundations and other sources听补苍诲 9 percent came from industry. Overall, Notre Dame鈥檚 externally funded research had a global footprint of 50 grants in 41 countries, totaling $20.6 million. Researchers from the Colleges of , , 听补苍诲 , as well as the , 听补苍诲 , were among the recipients of these awards.
Contact: Brandi Wampler / Research Communications Specialist / Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame /聽brandiwampler@nd.edu / 574.631.8183
Originally published by at on July 21, 2020.