April grant awards

The University Grants and Research Office announced several new grant awards received through April 26, totaling $714,460.

UGRO acknowledges the commitment of the project directors and other faculty and staff who were instrumental in the process. Among the grants awarded:

Title: Data Driven Linguistic Ontology Development

Agency: National Science Foundation

Project director: William Lewis

Amount of Award: $49,275

Purpose: To enrich the computational infrastructure for linguistics, enabling researchers both to find the resources they need despite the incompatibility of encoding formats, and to make the results of their own work more widely accessible to others.

College/School: Arts and Humanities/Linguistics

Title: CDE Home Economics Careers and Technology Consultant

Agency: California Department of Education

Project director: Nina Dilbeck

Amount of Award: $27,950

Purpose: To fund Fresno/Central California Field Office facilities and services for Home Economics Careers and Technology Education consultant, Kathryn Whitten.

College/School: Agricultural Sciences and Technology/Child, Family and

Consumer Sciences

Title: Summer Bridge Program

Agency: Garabedian Foundation

Project director: Maxine McDonald and Victor Olivares

Amount of Award: $1,000

Purpose: To provide a greater number of students an opportunity to participate in the Summer Bridge Program, improve the math curriculum to increase the number of students who pass the math challenge exam, and expand the availability of computers, computer technicians and academic tutors.

College/School: Administration/Student Affairs

Title: Westside Housing Project

Agency: Habitat for Humanity

Project director: Dr. Kathryn Forbes

Amount of Award: $3,000

Purpose: Kathryn Forbes will evaluate the performance of critical programmatic components and operations. College/School: Social Sciences/Women's Studies

Title: Restraint Usage Surveys (2004-05)

Agency: State of California (Office of Traffic Safety)

Project director: Steve Price

Amount of Award: $329,131

Purpose: To complete seat belt usage surveys to aid various agencies in evaluating the effectiveness of their media, enforcement, traffic safety programs and other related program issues.

College/School: Kremen School of Education and Human Development

Title: Effective control of tadpole shrimp damage to rice yield: Methyl

farnesoate inhibition of reproduction using liposomes

Agency: California Rice Research Board

Project director: Brian Tsukimura

Amount of Award: $3,000

Purpose: To purchase materials used in the development of MF-liposome pellets, which will lower the reproduction of tadpole shrimp. These funds will also be used as matching funds for a current CATI-ARI grant that attempts to lower tadpole shrimp damage in rice fields.

College/School: Science and Math/Biology

Title: Evaluation of the Male Involvement Program (MIP)

Agency: Madera County Public Health Department

Project director: Vickie Krenz

Amount of Award: $2,500

Purpose: To reduce teen pregnancy (and early unintended fatherhood) through community engagement, youth leadership, and an increased responsibility of adolescent boys and young men.

College/School: Health and Human Services/Health Science

Title: San Joaquin Valley Mathematics Project 2003-04

Agency: UC Office of the President

Project director: Carol Fry Bohlin

Amount of Award: $84,000

Purpose: To provide teachers with a variety of high quality professional development and leadership opportunities designed to increase their knowledge of mathematics and their effectiveness in teaching mathematics.

College/School: Kremen School of Education and Human Development

Title: USDA Paul Sommers

Agency: USDA

Project director: Bill Erysian

Amount of Award: $119,368

Purpose: Dr. Paul Sommers will serve as a specialist for the USDA Marketing Assistance Project in Armenia.

College/School: Continuing and Global Education

Title: Development of a Cavity Spot of Carrot Disease Nursery

Agency: California Fresh Carrot Advisory Board

Project director: James Farrar

Amount of Award: $21,986

Purpose: To complete development of the cavity spot of carrot disease nursery, evaluate the efficacy of new fungicides for the control of cavity spot and evaluate carrot varieties for resistance to cavity spot.

College/School: Agricultural Sciences and Technology/Plant Science

Title: Table Grape Program - Melissa and other Table Grape Varieties

Agency: Garabedian Foundation

Project director: Sayed Badr

Amount of Award: $3,000

Purpose: To setup test plots and collect data on fruiting habits.

College/School: Agricultural Sciences and Technology/VERC

Title: Evaluation of the Community Challenge Program

Agency: Madera County Public Health Department

Project director: Vickie Krenz

Amount of Award: $12,000

Purpose: To increase youth participation in curricula and community support activities which promote teen pregnancy prevention efforts in Madera County.

College/School: Health and Human Services/Health Science

Title: Coleman Foundation Program Support

Agency: Coleman Foundation

Project director: Timothy M. Stearns

Amount of Award: $58,250

Purpose: To support six specific projects of the Lyles Center.

College/School: Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

More UGRO news:

The following six students (listed with their faculty mentor) represented Fresno State at the 18th Annual CSU Student Research Competition at CSU Northridge on April 30-May 1:

Diganta D. Adhikari (Dave Goorahoo), Careyn Armitage (Carolyn Jackson), Genett Carstensen ( Goorahoo), Samantha Hageman ( Mamta Rawat), Sandra Hammond (Glenn DeVoogd), and Ron Severson, Jr. (Karl Runde).