News for Researchers Uncategorized
Posted January 9, 2026 by Cheyenne Rowe
The Office of Research and Innovation is pleased to announce several new internal funding awards made in response to proposals submitted in fall 2025, most of which were made possible by support from the University of Nebraska Foundation.
Book Fellowship and Manuscript Workshop Program
R&I is supporting four new R&I book fellowships through its Book Fellowship and Manuscript Workshop Program. Thesefellowships provide support for faculty to focus on writing and publishing a book through a course buyout or summer salary support and/or costs related to the publishing process.
R&I book fellowship recipients and projects:
- Peter Capuano, English, “Approaches to Researching and Teaching Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations”
- Frauke Hachtmann, journalism and mass communications, “Global Advertising: Strategy, Culture and Emerging Technology”
- Wendy Katz, art, art history and design, “Art in Translation: Narrative in Nineteenth-Century Print Culture”
- Kendra Ordia, interior design, “The Routledge Companion to Human-Centered Interior Design”
Research and Innovation Grants program
Fourteen projects will be supported in 2026 through the R&I Grants program, which provides support to UNL faculty members seeking to advance their programs of research, scholarship and/or creative endeavors. These grants contribute to outcomes such as: enhanced competitiveness for extramural funding, advanced scholarly output and/or increased societal impact for the PI’s program. Up to $15,000 is available per award.
R&I grant recipients and projects
- Sasitharan Balasubramaniam, computing, “Dual Functional Microfluidic Reservoir for AI Computing and Thermal Management”
- Andrea Basche, agronomy and horticulture, “Expanding agricultural science opportunities through effective mentoring”
- Jeffrey Bradshaw, entomology, “Olfactory Receptor Gene Expression in Bracon Parasitoids: Enhancing Biological Control of Wheat Stem Sawfly via Host-Finding Mechanisms”
- Michael Burton, textiles, merchandising and fashion design, “Perihelion: An Astronaut’s Journey: A documentary on spaceflight, human resilience, and the Artemis II Mission”
- Carrie Clark, educational psychology, “Characterizing preschool children’s self-awareness of their performance using electroencephalography”
- Yaroslav Komarovski, classics and religious studies, “Tibetan Buddhism in Communist Vietnam”
- Huang Li, biochemistry, “Mitochondrial Bioenergetics: From Green Algae Chlamydomonas to Field Crop Camelina”
- Jung Yul Lim, mechanical and materials engineering, “Mimicking Microgravity in Space Travel via a Novel Cell Levitation Device”
- Susan Loveall, special education and communication disorders, “Cognitive and Executive Function Profiles of Individuals with Mosaic Down Syndrome”
- Kevin McMullen, English, “Publication cost for student-edited book project: The Selected Poems of Harriet Monroe”
- Stephen Morin, chemistry, “Soft-to-Hard Arthropod-Inspired Microbodies based on Exoskeleton Forming Elastomers”
- Daizaburo Shizuka, biological sciences, “Network dynamics of signal propagation in collective defense of wild birds”
- Matthew Sontheimer, art, art history and design, “76 into 1”
- Li Zhao, civil and environmental engineering, “Simulator-Based Testing of Driver Physiological States in Automated Driving”
Invited Scholar Grants program
One award was made through the Invited Scholar Grants program, which enables scholars whose activities are closely related to the research, scholarship and/or creative interests of the UNL community to visit campus to give lectures and/or participate as speakers in symposia or colloquia. Up to $3,000 is available per award.
Invited Scholar Grant recipients
- Margaret Jacobs, history and Center for Great Plains Studies
Rapid Response Grants Program
R&I issued two awards in fall 2025 through the new Rapid Response Grants program. These grants support UNL faculty who have time-sensitive, unanticipated needs related to the advancement of their programs of research, scholarship and/or creative endeavors for which other sources of funding are not available.
Rapid Response Grant recipients:
- Rebecca Brock and David DiLillo, psychology
- Carrie Heitman, global integrative studies
For more information about R&I’s internal funding opportunities, visit the Internal Funding Opportunities website.
