It’s time again for female educators and researchers at the University of New Mexico to tout their research ideas.
And bring in some cash to make them happen.
Applications are being accepted now through May 14 for the Advance at UNM 2024 Women In STEM awards. Recipients will receive $3,000 to $15,000 to support their research goals.
Eligible applicants include tenure-track and tenured faculty members at UNM who hold the rank of assistant or associate professor and who are pursuing research in areas supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (non-clinical), or the U.S. Department of Energy. Research assistants and associate faculty also are eligible.
There are three types of grants available: travel awards to foster collaborations, seed awards to stimulate research projects that will lead to additional external funding, and workshop awards designed to generate innovative research ideas and collaborations.
The awards, now in their ninth year, represent a collaboration of Advance at UNM and the offices of Academic Affairs and the Vice President for Research. Advance at UNM, funded by the National Science Foundation, promotes women and minority faculty in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“We know that Women in STEM awardees from the past eight years have gone on to do some amazing research on a range of topics including; brain stimulus and substance abuse, the tracing of Pueblo pottery, the impact of global warming on alpine stream biology, algorithmic justice issues, and more,” Advance Director Julia Fulghum said in a news release announcing the opening of the application period. “We are eager to see the proposals of this year’s applicants and encourage submissions from across campus.”
The awards are funded by an anonymous gift made in 2015 to UNM specifically to support research by and professorships for women STEM faculty. The gift was invested, and the income it generates is used to help UNM tenure-track and tenured assistant and associate STEM professors to establish new lines of research and to develop research collaborations, the release states.
The Office of the Vice President for Research is supporting the awards for the third year, providing money to support proposals in priority research areas.
Those proposals, the report states, should contribute to research in areas such as climate change/alternate energy solutions, resilience (broadly defined), and next-generation computational research, including but not limited to AI, machine learning, big data, and GIS.
Applicants can use UNM’s InfoReady system to apply. Decisions will be announced by June 26.
To date, 69 women at UNM have received Women in STEM awards. Past recipients include psychology professor Dr. Katie Witkiewitz (named in 2016), whose project focused on using brain stimulation and mindfulness meditation as a treatment for individuals who want to reduce heavy drinking.
In 2017, linguistics professors Drs. Naomi Shin, Barbara Shaffer and Jill Morford received an award to research child acquisition of minority languages.
Dr. Diana Dragomir, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, is a 2022 recipient, for her work in finding and studying exoplanets (those outside our solar system).
More information on the awards process is available here.
Read profiles of past recipients here or view the awardee video collection on YouTube.