Latest round of seed grant winners announced

By Maura Kelly

The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society just announced the recipients of this year’s round of seed grants. In total, the awards represent approximately $430,000 to support projects during the fiscal year ahead, beginning in June. Selected scholars received one of two kinds of awards—Grants for Exploratory Collaborative Scholarship (SI-GECS), a program in its fourth year; or Grants for Research in Targeted & Emerging Areas (SI-RITEA), being given out for a second year. Grants range from $10,000 to $50,000.

“Concerns about social justice and the common good are typically prominent in the research proposals that we select,” says Laura J. Steinberg, Seidner Family executive director of the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. “All of the projects we chose grapple with crucial societal issues, and approach them with the Boston College mission in mind.”

SI-GECS grants support collaborative research projects centered on one of the three areas that the Schiller Institute focuses on: energy use or production, the natural environment, and health. One of this year’s SI-GECS awards was given to Assistant Earth and Environment Sciences Professor Xingchen Tony Wang, who’ll be working with the Institute’s Professor of Renewable Energy and Sustainability and Associate Chemistry Professor Jier Huang, to study how feasible it will be to convert CO2 captured from seawater into fuel. The grant will allow them a year of exploratory research; subsequently, the professors plan to use the data they’ve gathered to apply for a significant external grant from an agency like the National Science Foundation or the Department of Energy. 

“The ocean has absorbed approximately 35% of the total CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution,” Wang tells SchillerNow. “One of the most sustainable approaches for storing CO2 captured from seawater is to convert it into fuels, using solar energy. Our proposal aims to investigate the feasibility of this solar-powered, ocean-based CO2-to-fuel conversion technology.” 

Another SI-GECS grant was awarded to Connell School of Nursing Associate Dean for Research and Integrated Science Diana Bowser, who will head up a team of colleagues from the economics department, to look at how healthcare cost increases affect older Americans. Necessary treatments, medications, and preventative care are frequently so expensive that older Americans forgo or delay medical visits or filling prescriptions—which exacerbates health problems and reduces quality of life. To better understand the relationship between costs and how older Americans make use of healthcare services, Bowser and her group will study Medicare user data.

“This project will build long-term collaboration between the nursing school and the economics department,” says Steinberg. “It will also help get a handle on one of the nation’s most vexing healthcare problems.”

Like the SI-GECS awards, the SI-RITEA grants will also support scholars who study the natural environment, the energy transition, or health. But to win an SI-RITEA, applicants must also do research related to the Global South (Type A); or they must collaborate with a US-based, non-academic partner (Type B). Collaborations with Massachusetts partners were, of course, especially appealing to the selection committee.

One of this year's SI-RITEA winners, Associate Philosophy Professor Micah Lott, will look at how African philosophy differs from contemporary North Atlantic thought in its approach to common resources—like health and healthcare. As Lott wrote in his proposal, “This study will explore contemporary African and Aristotelian framings of common goods, asking what the two traditions have in common, and what they can learn from each other.” He added, “How do assumptions about common goods — together with related ideas about the self, identity, and community— shape different understandings of health, disease, and well-being? What implications do these ideas have for the practice of medicine, and the challenges facing doctors, nurses, and other clinicians?” That theoretical investigation will provide the framework for an empirical investigation into differences between clinicians in Boston and Kampala, Uganda—where his collaborators from the School of Social Work and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have contacts.

Professor Lott explained to Schiller Now where his idea for this project came from. “I've done a lot of teaching and writing about Aristotelian ethics, and I've wanted to explore contemporary African philosophy -- something that I don't know nearly as much about. I am working on a book project about common goods,” he explains. “There seem to be a lot of interesting connections between Aristotelian and African ideas about common goods, and this project is a chance to explore those in a constructive way.”

With help from another SI-RITEA grant, Assistant Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Gregg Sparkman will work with the education non-profit Think Beyond the Pump (TBTP)—which works across 39 states to promote climate justice and sustainability, with a particular focus on communication—to design a climate warming label for gas pumps that will effectively educate Americans about the dangers of using gasoline and diesel. The TBTP team will work on getting the labels on pumps, and offer related legal advice. “This project has exciting implications for timely, real-life impact,” says Steinberg. 

Other SI-GECS grants have been awarded to: 

  • Associate Professor of Physics, Fazel Tafti, who will lead a team working on computer-assisted design of hybrid superconductors
  • Associate Professor of the Practice of Engineering, Amin Mohebbi, who will work with Institute Professor Yi Ming (Earth and Environmental Sciences), to create regional hydrologic simulations for predicting future climate-caused changes to the Neponset River Watershed
  • Assistant Professor of Nursing, Lindsey Camp, who will work with Associate Professor of Computer Science Emily Prud'hommeaux to analyze both data and qualitative research as part of an effort to promote breastfeeding
  • Assistant Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, Carl McTague, who will work with Mehmet Ekmekci of the Economics Department to experiment with ways to make AI safe enough to entrust with health data and public infrastructure
  • Professor of Physics, Micahel J. Naughton, who will team up with collaborators to study the melanin nanoparticle, relative to infrared light cancer therapy

Other SI-RITEA grants have been awarded to: 

  • Assistant Professor History, María de los Ángeles Picone, to study the intertwined history of conservation and infrastructure development in Patagonia
  • Professor of Sociology Juliet Schor, who will partner with Associate Professor of Sociology Wen Fan to research reduced carbon emissions and enhanced well-being via the four-day workweek
  • Assistant Professor of Teaching, Curriculum and Society Faythe Beauchemin, who will team up with colleagues from the Political Science and Earth and Environmental Sciences Department—including Professor Hanquin Tian of the Schiller Institute—to investigate climate justice literacy in partnership with Boston Public Schools
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