Read the research blog Further Findings.
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Research Prizes and Honors
[Have you or a colleague won a research-related prize or honor? Let the Research Alert know.]
PROFESSOR’S BOOK ON POLITICAL COMMUNICATION NAMED BEST OF DECADE
“Campaign Talk: Why Elections Are Good for Us,” written by Roderick P. Hart, the Shivers-Cronkite Chair in Communication, has been named the best political communication book in the past decade by the American Political Science Association (APSA).
Hart is dean of the College of Communication and an expert on politics and the mass media.
News and Information
FUNDING AVAILABLE FROM OFFICE OF VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH
Special Research Grants for 2009-2010 in amounts up to $750 are awarded to tenured and tenure-track faculty throughout the year until the money is gone. Applications will be accepted beginning Sept. 1, 2009.
University Cooperative Society Subvention Grants for 2009-2010 are awarded to faculty authors and members of the research staff (Code 1000). These grants have no submission deadline, and are available until current fiscal year funding is expended.
University Cooperative Society Undergraduate Research Fellowships for 2009-2010 in amounts up to $1,000 are awarded through two competitions, Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. Faculty, lecturers, and full-time research scientists/engineers may supervise undergraduate students in independent research projects. The deadline for the Fall 2009 competition is September 28, 2009. The Spring 2010 deadline will be February 1, 2010.
For more information on the Office of the Vice President for Research Web site.
Please direct questions to Liza Scarborough at 471-2877.
RESEARCH ADMINISTRATORS WORKSHOP BROADCAST ON SEPT. 15
The Office of Sponsored Projects and the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) present Session 4 of the Broadcast Workshop Series – Subrecipient Monitoring: Assessing Risks.
The program can be viewed live via digital satellite at 10:15 a.m. Sept. 15, 2009 in ACE 2.402.
Register for TxClass SP204 as seating is limited. Maggie Gillean Schamber, CRA, and manager of the OSP Subawards Team, will be there to answer questions.
Sign up via TXClass (UT EID required).
CAYUSE COURSE OFFERED
The Office of Sponsored Projects offers a class in using the Cayuse system for submitting grant proposals.
The upcoming sessions are Sept. 16, 2009 from 2 to 4 p.m. or Sept. 21, 2009 from 10 a.m. to noon. Both are in NOA 5.332. Sign up for SP110 at TXClass (UT EID required).
OSP NEWSLETTER IS AVAILABLE
The latest edition of the Sponsored Projects Award Administration Newsletter is online (Opens pdf).
QuotedUT Researchers in the News
[A sampling of recent quotes by university faculty members and researchers. To be included in this section, let the Research Alert know when you or a colleague have been quoted.]
Los Angeles Times
Sept. 8, 2009
HEADLINE: Fresh blood for vampires and their followers
(From an article about vampires in popular culture.)
Thomas Garza, a University of Texas professor who has taught a class on the subject, “The Vampire in Slavic Cultures,” for the last 12 years, said the metamorphosis of the vampire from repugnant fiend to alluring Lothario was a natural and necessary update for the modern era.
“You see the devil standing before you looking all hideous and grotesque, you’re not going to walk over and join him,” Garza said. “But if the devil appears to you looking like some romantic character and speaking beautiful British English, you might want to sit down and have a cup of coffee.”
Research Opportunities
Important university research deadlines:
Awards and Grants
Limited Submissions
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT
The University of Texas at Austin Stimulus Package Web page is online.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program
Deadline: Oct. 6, 2009
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Researching, Creating, Developing, Deploying and Evaluation Innovative Educational Tools, Approaches and Resources to Advance the Intellectual Basis for a National Homeland Security SandT Workforce
Deadlines: White Paper, rolling deadline before Feb. 28, 2010; Full Proposal, Feb. 28, 2010
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY
Technology Innovation Program
Call for White Papers (Opens PDF)
Deadline: Suggested dates, Nov. 9, 2009, Feb. 15, May 10, and July 12, 2010; Also, TIP will accept white papers at any time between Nov. 9, 2009 – Sept. 30, 2010
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Nutrition and Physical Activity Research to Promote Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Health
Deadlines: Oct. 5, 2009 and Feb. 5, 2010
NIH/NSF Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience: Innovative Approaches to Science and Engineering Research on Brain Function
Deadline: Nov. 17, 2009
Exploring Epigenomic Processes and Non-Coding RNAs in HIV/AIDS
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, Nov. 23, 2009; Application, Dec. 23, 2009
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
NSF Graduate Research Fellows Nordic Research Opportunity (Norway, Finland and Denmark)
Deadline: Dec. 15, 2009
Physical Anthropology
Deadline: Jan. 20, 2010
ARTS, HUMANITIES AND CULTURE
Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court Fellows Program
Deadline: Nov. 9, 2009
Woodrow Wilson Foundation
Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (concerning ethical or religious values)
Deadline: Nov. 15, 2009
OTHER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars (postdoctoral)
Deadline: Oct. 2, 2009
Research Project
[Let the Research Alert know about your research projects.]
Collaborative Research: An F-box protein targeting PIF1 and PIF3
RESEARCHER: Enamul Huq, assistant professor, Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, principal investigator
AGENCY: National Science Foundation
AMOUNT: $125,005
ABSTRACT:
Light is one of the most important environmental factors influencing plant development, controlling seed germination, growth, greening, and many other plant developmental processes in addition to driving photosynthesis.
A central question in plant science concerns how, at the cellular level, the plant responds to light? Certain proteins are known to act as light receptors while others act as inhibitors of light responses. In darkness these proteins are kept separate within the cell but, upon illumination, arrive at the same destination, the nucleus. The receptor proximity somehow destroys the inhibitor through the action of a third, previously unidentified, mediator protein.
This research seeks to clarify the identity of the mediator and investigate how it influences the stability of the inhibitor. It is anticipated that isolating the inhibitor protein from plant cells engineered to possess greater than usual amounts of the inhibitor protein, and exposed to light, will simultaneously isolate the mediator protein due to their affinity for one another while the converse will also be true.
A greater understanding of light perception at the cellular level should provide opportunities to engineer crop plants for faster germination, greater stand establishment in the field, and potentiate the alteration of plant stature and structure.
