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Jan 21, 2021

PVAMU and Texas A&M partner for research and scholarly collaboration

Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and Texas A&M University partnered to increase research collaborations between the two institutions. PVAMU, a land-grant, Historically Black University (HBCU), partnered with Texas A&M, a land-grant research university, to support 30 faculty over several research projects with a total of $300,000 through the Panther Research and Innovation for Scholarly Excellence (PRISE) Grant Program. The collaboration was launched to encourage and support multidisciplinary projects between the two institutions in response to the ever-growing trend of federal funding agencies to support convergent efforts of diverse expertise to solve complex societal challenges.  

Application to the new program required the submission of proposals from investigator teams (known as “Triads”) consisting of one PVAMU and two Texas A&M tenured or tenure-track faculty members.  Twenty-nine proposals were received for the initial five awards. Each submission was reviewed by three PVAMU and Texas A&M faculty members. Due to the outstanding reviews many projects received, additional funds were secured to double the number of initially announced awards.  

Each of the selected projects is awarded a seed grant of $30,000 for one year—$10,000 from PVAMU and $20,000 from Texas A&M for their respective scholars. It is anticipated that the investigator teams will be able to make substantial progress and submit strong proposals to external funding agencies in the next year to continue their work.  “The PRISE initiative is an example of how inter-institutional scholarly research projects build relationships to discover ongoing professional and research opportunities,” PVAMU Vice President for Research & Innovation Magesh Rajan stated.  “There is an emergent acknowledgment of the essential value of inter-institutional collaboration, which is made increasingly more attainable by the evolution of current technologies­.” 

“The PRISE program generates outstanding opportunities for faculty members from PVAMU and Texas A&M faculty to forge new collaborations,” Texas A&M Vice President for Research Mark A. Barteau said. “We have enjoyed great success with similar programs at our flagship campus—such as Texas A&M Triads for Transformation and X-Grants. We look forward to the exciting results of these new explorations in cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research.”

In addition to Texas A&M, the Office for Research & Innovation at PVAMU partnered with the Office of Provost and Academic Affairs at PVAMU to support the initiative.

The following projects and Triads were selected for the Panther-RISE Grant Awards:

  • Camille Burnett, PVAMU College of Education, with Texas A&M colleagues Bimal Nepal, College of Engineering, and Karen Rambo-Hernandez, College of Education & Human Development, “Analyzing Impact of COVID-19 on Student Learning and Persistence: A Multi-Dimensional Study.”
  • Xishuang Dong, PVAMU College of Engineering, with Texas A&M colleagues Ruihong Huang and Anxiao “Andrew” Jiang, both in the College of Engineering, “Multi-modal Knowledge-Graph Construction for Combating Global Pandemics.”
  • Noel M. Estwick, PVAMU College of Agriculture & Human Sciences, PVAMU College of Agriculture & Human Sciences, with Texas A&M colleagues Michelle Annette Meyer, College of Architecture, and Rebekka Dudensing, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, “Understanding the Response to USDA Food Aid among Minority Residents and Farmers in COVID-19.”
  • Noushin Ghaffari, PVAMU College of Engineering, with Texas A&M colleagues Anja Schulze, Texas A&M University at Galveston, and Mary Wicksten, College of Science, “Diversity of Grass Shrimp (Palaemon Sp.) and Their Parasites (Microphallus Spp.) in Gulf of Mexico Wetlands.”
  • Rania Labib, PVAMU School of Architecture, with Texas A&M colleagues Mark J. Clayton and Robert Brown, both in the College of Architecture, “An Interdisciplinary Team for Investigating a Machine Learning Framework for Predicting Outdoor Thermal Comfort to Reduce Energy Needs of Future Urban Development.”
  • Xiangfang “Lindsey” Li, PVAMU College of Engineering, with Texas A&M colleagues Annie Newell-Fugate, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, and Akhilesh Gaharwar, College of Engineering, “Nanoengineered Materials to Modulate Mitochondrial Function.”
  • Victoria Mgbemena, PVAMU College of Arts & Sciences, with Texas A&M colleagues Hamed Ismail and Mahua Choudhury, both in the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, “Preclinical Development and Emerging Strategies for Design of Selective Kinase Inhibitors Targeting Brain Metastasis of Resistant HER2+ Breast Cancer.”
  • Oluwagbemiga Ojumu, PVAMU College of Business, with Texas A&M colleagues Kalena Cortes, Bush School of Government & Public Service, and Catherine Eckel, College of Liberal Arts, “Resilience in Black College Students: Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Student Success.”
  • Gloria Rose, PVAMU College of Nursing, with Texas A&M colleagues Robin L. Page and Cynthia Weston, both in the College of Nursing, “Nursing in the Puerperium: A Virtual Home Visiting Intervention for Women at Risk for Severe Maternal Morbidity and Mortality.”
  • Yuki Shigemoto, PVAMU College of Juvenile Justice & Psychology, with Ping Ma, Texas A&M School of Public Health, and Lei-Shih Chen, Texas A&M College of Education & Human Development, “Examining the Mental Health Impacts and Coping Strategies of COVID-19 on Aging Racial/Ethnic Minorities in Texas: A Pilot Study.”

Both PVAMU and Texas A&M are members of The Texas A&M University System.