PVAMU, Texas A&M announce faculty winners of $600,000 joint PRISE research grants for 2023

PRAIRIE VIEW and BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas (April 11, 2023)­ ­- Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and Texas A&M University (Texas A&M) are awarding $600,000 to 15 teams of PVAMU-Texas A&M faculty investigators who belong to the third cohort under the 2023 Panther Research and Innovation for Scholarly Excellence (PRISE) grant program.

Both universities, which are the two land-grant universities in Texas and members of The Texas A&M University System, started the PRISE grant program in October 2020 to boost the submission of collaborative proposals from the two institutions addressing complex problems of national importance. The 2023 PRISE grant program invited proposals in six strategic-research themes: Community and Economic Resilience, Emerging Technologies and Innovations, Health and Quality of Life, National Security, Space Exploration, and Sustainability and Environment. The application process required one PVAMU faculty member to partner with one Texas A&M faculty member on a proposal.

“The PRISE program is an outstanding example of collaboration among scientists, engineers and scholars within the Texas A&M System,” said Dr. Jack G. Baldauf, Texas A&M‘s vice president for research. “These grants provide vital opportunities for our combined faculties to take on the great challenges of today.”

In response to the increasing competitiveness of the PRISE grant program, this year, the number of awards increased by 50%. The program received 39 proposals. Each submission was reviewed by a three-member panel of PVAMU and Texas A&M faculty members.

Each selected proposal will receive $40,000 for one year. The investigator-teams are expected 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,” said Dr. Magesh Rajan, PVAMU vice president for research and innovation. “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 following investigator-teams and projects will receive Panther-RISE Grant Awards:

• MD Jobair Bin Alam, PVAMU College of Engineering, and Dr. Chukwuzubelu Ufodike, Texas A&M College of Engineering, “Investigation of the Ideal Pore Volume of Soil for Optimum Plant Growth Using 3D Printing Model.”
• Sameh Abdelwahed, PVAMU College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Shiqing Xu, Texas A&M School of Pharmacy, “Exploration of Novel SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors.”
• Janet Antwi, PVAMU College of Agriculture and Human Sciences, and Dr. Susanne Talcott, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Interactions of Tannins with the Intestinal Microbiome in Obesity and Translational Research and Sustainable Undergraduate Student Engagement in Under-Represented Communities.”
• Jaejong Park, PVAMU College of Engineering, and Dr. ChaBum Lee, Texas A&M College of Engineering, “Computational Design of Fluidic Pressure-Fed Mechanism (FPFM) for Thermal Stability of Nano-Positioning Systems.”
• Richard Wilkins, PVAMU College of Engineering, and Dr. Qing Tu, Texas A&M College of Engineering, “Radiation Effects on the Mechanical Behavior of Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskites for Robust Photovoltaics in Space Exploration.”
• Jeffrey Streator, PVAMU College of Engineering, and Dr. Kumbakonam Rajagopal, Texas A&M College of Engineering, “Advancing the Theory of Fatigue in Polymer Materials to Engineer Better Devices.”
• Raghava Kommalapati, PVAMU College of Engineering, and Dr. Shankar Chellam, Texas A&M College of Engineering, “Improving Sustainability and Reducing Environmental Impacts by Beneficially Reusing Hydraulic Fracturing Produced Water in Non-Food Agriculture.”
• Anne Lippert, PVAMU College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Donggill Song, Texas A&M College of Engineering, “Combining Knowledge Visualization and Intelligent Tutoring to Support Learning in STEM Education: The Development of KVIS (Knowledge Visualization Intelligent System).”
• Ram Ray, PVAMU College of Agriculture and Human Sciences, and Dr. Muthukumar Bagavathiannan, Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Plant Biomass Estimation in Cropland Using Multimodal Deep Learning.”
• Ali Fares, PVAMU College of Agriculture and Human Sciences, and Dr. Rabi Mohtar, Texas A&M College of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, ”Quantifying the Implications of Organic Amendments on the Hydro-Structural Properties of Soil.”
• Annamalai Annamalai, PVAMU College of Engineering, and Dr. Karen Butler-Purry, Texas A&M College of Engineering, “Strengthening Cybersecurity in Electric Power Grids.”
• Aruna Weerasooriya, PVAMU College of Agriculture and Human Sciences, and Dr. Alan Pepper, Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences, “Exploring the Growth of Extremophile Terrestrial Plants on Simulated Lunar Soils.”
• Sunil Karna, PVAMU College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Wenhao Wu, Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences, “Synthesis and Transport Properties Investigation of Novel Chiral Magnets.”
• Rambod Rayegan, PVAMU College of Engineering, and Dr. Ashrant Aryal, Texas A&M School of Architecture, “Supporting Low-Income Communities Make Customized Home Energy Retrofit Decisions Using Artificial Intelligence.”
• Andrea McDonald, PVAMU College of Education, and Dr. Kelly Wilson, Texas A&M School of Nursing, “Understanding Mechanisms of Mental Health Response Intervention among HBCU Students and Future Emerging Public Health Workforce.”