NOVEMBER 2014
Office of Research Newsletter
Volume 1, Issue 11
TABLE OF CONTENTS
School of Nursing Faculty
Secure External Funding
NSF Major Research
Instrumentation Program
Workshop on the Logistics of
Proposal Development
School of Nursing Faculty
Secure External Funding
Dr. Joan Thoman and Dr. Pam Rutar, faculty from the
School of Nursing, were recently awarded a Medicaid
Technical Assistance and Policy Program (MEDTAPP)
Community Health Worker (CHW) initiative entitled Improved
Health Outcomes through Education (I-HOPE).
Meet CSU's New
Research Faculty
VP for Research Sawicki
Elected to Serve in National
Capacity
Featured Researcher
Video Series
Learn How to Use SPIN to
Find Funding Opportunities
for Your Research
Undergraduate Research
Award - Deadline
Approaching
CSU Scholar News
News from the Technology
Transfer Office
Dr. Thoman
Dr. Rutar
I-HOPE is an interdisciplinary initiative designed to empower
low-income residents with a high prevalence of chronic
disease. Funding is being used to create a sustainable
community support network of Community Health Workers
(CHW), which has additional training in chronic disease selfmanagement concepts designed by Stanford University.
This community health worker program will be Ohio Board of
Nursing certified, is designed for workforce development and
as a potential pipeline program for CSU. This lay worker role is a newly empowered role that fits
well as a linkage to an interdisciplinary team approach, many of which embrace the patient care
medical home model. Collaborating partners include Sisters of Charity Foundation (SOCF),
Friendly Inn Settlement House (FISH), and Fairhill Partners. Cleveland State University School of
Nursing serves as the lead partner.
In addition, Dr. Thoman, was recently awarded National Institute of Health (NIH) funding to
evaluate the Diabetes Health Sense website. This website is designed as an interactive
educational intervention for persons with diabetes or those at risk for diabetes. The Cleveland
State University School of Nursing is 1 of 14 sites chosen and will function as a comparison site.
NSF Major Research Instrumentation Program
The National Science Foundation has issued Program Solicitation Number 15-504 for its Major
Research Instrumentation Program (MRI): Instrument Acquisition or Development. The full
Solicitation can be found by clicking here. The program is essentially unchanged from last year.
The University may submit up to three (3) unique proposals. Of these, a maximum of two (2)
may be for Instrument Acquisition. Due to this limitation, we want to identify any interested
Project Directors or teams as early as possible. This is to ensure the University submits the best
possible proposal(s) and to prevent a team from investing significant effort only to learn later that
it cannot submit because of the overall submission limitation.
As you consider the Solicitation, please be aware that as a Ph.D. granting institution, Cleveland
State is required to provide 30% of the total project cost (not 30% of the NSF funding request).
This is considered mandatory cost-sharing. University policy requires this cost-share be
documented and approved in advance of proposal submission. If you have any questions about
what is allowable as cost-share, please consult with SPRS. The NSF requests proposals in the
range of $100,000 to $4 Million. However, they will accept proposals of less than $100,000
for the disciplines of mathematics, social, behavior and economic sciences only.
A proposal in which Cleveland State University will be a subawardee may also count toward our
submission limitation. Any involvement with an Acquisition proposal would count while a
development proposal only counts if our funding request is 20% or more of the overall request to
NSF. As a subrecipient, the University would still be required to provide cost-sharing (although
the lead institution may choose to provide the complete cost-share, thereby releasing CSU from
this requirement).
Please notify Teri Kocevar by November 21, 2014, 5 p.m., of your interest to submit a proposal
in any capacity (lead institution or subawardee) to the MRI program. Please do this by email. In
your notification, include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Project (working) title
Proposal Type (Acquisition or Development)
Team members (indicate which is the lead PI) with department/college affiliations
Indicate if this is part of a consortium (subaward situation). If so, list the other
organizations and indicate if CSU is the Lead or a Partner.
5. Synopsis of purpose or need.
Individual faculty or teams may respond to Teri Kocevar directly with the above information.
Depending upon the number of responses, we may solicit further input to help decide which
proposals will go forward.
Workshop on the Logistics of Proposal Development
As announced in the September and October issues of this newsletter, the Office of Research
offered a workshop, the Logistics of Proposal Development, on Friday, November 7, 2014. The
workshop was a success, as evidenced in part by faculty attendees' responses to an evaluation
form. The responses were extremely positive. For example, the overwhelming majority of faculty
attendees reported that the workshop lived up to their expectations, that they will be able to use
what they learned in the workshop, and that the workshop was a good use of their time. The
Office of Research plans to offer this workshop again in the spring.
Meet CSU's New Research Faculty
The Department of Psychology welcomed three new tenure-track Assistant Professors this fall,
Drs. Eric Allard, Kenneth Vail, and Ilya Yaroslavsky. All three new faculty members have active
research programs.
Dr. Yaroslavsky
Dr. Allard
Dr. Vail
Dr. Yaroslavsky's research aims to elucidate how physiological, psychosocial, and familial factors
contribute to the risk, long-term course, and outcomes of depressive disorders. In particular, he
is interested in the links between (1) depression and ways that individuals attempt to attenuate
dysphoric emotions (emotion regulation), and (2) physiological processes and contextual factors
that influence the use and success of emotion regulation responses. In support of these aims,
Dr. Yaroslavsky and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh recently received funding from
NIH to investigate whether integrating physiological, neural, and psychological processes that are
believed to support hedonic and dysphoric emotions can improve our understanding of
depression risk. Dr. Yaroslavsky recently submitted another grant application for external
funding.
Dr. Allard's research broadly focuses on the cognitive and motivational components of emotional
processing and regulation throughout adulthood and old age. Various lines of research examine
how younger and older adults differ in their information processing preferences for emotional
stimuli in the environment and the consequences of those preferences for emotional well-being.
Past and current methods include the implementation of eye tracking measures for assessments
of overt attention in response to emotionally evocative stimuli or environments,
psychophysiological recording, and neuroimaging methods (fMRI). Current and ongoing projects
include examining how attention influences the effective use of cognitive emotion regulation
strategies for both younger and older adults, how younger and older adults converge or differ in
the adaptive use of emotion regulation, and how physiological markers can predict adaptive
emotion regulation profiles as a response to real-world stressors outside of a laboratory setting.
One current focus of Dr. Vail's research is directed at understanding the motivational
consequences of the experience of freedom. Dr. Vail's research provides some of the first
experimental evidence suggesting that salient freedom entails potentially ironic consequences;
indeed even that the psychological experience of freedom could itself pose a motivational
obstacle to social participation in democratic systems of leadership. A second focus of Dr. Vail's
research utilizes Terror Management Theory (TMT). With advanced cognitive capacities, humans
also developed a sophisticated understanding of the inevitability of death. TMT posits that this awareness of inevitable death motivates people to create, maintain, and successfully participate
in cultural belief systems that imbue life with meaning. Dr. Vail is currently researching
psychological mechanisms that determine when and how people protect themselves from the
awareness of death (e.g., via politics, religion), and how doing so can motivate them to do helpful
and meaningful things: donate to charities, help their communities, engage in artistic and creative
acts, feel happiness and meaning in life, and explore new ideas and seek personal growth.
Vice President for Research Sawicki
Elected to Serve in National Capacity
Vice President for Research Jerzy Sawicki has been elected to serve
on the Executive Committee of the Association of Public and LandGrant Universities (APLU) Council on Research Policy & Graduate
Education (CRPGE).
Dr. Sawicki
His service will include assisting in planning and chairing sessions at
the Annual APLU Meetings and CRPGE Summer Forums. One of the
CRPGE's functions is the assessment and development of policies
that pertain to academic research and graduate education relevant to
the member institutions.
Featured Researcher Video Series
Learn About 12 Exciting Research Programs in Under 25 Minutes
The Office of Research began the Featured
Research Video Series in order to shine a
spotlight on some of the outstanding
researchers at CSU across a number of
different fields.
The series began in November 2013
featuring work by Dr. Bibo Li, and the
twelfth video, released last month, featured
work by Dr. Justin Perry. The initial 12
videos feature research by faculty members
in the Colleges of Education, Law,
Business, Sciences and Health Professions,
Urban, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences,
and Engineering. Recording is underway for
a new set of videos. In the meantime, we
encourage you to learn about some of the
exciting research happening right here at
CSU by viewing the first 12 videos - each of
which is approximately two minutes long in less than 25 minutes.
Learn How to Use SPIN to Find
Funding Opportunities for Your Research
The Office of Research is pleased to invite all CSU faculty, staff, and student researchers
interested in learning how to use SPIN to attend a webinar on Thursday, January 22nd from
11:30am - 12:30pm. Click here to register for this webinar. SPIN is an extensive research
funding opportunity database that allows you to locate all types of funding for your research.
Although anyone can search the SPIN database from a CSU domain computer on campus, in
order to use the database from off campus, and to take full advantage of the database (e.g.,
personalize your searches, save searches, request emails with new funding opportunities that
match your searches, etc.), you must create a GENIUS account. CSU researchers, faculty, and
students interested in establishing a GENIUS account, please click here for instructions.
Undergraduate Research Award - Deadline Approaching
The purpose of the Undergraduate Research Award program is to allow undergraduate students
to obtain funding to offset the costs associated with doing research undertaken in a CSU creditbearing course. There are two deadlines for applications each academic year, one for the fall
semester and one for the spring semester. The deadline for fall funding is the last Monday of
April, and the deadline for spring funding is the last Monday of November. Click here for more
information.
CSU Scholar News
Dr. Lewandowski
Dr. Dover
Cathleen A. Lewandowski, director and professor, and Michael A. Dover, college associate
lecturer, in the School of Social Work, are publishing and editing Reflections: Narratives of
Professional Helping, a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal published at Cleveland State
University. Founded in 1995, the Cleveland State University School of Social Work assumed
responsibility for the journal in 2012. Dover, who had previous experience with the journal, was
appointed Editor. With his leadership and guidance, the School of Social Work initiated the
process of publishing the journal online, to increase access and reach a wider audience.
Cleveland State University now holds full copyright privileges to all current and back issues,
which are available on the Reflections' website at www.rnoph.org, as well as through EBSCO
SocIndex.
Dr. Lewandowski recently edited a Reflections special issue, "Therapeutic Relationships with
Service Members, Veterans and their Families," which has now been published as Volume 19,
Number Two. This is the fifth issue to be published by Cleveland State University. Dr.
Lewandowski's research interests include children and family services, substance abuse
treatment, veterans' issues, and program implementation and development. Dr. Lewandowski is
a veteran and served as a clinical social worker for a Forward Operating Base combat stress
unit in Iraq. She is a Congressionally-appointed member of the Veterans' Affairs National
Advisory Committee for the Readjustment of Veterans.
Dr. Dover's Ohio-based dissertation in Social Work and Sociology at the University of Michigan
is the subject of his planned book, Devoted Property: The Property Tax Exemption in American
Urban History and the Rise of the American Commons. Co-author of the first entries on the
subject of human needs in the Encyclopedia of Social Work and Oxford Bibliographies Online,
Dr. Dover published a theoretical typology of three sources of unjust barriers to addressing
human needs: oppression, dehumanization and exploitation. He also coordinates the Cuyahoga
County Conference on Social Welfare, sponsored by the School of Social Work, the National
Association of Social Workers, Case Western Reserve University Jack, Joseph and Morton
Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, and co-sponsored by many local social agencies.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Please share with us important news or updates on your research, scholarly, or creative
activities. Updates may be related to a paper that has been accepted for publication in a highimpact journal, a book you've just published, your work that will be exhibited at a prominent
institution, or other updates you wish to share with our office. Send details to j.yard@csuohio.edu
and c.mclennan@csuohio.edu.
News from the Technology Transfer Office
Patent Law Reform. The House of Representatives passed the Goodlatte Innovation Act in 2013
(H.R.3309). The Act is intended to curb abusive patent litigation practices. Early indications
suggest bi-partisan support for the bill, including President Obama's administration and USPTO
Director Nominee Michelle Lee. For more information on H.R.3309, click here.
Featured Innovations. Dr. Andrew Resnick, along with researchers at Case Western Reserve
University, has developed a state-of-the-art microperfusion tissue interrogator that can
investigate epithelial cells more efficiently and with greater sensitivity than existing processes
and devices. The technology is available for licensing and/or purchase. Please click here or
contact Robert J. Brown for more information.
_____________________________________________________________________________
This newsletter is compiled and published by
The Office of Research
Campus Location
Parker Hannifin Hall, 2nd Floor
2258 Euclid Avenue
Phone: 216-687-9364
"Like" us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter (@CSUResearch)
Send us suggestions or feedback
Visit us online http://www.csuohio.edu/research/researchhome.html
Take a look at previous editions of our newsletter.
If you are having trouble viewing this email, click here.
For a printable PDF copy of this newsletter, click here.
© 2014 Office of Research - Cleveland State University