Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
The University of Houston in Texas received a five-year, $3.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation for programs to increase the number of women faculty in STEM disciplines. The principal investigator for the grant program is Renu Khator, president of the University of Houston and chancellor of the University of Houston System. President Khator is a graduate of Kanpur University in India. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political science from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
The University of Alabama Birmingham received a four-year, $1 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the transmission of Group B Streptococcus bacteria from mothers to their newborn babies. About 40 percent of healthy women carry GBS. But when passed on to infants at birth, it can become deadly to the baby.
The College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago received a $100,000 grant from the Knowles Corporation that will be used for programs to increase the number of women in engineering disciplines. The grant will fund a summer program for young women in high school and scholarships for incoming women engineering students at the university.