Grants or Gifts Relating to Women in Higher Education

Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.

Simmons University, an educational institution for women in Boston, received a $633,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging to optimize colorectal cancer screening decisions among older adults with low health literacy. The grant program is under the direction of Tamara Cadet, an associate professor of social work at Simmons University. Dr. Cadet is a graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She holds a master of public health degree and a master of social work degree from Boston University. She earned a Ph.D. in social work from Simmons University.

Under a $2,290,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, the University of Delaware is conducting research on whether early changes in blood vessel function in middle-aged women may be a marker for future cardiovascular disease. The research is under the direction of Megan Wenner, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology and applied physiology in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Delaware. Dr. Wenner is a graduate of West Chester University in Pennsylvania, where she majored in athletic training. She holds a master’s degree in exercise science and a Ph.D. in applied physiology from the University of Delaware.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a project that provides programs to improve mentor and mentee experiences, from seminars to peer mentoring circles for women and members of underrepresented groups. The goal is to foster institutional change, support faculty retention and promote faculty career development and professional achievements. “Oftentimes women and underrepresented faculty of color do not receive the same type of mentoring that White men do in academia and we can see major disparities when it comes to who progresses to tenure who progresses to full professor who gets grants,” said Kia Caldwell, a professor of African American studies, special assistant to the provost, and co-principal investigator of the project. Dr. Caldwell is a graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in Spanish literature and civilization. She holds a master’s degree in Latin American studies and a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin.