Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
One way to monitor a healthy pregnancy is by tracking placental growth because a healthy placenta is crucial for a healthy baby. However, there are no practical tools to monitor placental development — to ensure proper fetal growth — into clinical care. Vanderbilt University and the University of Pennsylvania are sharing a $3 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that will support an ongoing collaboration with computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicians to build on a current modeling tool that is now impractical for clinical use and create a software program that presents a mosaic 3D view of the placenta through all three trimesters. Ipek Oguz, an assistant professor of computer science at Vanderbilt is a co-principal investigator on the project. She is a graduate of Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Türkiye. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Delaware State University has received a two-year, $300,000 grant award from the National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault. The grant will fund the establishment of a dedicated sexual assault response and prevention program on campus. The program will include the establishment of a Safe Space Project, which will be based at the university’s Hope House, that will provide both a physical space and more importantly, a supportive and safe space for survivors, allies, and wellness professionals to engage in the work of healing and restoration.
North Carolina Central University received a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to chronicle the stories of women who have positively impacted Durham, the state of North Carolina, and the United States. The grant, under the direction of Rachelle Gold, an associate professor of English, will also be used to recruit humanities majors, develop an innovative curriculum, and promote the university’s new digital humanities minor. Dr. Gold was the valedictorian of the 5,000-member Class of 1993 at San Jose State University. She holds a master’s degree in English from Indiana University, a master’s degree in education from the University of California Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.