Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
The College of Education at Florida State University received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to recruit and support women faculty in STEM disciplines. The research team, led by Lara Perez-Felkner, associate professor of higher education and sociology, aims to develop and implement equity-focused policy initiatives to address department- and field-specific challenges while connecting faculty to both mentorship networks and cohorts at the university and beyond.
The College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis received a $2.6 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration to improve maternal and infant healthcare services to women in rural underserved communities in the Mississippi Delta region. The grant team plans to award stipends of $23,947 per year to 19 students in doctor of nursing practice programs. Funds will also be allocated to expand academic and clinical partnerships and create learning opportunities to train nurses to address health equity and social determinants of health for women in rural, urban, and tribal underserved communities.
The University of Pittsburgh received a $100,000 grant from the Glimmer of Hope Foundation to fund a small clinical trial of a vaccine for women diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a noninvasive, extremely early-stage breast cancer. The hope is that by injecting women with a vaccine their bodies will generate an immune response capable of fighting off cancer cells. The research is under the direction of Olivera Finn, a distinguished professor of immunology at the university. She has been working on developing a vaccine for 40 years.