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.

A research team from Mississippi State University has received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to encourage young women to enter science-based computing fields. The grant will allow the researchers to identify differences in messaging with Moroccan and American cultures to determine factors that contribute to women’s decisions to pursue engineering degrees at higher rates in Morocco. Results from the project will help design messaging that can be used to increase the number of women who participate in STEM and build upon the national effort to continue to make engineering more inclusive.

Sigrid Ladores, an associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has received a $150,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study preserving fertility in women with cystic fibrosis. The project will focus on pre-transplant women with declining lung function, to see what information, regarding their future fertility, is discussed by their providers. Early discussion about cryopreservation of eggs or embryos gives women a chance to take the necessary steps to have a biological child post-transplant. Dr. Ladores hopes the information found during the study can be used to set up clinical practice guidelines to inform conversations regarding fertility preservation across the transplant population.

A research team from Butler University in Indianapolis has received a $361,007 grant from the National Federation of State High School Associations to study mothers of high school student athletes with the goal of understanding their perspectives of their children’s participation in extracurricular activities. The study is a continuation of a previous study conducted in the state of Indiana. The new grant will take the project to the national level and help provide insight into the experience of mothers and how to better communicate with and support these women.