Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded one-year supplemental grants totaling $1.67 million to five institutions to explore potential links between COVID-19 vaccination and menstrual changes. Some women have reported experiencing irregular or missing menstrual periods, bleeding that is heavier than usual, and other menstrual changes after receiving COVID-19 vaccines. Institutions receiving grants are Boston University, Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, and the Oregon Health and Science University.
The Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education at the University of California, Davis received a $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a new initiative to introduce Black/African American girls to engineering and robotics. The Ujima Girls in Robotics Leadership Project is a free, hands-on engineering and robotics program that teaches girls in middle and high school engineering and leadership in a culturally relevant environment.
Texas Woman’s University received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to fund a project aimed at boosting enrollment in graduate biotechnology programs and promoting career success in the biotechnology sector. In addition to graduate scholarships, students in the Professional Science Master’s in Biotechnology Program will receive leadership training and career guidance.
The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, received a $5 million donation from alumna Shauna McKee Stark. The center, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, is an interdisciplinary research center that fosters critical scholarship on questions of gender and difference, broadly defined, in national and transnational contexts. The gift will endow the center’s director position and support the center’s programming.