2019 Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE) Seed Funding Awards

On behalf of the Institute for a Sustainable Earth Advisory Council, we are delighted to announce the results of the 2019 Seed Funding Competition!  

We received fourteen strong transdisiplinary proposals, and six have been selected for funding. The winning teams, (in no particular order), and their project titles, are described below:

Title of Project: TREMoR – Tick Collecting Robot for Entomological Modeling Research: An Innovative Approach to Tick-Borne Disease Surveillance
Team: Michael von Fricken, Nathalia Peixoto, Shani Ross, and Maria Emelianenko

Title of Project: Empowering Diverse Virginia Communities through the George Mason University Honey Bee Initiative, a Joint Initiative of the School of Business and the College of Science
Team: Lisa Gring-Pemble, Carley Fisher-Maltese, Eric Forbes, Candace Garthee, William Hahn, Christine Landoll, Haw Chuan Lim, Germán Perilla, April Pinch-Keeler, and Dylan Taylor

Title of Project: Detecting Cocci Fungus: Preparing the Nation for Valley Fever Outbreaks
Team: Daniel Tong, Ali Andalibi, Barney Bishop, Ling Ren, Patrick Gillevet, Scott Van Pelt, and Thomas Gill

Title of Project: Human Health and the Climate
Team: Mona Sarfaty, Karmjot Randhawa, Wendy Cook, Ira Dreyfuss, Chip Goyette, Sam Raasch, and Emma Eichelman

Title of Project: Green STEAM: Building an Outdoor Sustainability Program
Team: Andrew Gilbert, MaryAnn Settlemyre,  and Jennifer Suh

Title of Project: Microplastics in the Mason Watershed: A Mass Balance Approach
Team: Benoit Van Aken, Gregory Foster, Celso Ferreira, Yi-Ching Lee, Anna Pollack, and Dann Sklarew

Please join us in congratulating these teams!