Fifteen NYU and Polytechnic faculty collaborations awarded research funding

New York University Provost David McLaughlin announced on March 3 the first 15 research collaborations between NYU and Polytechnic Institute of NYU faculty to receive “seed” funding from a special competitive research pool established as part of the affiliation between the two institutions. The grants are meant to strengthen collaborations between the schools and serve as a platform for seeking future extramural funding.

The projects — which collectively received over $800,000 — were chosen from among 38 proposals on the basis of the quality of the proposed science. They include research on a device to prevent epileptic seizures, an exploration of how the structure of proteins changes in response to forces and environment, and new approaches to security and privacy in today’s technologically-driven world, among others.

The collaboration grants come on the heels of 2 major external grants to projects involving NYU and NYU-Poly faculty: the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, funded with $7.2 million from the National Science Foundation, and the Games for Learning Institute, which received $1.5 million in funding from Microsoft Research.

Provost McLaughlin said: “When NYU started down this path with Polytechnic, this was just the outcome I envisioned: a burst of inspiration that allowed our scholars to pursue novel areas of research with new colleagues. I am very proud of these grantees, and I offer them my congratulations on their outstanding proposals. And I would like to thank everyone for their work in creating and selecting these ambitious and excellent proposals.”

Assistant Provost Kurt Becker said: "I was amazed by 3 things.  First, the topical breadth of the proposals submitted was incredible and involved faculty from many Schools of NYU and most departments at NYU-Poly. Second, almost half of the proposals that were funded (7 out of 15 to be precise) involved faculty from the NYU Medical and Dental Schools. This clearly illustrates how starved faculty in these Schools of NYU were for collaborations with faculty in engineering and technology. Third, several collaborations have already initiated joint research proposals to external funding agencies."

The selected faculty projects are:

• Jasna Brujic (NYU physics)/ Jin Montclare (Poly chem. & bio. eng.): Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy of Fluorinated Proteins
• James Canary (NYU chem.)/ Rastislav Levicky (Poly chem. & bio. eng.): Nucleotide-Directed Materials Assembly
• Paulo Coelho (NYU Dental - biomaterials)/ Nikhil Gupta (Poly mech. & aero. eng.): Blast and Impact Loading of Bones and Tissues: Deformation and Damage Mechanisms
• Yevgeniy Dodis (NYU computer sci.)/ Nitesh Saxena (Poly computer & info sci.): Fault-Tolerant User-Centric Security Services Exploiting Social Networks
• Jorge Ghiso (NYU Medicine - path. & psych.)/ Jin Ryoun Kim (Poly chem. & bio. eng.): Peptide Design for Modulation and Detection of Brain Amyloid Aggregation and Toxicity
• Anindya Ghose (NYU Stern - info. sys.)/ Keith W. Ross (Poly computer sci. & eng.): The Economics of User-Generated Content in Online Social Media
• David Grier (NYU physics)/ Stephen Arnold (Poly micropart/photophysics): Nanoparticle Dynamics in the Whispering Gallery Mode Carousel
• Xiangpeng Kong (NYU Medicine - biochem)/ Richard A. Gross (Poly chem. & bio. sci.): Structural Characterization and Structure-based Engineering of Cutinases
• Yann LeCun (NYU computer sci.)/ Dariusz Czarkowski (Poly elec. & comp. eng.): Equipment Failure Prediction with Machine Learning Methods
• Nandor Ludvig (NYU Medicine - neuro.)/ H. Jonathan Chao (Poly elec. & comp. eng.): Novel Medical Device for Preventing Epileptic Seizures
• Helen Nissenbaum (NYU culture & comm..)/ Nasir Memon (Poly computer sci & eng.): CenteR for Interdisciplinary Studies in Security and Privacy (CRISSP)
• Charles S. Peskin (NYU math)/ Zhong-Ping Jiang (Poly elec. & comp. eng.): Physiological Control Mechanisms
• Robert Rowe (NYU music)/ Carl Skelton (Poly humanities & soc. sci.): Emotive Association in Multimedia
• Daniel Sodickson (NYU Medicine - radiology)/ Yao Wang (Poly elec. & comp. eng.): Rapid Volumetric Imaging of Cardiac Perfusion With Compressive Sensing & Parallel MRI
• Hans-Georg Wisniewski (NYU Medicine - microbio.)/ Mary K. Cowman (Poly chem. & bio. sci.): Biocompatible Materials Containing Stable Complexes of TSG-6 and HA