After a successful pilot program that included adaptations to mitigate pandemic restraints this past summer, the Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL) enthusiastically continues with its 2nd Annual Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program.
The program continues to seek to foster interdisciplinary research collaborations across the university that further the campus community’s understanding of gender and sex.
The program helps support research projects led by university faculty while also coordinating with campus resources such as the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) to help projects review longer-term sustainability and explore possibilities around expanding to become extramurally funded projects.
The IWL and this program recognizes that research on gender/sex spans many disciplines, and that gender/sex intersects with other social categories.
The Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program supports projects involving collaborators from two or more disciplinary backgrounds or traditions. Projects may be directed toward:
1) The gathering of primary data
2) The application of innovative approaches and analyses to provide novel insights from existing data
3) Creative endeavors that stimulate or strengthen competitive extramural grant applications
Recipients of the 2021 IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program Award include four research grants and one project grant:
“Restorative Justice in Movement (RJM): Exploring the Embodiment of Healing and Gender Empowerment”
Principal investigators: Dr. Heather Hlavka, Dr. Noelle Brigden, Dr. Jennifer Ohlendorf and Dr. Amber Tucker from Cardinal Stritch.
Restorative Justice in Movement is a research partnership with the Milwaukee Turners to develop a pilot program to promote gender equity, community empowerment and collective healing from trauma.
“Sex Differences in the Persistent Effects of COVID-19”
Principal investigators: Dr. Sandra Hunter, Dr. Linda Piacentine, Dr. Marie Hoeger Bement and Dr. Paula Papanek.
The overarching goal of their research is to determine the long-term effects of COVID-19 on physical and psychological function across different population demographics including sex, age, race and ethnicity.
“Decolonizing the Archives: Ynéz Mexía’s Herbaria Digital Platform”
Principal investigators: Dr. Michelle Medeiros, Dr. Henry Medeiros and Dr. Denise Coutinho Endringer from Vila Velha University in Brazil.
The purpose of Decolonizing the Archives is to analyze collecting expeditions to South America by the Mexican American botanist Ynéz Mexía (1870-1938).
“An Early Index of Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease in Women: Advanced EEG Analysis of Complex Sensorimotor Functioning”
Principal investigators: Dr. Kristy Nielson, Dr. Leigh Ann Mrotek, Dr. Robert Scheidt and Dr. Scott Beardsley.
Their purpose of this research is to characterize sex differences in behavioral performance and in functional frontal-cerebellar activation and connectivity using advanced EEG techniques.
“The Persephone Project: Advocate. Amplify. Adore.”
Principal investigator: Dr. Melissa Shew
The Persephone Project’s mission is grounded in the belief that all young people are “thinkerly” creatures filled with intellectual curiosity about themselves, the world and each other. Yet, women, girls and those who identify as gender nonconforming have been widely excluded from the history of intellectual life and are still excluded today. The Persephone Project aims to help remedy that situation.