Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment names summer scholars
The Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment (ISCE) at Virginia Tech recently awarded competitive grants totaling over $100,000 in support of its 2007 Summer Scholars Program.
The goal of the Summer Scholars Program “is to provide faculty support for developing interdisciplinary research proposals in the social sciences, arts, and humanities,” said Karen A. Roberto, interim director of ISCE.
Seven awards were made to interdisciplinary teams of scholars whose proposals addressed ISCE’s targeted research areas: Global Issues Initiative (GII); Human development and behavioral health; Rhetoric, representation, and public humanities; Social complexity and individual risk; and Community arts, built environments, and urban formations (e.g., symbolic thinking and practical environments).
For example, Ivica Ico Bukvic (Music) and Francis Quek and Denis Gracanin (Computer Science), will gather preliminary data for a proposal to study the use of spatial media technologies to advance human perception and interaction. Carlos Evia (English) and his collaborators Tonya Smith-Jackson (Industrial Systems Engineering) and Olga Padilla-Falto (Foreign Languages and Literature), received support for proposal development activities related to teaching science and mathematics to young children in remote regions of Appalachia.
Other recipients of the ISCE Summer Scholar awards are Anita Puckett (Interdisciplinary Studies) and Lisa McNair (Engineering Education) for their research on transformation among coal miners training to become coal mine inspectors; Julie Dunsmore (Pyschology), Tom Ollendick (Psychology) and Joyce Arditti (Human Development) for their study of parent-child emotional communication in divorced families; Barbara Allen (Science and Technology in Society - NCR) for her research on the relationship between local knowledge and non-local knowledge in the assessment, rebuilding, and repair of historic properties in New Orleans damaged by Hurricane Katrina; Saul Halfon and co-investigators Jane Lehr and Doris Zallen (Science and Technology in Society) for proposal development activities related to the creation of a theater workshop in science and technology; and Barbara Ellen Smith (Woman’s Studies) to support her research on the frictions experienced by work-class Latino immigrants and native-born residents in the southern United States. Each team is committed to submitting a proposal to an external funding source by the end of the year.
Established in 2006, The Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment is tasked with strengthening the university’s competitive position in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. With a presence in both Blacksburg and the National Capital Region, ISCE provides organizational and financial support for targeted creative, interactive, multi- and interdisciplinary research endeavors.
