During the 2024 fiscal year, UConn’s Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP) awarded $114,000 in internal funds to support seven innovative pilot studies addressing various public and human health challenges consistent with UConn’s mission.

InCHIP seed grants are internal funding opportunities that support pilot work that often lead to external grant applications. For every $1 invested in seed grants, more than $30 is returned in external grant funding. Grants awarded during this round ranged from $10,000 to $20,000.

“We received many outstanding seed grant submissions, and I want to congratulate InCHIP’s seed grant recipients for their most meritorious applications. These innovative projects align with InCHIP’s mission to foster interdisciplinary research that improves the health and well-being of people and communities in Connecticut, the U.S. and abroad,” says Tricia Leahey, InCHIP Director and Professor of Allied Health Sciences.

For the 2024 fiscal year, InCHIP partnered with the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute to launch a new seed grant aimed at addressing health equity, human rights, and/or social justice. A total of $20,000 was awarded to one project that employed an intersectional approach to confront inequities associated with race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, residence in underserved areas, or socioeconomic status.

In addition to this grant, InCHIP offered 4 different funding mechanisms to UConn faculty for FY24. Below is a look at this year’s Seed Grant recipients:

Seed Grants in Health Equity, Human Rights, and Social Justice Approaches to Health:

Ryan Talbert, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Raja Staggers-Hakim, Department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ received funding through this mechanism for a project titled, “Mental Health Among Black Americans and the Local Commemoration of Anti-Black Violence, Black Figures, and the Black Freedom Struggle.”

Faculty Seed Grants:

Faculty Seed Grants fund pilot work that will directly support an external grant application relating to human health.

Swapna Gokhale, Associate Professor, School of Computing
Project title: Understanding Associations Between Health Risk Behaviors and Social Deprivation Measures Using Machine Learning

Ruth Lucas, Associate Professor, School of Nursing
Shayna Cunningham, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences
Project title: WIC Partnership to Revise and Expand Pain Self-Management Intervention with Breastfeeding Women

Daniele Piscitelli, Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology
Project title: Neuromodulation for Upper Limb Recovery Post-Stroke: A Proposal for Personalized H-Reflex Conditioning

Roman Shrestha, Assistant Professor, Department of Allied Health Sciences
Project title: Mobile-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment for Predicting Short-Term Suicidal Thoughts and Behavior Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men

Community-Engaged Health Research Seed Grants

The Community-Engaged Health Research Seed Grant funded three projects that establish or strengthen community-academic partnerships and produce data for future extramural grant applications.

Eileen Carter, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing
Evaluating the Acceptability of School-Based Health Centers to Increase Children’s Access to Penicillin Allergy Evaluations

Mia Maltz, Assistant Professor, Department of plant Science and Landscape Architecture
Coupling Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality with Exposure, Health Effects, and Indoor/Outdoor Environmental Microbiomes

Megan O’Grady, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences
Identifying Barriers and Facilitators to Implementation of Long-Acting Injectable Medications for Opioid Use Disorder in Community-Based Behavioral Health Clinics

Environmental Health Seed Grant

The Environmental Health Seed Grant funded one project examining how the environment, climate change, or environmental policy impacts human health.

Chuanrong (Cindy) Zhang, Professor, Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies
Testing a Model of the Impact of Climate Change on Health Behaviors: A Cross-Sectional Proof-of-Concept Study

Health Disparities and Chronic Diseases Networking Event Seed Grant

The Health Disparities and Chronic Diseases Networking Event Seed Grant funded one project that emerged from InCHIP’s Health Disparities and Chronic Disease Networking Event held in the Fall 2023 semester and aimed to address, prevent, or mitigate the impact of health disparities in the U.S.

Zexin (Marsha) Ma, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
Yoo Min Park, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies
Promoting Awareness of Air Pollution Among Latino/Hispanic Communities Using Low-Cost Mobile Air Sensors and Culturally Tailored Health Messages

InCHIP research funds are awarded through a panel review process similar to the National Institutes of Health’s approach. There is both a grant mentoring component and reviewer mentoring process for junior reviewers.

InCHIP has opened its next round of Seed Grant funding.

Additional information and the application can be found here.