The laudatory occasion—the first of its kind at Fordham—is part of an ongoing initiative to advance research throughout the University and bring recognition to Fordham, its faculty and students, and its Jesuit-centered approach to higher education.

Recipients of the Funded Research Scholar Award were:

• Asif Siddiqi, Ph.D., associate professor of history in Fordham College at Rose Hill and and recipient of a National Science Foundation grant, “From the Postcolonial to the Global: The Making of the Indian Space Program, 1962-1992;”

• Tina Maschi, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work in the Graduate School of Social Service and recipient of a National Institutes of Health/John A. Hartford Foundation award, “Institute on Aging and Social Work,” a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholars award from the Gerentological Society of America, and John A. Hartford/Council on Social Work Education funding for “Moving Stories Project/BSW Experiential Learning Program;” and

• Jason Morris, Ph.D., associate professor of biology in Fordham College at Lincoln Center and recipient of a NIH-National Institute of General Medical Science grant for research on “The Molecular Identification and Functional Characterization of Fried, a Gene Required for Drosophila Growth.”

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From left to right: Asif Siddiqi, Ph.D., Tina Maschi, Ph.D. and Jason Morris, Ph.D.
Photo by Bruce Gilbert

Faculty members received their awards from Nancy Busch, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and the University’s chief research officer.

“The quality of research by Fordham faculty is quite astounding,” Busch said. “It is part of the mission of the University, which explicitly embraces a commitment to research that assists in the alleviation of poverty, the promotion of social justice, the protection of human rights and respect for the environment.”

Busch noted that external faculty funding awards have grown steadily over the last five years (from 58 awards to 85), as has the number of faculty members submitting proposals. The University currently manages $38.6 million in outside funding.

The winners were chosen from a pool of 400 professors who were nominated by members of the Fordham community. That list was narrowed to nine finalists—three each in the categories of humanities, sciences and social sciences/professions.

James Wilson, director of Faculty Development, said that the finalists were chosen in consultation with the Office of Sponsored Programs and the University Research Council (URC), which devised a weighting process that included peer commentary, project impact and longevity of funding, among other factors.

The final three were chosen by members of the URC, each of whom made his or her individual selections independently.

The remaining finalists were:

• Joshua Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and W.T. Grant Foundation;

• Jon Friedrich, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Fund for Astrophysical Research;

• Amy Aronson, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, funded by Iowa State University and Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study;

• Benjamin Dunning, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology, funded by Harvard Divinity School and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation;

• Emily Rosenbaum, Ph.D., professor of sociology and anthropology, funded through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and

• Sophie Mitra, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics, funded through the Veteran’s Affairs Administration and NIMH-Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.

The celebration marked the close of a daylong initiative, “Growing Research at Fordham,” sponsored by the Office of Research and held at the Lincoln Center campus. That event gave prominence to other faculty initiatives as well, including a presentation of “Digital Humanities at Fordham” and roundtable discussion of the platform’s future role in academic scholarship.

A full day of skills based workshops led by Michaela Kiernan, Ph.D., of Stanford University, “Get Funded!” gave attendees the opportunity to hone their research writing, graduate from mere grant submission to grantsmanship, and in so doing consciously create their career path rather than follow each foot as it falls.

“This is a tough funding environment,” Kiernan coached our colleagues, “but my position at Stanford is 100 percent soft money—if I didn’t do research, if I couldn’t get grants, I wouldn’t have a job. It can be done. You can do this!”

Kiernan covered concrete steps to convert one’s writing into the format and style grant reviewers prefer to receive. Grant and fellowship applicants don’t fully realize how critical this is to getting funded until they understand the review process.

“Because of sheer volume, your first audience will be a computer. If you haven’t taken the care to ensure that your proposal meets an agency’s criteria—for length, number and type of documents, the form of attachments—all your hard work may never be read,” Kiernan warned. “Once your proposal does go before a human being, your initial reviewers will probably have no more than ten minutes before they need to make a decision whether to send your proposal forward for further review.”

To learn how to capture and command reviewers’ continued attention, Kiernan advocates:

• using her six steps to conciseness and clarity;
• serving on an agency’s grant review committee;
• forming peer groups within and across disciplines in order to critique each other’s abstracts; and
• relying on Fordham’s Grant Officers to be a critical second set of eyes from outside their field of study that are focused solely on a proposal’s preparation.

To do all that on top of teaching and administrative duties is a challenge, but one that was both recognized and addressed in the afternoon’s final workshop: “Developing Your Academic Plan.”

“I anticipated feeling anxious about all I haven’t done, but the workshops weren’t that way at all,” one Fordham faculty member commented, a sentiment echoed by her colleagues: “presenting general strategies rather than just descriptions of grants was particularly helpful,” “very motivating” and “Kiernan is excellent!”

Make getting funded part of your academic plan—please contact James Wilson, director of faculty development, at [email protected] or (718) 817-4964 and “Get Funded!”