UW2020 Round 5 Projects: Quantum emitters to food safety

5.9.19 | UW-Madison News | Natasha Kassulke | Original Publication

Large satellites silhouetted against a starry sky — A UW2020 project will establish UW-Madison as a vital hub and innovative partner with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and a consortium of Historically Black Colleges and Universities to establish a radio astronomy data science center. This is an image of the Very Large Array, the type of source researchers might find in their survey. Photo courtesy of NRAO

Seventeen projects, ranging from topics such as electrical stimulation for advanced wound healing to establishing a Radio Astronomy Data Science Center at UW-Madison, and expanding the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) into the next decade, have been chosen for Round 5 of the UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative.

These projects, with an average award amount of $385,802, were among 74 proposals submitted from across campus. The initiative is funded by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The Graduate School also supplies direct support for some research assistants.

This brings the total number of UW2020 projects to 85 since the first-round awards were announced in 2016. This round includes nine infrastructure projects and eight research projects. They include 137 faculty and academic staff investigators on the project teams from eight schools and colleges, and Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education centers.

“As with the other rounds of UW2020, we have leveraged multidisciplinary collaborations to lead the way to new discoveries that will transform lives,” says Norman Drinkwater, interim vice chancellor for research and graduate education. “With Round 5 we also see a commitment to support rapidly growing and emerging areas of research including data science and nanotechnology, but also the need to build on the areas we already excel in, to remain competitive moving forward.”

The projects were reviewed by faculty across the university. The UW2020 Council, a group of 17 faculty members from all divisions of the university, evaluated the merits of each project based on the reviews and their potential for making significant contributions to their field of study.

The goal of UW2020 is to stimulate and support highly innovative research at UW-Madison and to support acquisition of shared instruments or equipment that will foster significant advances in research.

A list of projects and their principal investigators can be found below, but visit the UW2020 website to find project descriptions and more information.

Research Projects

A New Window into Human Reproduction
Jenna Nobles, Professor of Sociology

Developing the Next Generation of Quantum Emitters in 2D Materials
Jason Kawasaki, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering

Development and Preclinical Testing of Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Optimizing the In Situ Tumor Vaccine Effect of Radiation Therapy
Zachary Morris, Assistant Professor of Human Oncology

Ensuring Global Food Safety by Degrading Aflatoxins
Jae-Hyuk Yu, Professor of Bacteriology

From Molecules to Systems: A New Era of Multidimensional 3D Printing
Andrew Boydston, Associate Professor of Chemistry

Nanogenerator-Driven Self-Activated Electrical Stimulation for Enhanced Wound Healing
Xudong Wang, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering

PTSD Psychotherapy for Prison Inmates: Feasibility and Pilot Study
Michael Koenigs, Associate Professor of Psychiatry

Redox Reservoir Strategies for Modular Electrochemical Processes
Song Jin, Professor of Chemistry

Infrastructure Projects

Acquisition of a State-of-the-art LCMSMS Instrument to Support Rapid Discovery of New Molecules and Synthetic Methods
Samuel Gellman, Professor of Chemistry

Building Excellence in Advanced Water Analysis
Matthew Ginder-Vogel, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Enabling Graphics Processing Unit-based Data Science
Anthony Gitter, Professor of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Morgridge Institute for Research

Establishing a Radio Astronomy Data Science Center at UW-Madison
Eric Wilcots, Professor of Astronomy

Full Season Science in the Northwoods
Hilary Dugan, Assistant Professor of Limnology

Imaging the Third Dimension at the Nanometer Resolution
Mrinalini Hoon, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

Light-Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy: Shared Instrumentation to Visualize Biology in Four Dimensions
Beth Weaver, Associate Professor of Cell and Regenerative Biology

UW Cancer Omics Discovery Bank (ODB)
Mark Burkard, Associate Professor of Hematology-Oncology

Wisconsin Longitudinal Study 2020 and Beyond
Jason Fletcher, Professor of Public Affairs and Sociology