Ten research teams were awarded seed grants of up to $50,000 as part of the 1U4U Seed Grant Program. The program supports cross-campus/cross-disciplinary research teams to solve some of the greatest challenges of our local, national, and global communities.
The theme of the 2024-2025 program was “The Future of Sustainability.” Sustainability is a foundational goal that cuts across multiple intellectual topic areas (e.g., healthcare, water, energy, wildfire, critical minerals, education, food security) and can be interpreted widely.
At the University of Utah, faculty have engaged sustainability across a wide range of domains, including but not limited to environmental, social, communal, health, economic, technical, and legal.
Some of the topics of winning projects include the impact of air quality on elite athletic performance, study of suicide behaviors, and improving health by linking silos.
“It is exciting to fund so many teams working on sustainability projects,” said Dr. Jakob Jensen, associate vice president for research at the U. “The teams are considering sustainability across a wide range of topics from forest management and urban heat islands to physical therapy and mental health. These seed projects will drive significant innovation and impact communities throughout the region.”
List of winning projects, in no particular order:
Research Team: Nancy Daher (Medicine) & Heather Holmes (Engineering)
Application Title: Wildfire Smoke and Oxidative Potential: Implications for Public Health and Sustainable Forest Fuels Management
Research Team: John Pearson (Medicine) & Jonathan Wang (Science)
Application Title: Heat and Healing: The Influence of Urban Heat Islands on Postoperative Outcomes
Research Team: Anne Thackeray (Health), Kim Kaphingst (Humanities), Rachel Hess (Medicine), Paul Estabrooks (Health), Jorie Butler (Medicine), Jake Magel (Health)
Application Title: Establishing Person-Centered Reporting of Patient-Reported Outcomes in Physical Therapy.
Research Team: John Lin (Science) & Tanya Halliday (Health)
Application Title: Impact of Air Quality on Elite Athletic Performance: from Salt Lake to Beyond
Research Team: Yehua Dennis Wei (CSBS), Yue Zhang (Medicine), Max Coleman (CSBS), Ming Wen (CSBS)
Application Title: Place, Physical Environment, and Mental Health: A Study of Suicide Behaviors in Salt Lake City, Utah
Research Team: Heayoung Yoon (Engineering), Sarah Hinners (Red Butte Garden & Arboretum), Timothy Adekunle (Architecture)
Application Title: Sustainable Urban Green Spaces Integrated with Translucent Solar Technology
Research Team: Jody Reimer (Science), Brigham Daniels (Law), Beth Parker (Law), Michael Werner (Science)
Application Title: Understanding Great Salt Lake microbialite ecology to inform sustainable water management policy
Research Team: Joshua Larson (Health), Randall W. Rupper (Medicine), Amit Kumar (Health), & Anne Thackeray (Health)
Application Title: Improving Health by Linking Silos
Research Team: Colleen Farmer (Science), Ajla Asksamija (Architecture & Planning), Zach Lundeen (Bonderman Field Station), Jorg Rugemer (Architecture & Planning), Atsushi Yamamoto (Architecture & Planning)
Application Title: Testing Green Building Materials at the Bonderman Field Station
Research Team: Qilei Zhu (Science) & Tao Gao (Engineering)
Application Title: Ion-Conductive Membrane-Enabled Sustainable Industrial Electrochemical Production
About 1U4U
The goal of the 1U4U Seed Grant Program is to incentivize researchers from different disciplines to collaborate. Exemplary proposals will focus on bringing together researchers from different fields, departments, colleges, units, and other intellectual or organizational divides to pursue groundbreaking research.
The 1U4U Seed Grant Program topic will change from year-to-year and will be informed by the University of Utah research community. This will allow the institution to build and support teams around timely topics that highlight/promote the strengths of University of Utah researchers, address a topic that is timely and relevant to our current society, and to continue to build new interdisciplinary connections for future research work.
1U4U applications are reviewed by a standing committee comprised of faculty from across the university.
For more information on the 1U4U Seed Grant Program, click here or contact VPR Grants.