Nine Faculty Receive Provost’s Faculty Fellows Seed Grant Funding

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (June 19, 2023) – Nine North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University faculty have received a portion of $225,000 in seed grant funding through the new Provost’s Faculty Fellows opportunity. 

Launched by North Carolina A&T’s Office of the Provost, Title III, and Division of Research, the Provost’s Faculty Fellows program was created to support faculty who are pursuing innovative and interdisciplinary research projects. It is intended to develop and sustain competitiveness while also setting the stage for larger projects to be supported by extramural resources. 

“Our faculty continues to advance their expertise in research by using multiple disciplines to address some of the most complex challenges facing our world today,” said Tonya Smith-Jackson, Ph.D., A&T provost and executive vice chancellor of Academic Affairs. 

The inaugural Provost’s Faculty Fellows comprise assistant, associate and full professors; as well as lecturers and research faculty. Their projects were selected from among a pool of 21 proposals submitted for review and consideration:   

• Justin Adams, Ph.D., and Michael Brooks, Ph.D., Department of Counseling in the College of Education (COEd), Sharon Parker, Ph.D., and Lisa Workman, Ph.D., Department of Social Work in the John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences, “North Carolina A&T State University Aggie Anti Pipeline 2 Prison Program (AAP2P)” 
• Kendra N. Bryant, Ph.D., Department of English in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) and Geleana Alston, Ph.D., Department of Leadership Studies and Adult Education in COEd, “Still ‘A Race for Theory’: Adult Learners Refashion Traditional Narratives through Contemplative Poetry Writing” 
• Shuva Chowdhury, Ph.D., Department of Civil Architecture and Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering (COE), “Mixed-Reality Collaborating Platform on Identifying and Observing Spatial Inequality at Urban-Campus Negative Spaces” 
• Salam Ibrahim, Ph.D., and Tahl Zimmerman, Ph.D., Department of Family and Consumer Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, and Robert Newman, Ph.D., Department of Biology in the College of Science and Technology (COST), “Choline Kinase as a Therapeutic Target to Treat Obesity” 
• Yuhan Jiang, Ph.D., Department of Built Environment in COST, and Sameer Hamoush, Ph.D., Department of Civil Architecture and Environmental Engineering in COE, “Digitalizing Stormwater Infrastructure Systems in Disadvantaged Communities Using Reality Capture, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Twin” 
• Andrew Kuo, M.A., Department of Criminal Justice in CAHSS, “Chance-based Gaming Monetization and Online Gambling” 
• Antoinette Maldonado-Devincci, Ph.D., Department of Psychology in the Hairston College, and Reginald Cannady, Ph.D., Department of Biology in COST, “Sex-Specific Regulation of Cannabinoids on Sleep and Neuronal Activation” 
• Olusola Odeyomi, Ph.D., Department of Computer Science in COE, and Juliet Oriaifo, Ph.D., Department of Management in the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics, “Black Loans Matter: Fair and Secure Financial Services for Black Entrepreneurs Using Transformative Artificial Intelligence” 
• Ahmad Patooghy, Department of Computer Systems Technology in COST, and Mahmoud Mahmoud, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in COE, “Securing Internet-of-Things Systems Using Evolvable Virtualization” 

Each receives $25,000 in funding via Title III through the end of September for their projects, which are under way. 

Proposals for the fellowship were based on one or more of the seven focus areas of Preeminence 2030: North Carolina A&T Blueprint and required cross-college collaboration. The focus areas are: Health, Transportation and Housing Equity; Education and Lifelong Learning; Economic Empowerment; Climate and Environment; Security, Equal Benefits and Social Justice; Narrative Empowerment; and Innovative Systems Design and Development. 

Establishing goals and strategies that will advance A&T’s research and strengthen its mission, Preeminence 2030 allows the university to continue its commitment to research expansion. A&T is seeking to ascend from its current designation as R2 “Doctoral University: High Research Activity” to R1 “Doctoral University: Very High Research Activity” under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. 

The next request for proposals for the Provost’s Faculty Fellows will be issued in spring 2024.