2019 RRF awardee announcement
We would like to congratulate these newly announced Research Reinvestment Fund (RRF) awardees.
- Terry Shehata, Planning for Wraparound Services that Support the Growth of Maine’s Craft Beer Industry
- Owen Smith, Pilot project for development of Maine Medical Arts (MEMA) MA degree
- Brian Beal, Planning for the future: UMM’s Marine Science Field Station
- Niclas Erhardt, MBS Professional Development Center Initiative
- Judith Clukey, Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT) Practicum Intensive Week Pilot
- Yongjiang Zhang, A Platform Using a New Cyber Physical System and UAV to Detect Temporal and Spatial Variation for Precision Agriculture
- Jean MacRae, Nutrient Removal from Recirculating Aquaculture System Water
- Ek Han Tan, Transforming diploid potato breeding by enhancing potato haploid induction
- James Anderson, Development and Application of 3D Printing for the Manufacture of Boat Parts
- Heather Leslie, Development of a Low Cost Environmental Observing Buoy for Aquaculture Site Prospecting
- Cynthia Loftin, An interdisciplinary approach to building data literacy in wildlife survey technologies
- Deborah Saber, Making Maine’s Local Food System Sustainable: Opportunities to Address Hunger and Reduce Waste through a Multi-Site, Interdisciplinary Team
- Kristina Cammen, The Western Passage student research collaborative: Considering physical, biological, and social dynamics of a tidally energetic system in Eastern Maine
- Heather Leslie, Science and Workforce Development for Sustainable Aquaculture in Maine
- Allison Gardner, Biophysical and social dimensions of tick-borne disease risk in Maine’s public parks and natural areas
- Nuri Emanetoglu, RADAR Stethoscope for Non-Contact Heart Beat Detection
- Neil Thompson, Expansion and Testing of a Habitat Selection Model for a Globally Threatened Bird Species on Industrial Forestland
- Brian Beal, Coldwater selection for fast growth of American oysters in Downeast Maine
- Paul Rawson, Nutritional quality and the physiological drivers of growth variation in eastern oysters
- Rachel Lasley-Rasher, Detecting changes in zooplankton following the recovery of river herring in the Penobscot
- Damian Brady, Graduate Support to Enhance Collaborative Research with Maine’s Lobster Industry
- Jean MacRae, Food Waste to Biogas: Optimizing Energy Recovery
- Danielle Levesque, Graduate Assistantship: Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on the Range and Distribution of Small Mammals in Maine
- Joshua Stoll, Understanding the role of policy interventions in shaping market entrepreneurship in New England Fisheries
- Nicholas Giudice, Customer Discovery and Market Validation of Midlina – A multimodal software solution that will provide blind and visually-impaired (BVI) people with access to graphical information
- Mike Mason, Nanocellulose based Composites for Orthopedic Fixation Devices
- Mehdi Tajvidi, Commercialization of Molded Wood Flour-Cellulose Nanomaterial Products
- Josh Stoll, New Gear for New Growers: Commercializing a Low-cost Oyster Sorter for Small-Scale and Diversified Business Enterprises
The University of Maine System (UMS) Research Reinvestment Fund (RRF) Advisory Board is pleased to announce the winners of the FY 2019 funding competitions. The objective of the RRF is to strengthen research and development activities that are tied to Maine businesses and to industries that are critical to the future of Maine, including providing internal grant funding to UMS research teams to stimulate such activity. In FY 2019, a total of 65 applications were received for the established RRF competitive grant programs which resulted in 28 new awards (4 planning grants; 6 seed grants; 14 student awards, and 4 accelerator grants).
RRF Planning Grants provide funding for 6-month projects that allow research teams comprised of UMS researchers and/or external partners to form and develop plans to advance and develop research, development, and commercialization projects.
RRF Seed Grants provide funding for 12-month projects that generate pilot data, proof of concept testing, and target specific follow-on grant opportunities to leverage the investment of RRF funds by attracting additional funding to the University. Seed grant teams are comprised of UMS researchers and external partners. Funding preference is given to projects that are able to demonstrate the likelihood of near-term commercialization and/or workforce development output.
RRF Student Awards provide funding for UMS faculty/staff led research, development, and commercialization projects that involve UMS students as major contributors to the execution of the project. There are four separate student award programs supported by RRF:
- Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Collaborative (IGRC);
- Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research Collaboratives (IURC);
- Graduate Student Assistantships; and
- Undergraduate Student Assistantships.
RRF Accelerator Grants are also known as the Maine Innovation, Research and Technology Accelerator (MIRTA). Teams receive funding and participate in a 16-week intensive program designed to advance research projects along the path from discovery to becoming commercial products with public benefit.