Grant Announcements

Dr. Cara Fiore, visiting assistant professor in Appalachian’s Department of Biology, will travel to the Caribbean island of Curaçao in summer 2020 to begin her research of sea sponge filtration and its impact on the coral reef food web.

For the past 34 years, An Appalachian Summer Festival has brought renowned creative and performing artists to the High Country. This year’s lineup includes Patti LaBelle, The Temptations, the Punch Brothers and others.

Appalachian’s Marta Toran has received grant funding from the American Geophysical Union to update the university’s PYES mobile photo booth — an outreach project designed to raise awareness for geoscience careers and the importance of earth science literacy.

Gokee will spend the next two academic years leading archaeological research in the Bandafassi region of eastern Senegal to study how the Atlantic slave trade impacted social life in this West African “shatter zone.”

Powell, assistant professor in Appalachian’s Department of Anthropology, is one of only seven scholars in the U.S. and Canada selected by the Cornell University Society for the Humanities (SOH) as 2019–20 Fellows.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has awarded Upward Bound Director Aaron Gersonde with over $700,000 in funding for the program, which supports regional high schools students’ transition to and success in postsecondary education.

Spond — Appalachian’s liaison to the National Park Service — completed the assessment in fall 2018, evaluating the current conditions of the parcels to identify corrective actions and/or best management practices needed.

Appalachian psychology professors Drs. Shawn Bergman and Tim Ludwig will collaborate on a four-year pilot study funded by NIOSH to examine how using HSE data in analytics can help keep workers safe on the job.

Mel Falck ’14, an undergraduate teacher education adviser in Appalachian’s James Center for Student Success and Academic Advising, is the grant recipient.