Thirty-seven UCF teams will split $1 million in UCF SEED funding to conduct preliminary research the university hopes will lead to bigger individual grants from other agencies and breakthroughs in a variety of fields.

The Office of Research and the Provost Office began the pilot SEED program with $1 million last year. Those recipients will present updates on their work during Research Week (March 29-April 2). Today’s announcement reflects another $1 million in awards to teams working on projects that show promise.

The SEED initiative supports exploratory research and interdisciplinary research. Both types have the potential to attract industry and federal investment once preliminary data is generated.

Twenty-eight projects were selected and awarded a total of $580,000 in the exploratory category. More than 92 projects were proposed. Another nine teams were selected in the interdisciplinary category and will receive a total of $400,000. The remaining funds will be used to stimulate research by covering time on shared research-facility equipment or allowing faculty to gather preliminary data for

proposals, obtain editorial review comments, or test feasibility of partnerships with industry.

The projects were selected based on the potential impact of the proposed research on the field, intellectual merit, broader impact to society, and feasibility of future funding appropriate to the discipline, among other criteria.

Here are some of the projects funded. For a full list click here.

  • emPower through Play: Participatory Design of Games for Diversity in Leadership —Emily Johnson, assistant professor of English. This research aims to empower women and girls through educational leadership games that are designed by undergraduate women on current leadership topics
  • An exploratory mixed-method study of recovery coaching for family members of loved ones with the substance-use disorder — Danielle Atkins, associate professor in the Department of Health Management and Informatics. Although research exists on the importance of family involvement in Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment, no research has studied the potential effects of family-life-recovery-coaches. This pilot study aims to identify how family recovery coaching works and its impact on family members’ sense of wellbeing using a community-based, participatory mixed-method exploratory approach.
  • Exploring outcomes of FitMoms2B exercise program among African American women with a high-risk pregnancy — Jean Davis, assistant professor in the College of Nursing. The FitMoms2B exercise program for women with high-risk pregnancy has the potential to improve mother and baby health. The FitMoms2B exercise habit-formation program combines behavioral counseling (motivational interviewing, coaching), dyadic support of an exercise partner (baby’s father, friend), and Fitbit activity trackers for motivation and accountability to support the adequate exercise.
  • Leveraging digital communications to investigate the determinants of black-white disparities in breast cancer — Dexter Hadley, assistant professor of pathology. This proposal represents a new interdisciplinary collaboration across experts at UCF from medical education and clinical, population health, biomedical, and computer sciences to study breast cancer in Black women who suffer 40% more death from breast cancer compared to their white counterparts.
  • Machine learning-driven analysis to boost the performance of the next generation of batteries — Laurene Tetard, associate professor of physics and the Nanoscience Technology Center. This project will tackle the lingering issue of a lack of tools to study the crack formation and propagation in lithium-ion batteries.