“Together, the new grants are indicators of ISU excellence in energy, health care, and scientific research,” said Pamela Crowell, Ph.D., ISU Vice President for Research. “Through these projects, our faculty and students will make new discoveries that will have impact across the state and the globe.”

The five grants include:

• $412,000 to Dr. George Imel, Engineering, and Dr. Dan Dale, Physics, from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the project entitled, “Idaho State University Faculty Development Program.” The grant provides funding for a joint faculty appointment with the Nuclear Engineering Department and the Physics Department. It provides three years of funding for this position. The award is in response to an application by George Imel, Ph.D., chair of our Department of Nuclear Engineering, Michael Lineberry, director of the Institute for Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Dan Dale, Ph.D., chair of our Department of Physics and Astronomy.

• $394,219 to Dr. Jason T. Harris, Physics, from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the project entitled, “Idaho State University Nuclear Education Fellowship Program.” The fellowship funds are being provided by the U.S. NRC to strengthen the U.S. infrastructure in nuclear science and technology. The funding is meant to support students who, after they finish their education, will enter the nuclear workforce in the areas of industry, military, government, or academia (and in all areas of nuclear, not just power).  Specifically, the ISU funds will support five graduate students in health physics (Department of Physics, College of Arts and Sciences) and nuclear engineering (College of Engineering) over a period of four years.

• $310,605 to Dr. Herb Maschner, CAMAS and Anthropology, from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “Virtual Zooarcheology of the Arctic Project (VZAP).”    This proposal proposes to develop the world's first online, interactive, three-dimensional virtual vertebrate reference collection.  

• $236,367 to Dr. Carol Ashton, Nursing, from the DHHS, Health Resources and Services Administration for the project entitled, “Health Care and Other Facilities.” Grant funding will be used to add three patient simulators and supportive telehealth audio/visual communication technology to the Advanced Nursing Clinical Simulation Laboratory in the ISU School of Nursing.  Nursing faculty, student and clinicians across Idaho will be able to share expertise and learning resources, increase capacity to educate new and practicing clinicians, and provide an opportunity for place-bound clinicians to stay in their communities and access state-of-the-art nursing education.  

• $130,000 to Dr. Jeff Meldrum, from the Mayfield Foundation in support of Meldrum’s project titled  “North American Ape Project (NAAP): 2008. ”The North American Ape Project (NAAP) seeks to detect and collect evidence through support from the Mayfield Foundation. This will be undertaken primarily by means of hair snags monitored by camera traps. In addition, fieldworkers will record vocalizations, document tracks and sample associated scat. Habitats will be analyzed for availability and distribution of food resources.