Research@UIC > Advisory Council > Areas of Excellence Award Program

Areas of Excellence Awards - January 2012

Submissions

89 letters of intent and 71 proposals were submitted.   Specifically:

• BHSD:  41 submissions
• CD: 12 submissions (many proposals related to health disparities were directed to BHSD)
• URGE: 18 submissions

Review Process

Reviewers were primarily drawn from original VCR Councils – however, due to conflicts of interest and the need for additional specialized expertise the panels were supplemented with members of the Campus Research Board as well as ad hoc reviewers.  Each proposal had two assigned reviewers and an assigned reader. Readers did not necessarily have to have relevant scientific expertise but were assessing proposals for fit with and responsiveness to broad program objectives.  All reviewers were required to use the appropriate review template.  Review items varied by application phase but included:

• Fit with targeted areas outlined in white papers
• Merit, significance, and feasibility
• Understanding/leveraging of existing UIC expertise
• Assessment of AOE current standing within national landscape and potential for achieving (or increasing existing) national stature
• Anticipated short & long term results which are measurable and impactful
• Likelihood of internal funding leading to eventual national stature/recognized primacy/acknowledged leadership

Proposals were scored on the following scale:

• 3.00 to 4.00 – Highly Competitive/Highly Responsive
• 2.00 to 2.99 – Competitive/Responsive
• 1.00 to 1.99 – Not Competitive/Not Responsive

Funding Recommendations

Overall, 16 proposals were funded at $1,279,450 as follows:

*Disparities related proposals with a biomedical focus were reviewed by the BHSD Panel.
**The Phase 1 proposal “Immigration Research at UIC” was prepared jointly through a special collaboration initiated by the CD and URGE Councils.   

Detail by panel follows.

Biomedical and Health Sciences Discovery

Phase 1

1. Metamaterials for Microwave Cancer Therapy and Bio-imaging

Principal Investigators:

• Jingjing Li, Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Danilo Erricolo, Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Summary: In recent years, microwave-based thermal ablation for tumor treatment has attracted a lot of interest because of its minimum invasion and side effects. To achieve the best results with the least damage to the healthy tissue around the tumors, the microwave beam should be tightly focused; however, current applicators based on conventional microwave devices suffers from diffraction and the size of the focus spot is too large for tumors that are often a few centimeters in size. The PIs will explore the feasibility of utilizing metamaterials to fabricate microwave lenses with a very sharp focus, for the purpose of cancer therapy. Metamaterials are artificial materials not found in nature, which exhibit unusual physical properties. They are characterized by a negative value of either their electric permittivity (dielectric constant), or magnetic permeability, or both. In recent years, these synthetic materials have attracted considerable attention from the electronic industry, and notably from the Department of Defense. However, their possible applications to the biomedical field are still in infancy.  The possibility of achieving a very sharp focal spot with this type of lenses has already been theoretically established.  At the end of this Phase 1 grant, the PIs will provide deterministic arguments on the feasibility of the idea and expect to present one or more conceptual prototypes of metamaterial-based devices for thermal treatment of cancer or other biomedical applications. They will also propose a detailed plan to manufacture such devices. The current members of the team are scientists in metamaterials and electromagnetics. They expect to add 2-3 more faculty members with background in cancer treatment and bio-imaging for a Phase II proposal. With this internal support the PIs envision attracting future extramural support for development and technology commercialization.

Total OVCR Funding: $20,000

2. Feasibility of an NIH Pharmacogenomics Research Network  grant application

Principal Investigators:

• Julio Duarte, Clinical Assistant Professor, Pharmacy Practice
• Larisa Cavillari, Associate Professor, Pharmacy Practice
• Jeff Bishop, Assistant Professor, Pharmacy Practice
• Monsheel Sodhi, Assistant professor, Pharmacy Practice
• Rick Kittles, Professor, Medicine

Summary: This proposal brings together many of the pharmacogenomics experts on campus to establish the feasibility of assembling a competitive application for a Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN) grant. The research team has outlined straightforward objectives to develop a working group of UIC investigators that will identify basic and/or clinical themes for a PGRN application and assess the existing strengths and weaknesses here at UIC to tender a competitive proposal. A seminar series is proposed to invite national thought leaders in this area to present their work and advise our UIC team.  Potential collaborations are envisioned to be built with the College of Nursing, School of Public Health, and various multidisciplinary centers on campus as pharmacogenomics can be applied to disparate health-related problems. Results of the proposal will be used to help generate a proposal for a PGRN application, an RFA for which will be available in the end of 2013 or early 2014. The NIH has indicated that genomics will be a priority in coming years and funding in this field is expected to grow as other areas remain flat or decrease.

Total OVCR Funding: $19,183

Phase 2

1. Development of novel inhibitors of PBEF/NAMPT to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension 

Principal Investigators:

• Roberto Machado, Associate Professor, Pulmonary Medicine
• Tom Driver, Assistant Professor, Chemistry
• Gregory Thatcher, Professor, Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy

Summary:  Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a debilitating disease that involves remodeling of the arterial blood vessels of the lung which leads to heart failure and death. There is no available cure for this fatal disease, and current treatment options target the side effects of vasoconstriction by producing
pulmonary vasodilation rather than focusing on the cellular dysfunction that induces pulmonary vascular remodeling. Dr. Machado has characterized pre‐B cell colony enhancing factor (PBEF) as a biomarker and potential drug target in patients with PAH. This work lead to the present application focused on developing novel inhibitors. Significant evidence suggests that overexpression of PBEF in lung blood vessels may be more than a biomarker. Dr. Machado has shown in rat models of PAH that genetic deletion of one PBEF allele or inhibition of PBEF significantly blocks vascular remodeling  and the associated increase in right heart hypertrophy and pressure. His lab has expertise in rodent models of PAH which he will use to test specific compounds generated.  Dr. Thatcher will design compounds based on the molecular structure of the PBEF active site.  Drs. Driver and Thatcher are able to synthesize N-heterocyclic libraries for PBEF inhibitory activity and will modify these compounds on the basis of the enzyme activity assay to improve inhibitory function.The long range goals include Phase 3 support and R01 funding that ideally would lead to a patent and SBIR/STTR funding to conduct clinical trials. It will be the combined efforts of the interdisciplinary team that should bring this idea to fruition and potentially to clinical trials. 

2. Anti-hepatitis B virus (HBV) compounds targeting host factors

Principal Investigators:

• Alan McLachlan, Professor, Microbiology & Immunology
• Pavel Petukhov, Associate Professor, Medicinal Chemistry
• Susan Uprichard, Assistant Professor, Medicine
• Alex Lyubimov, Professor, Pharmacology
• Kiira Ratia, Director of RRC High-throughput Screening Core

Summary:  Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a worldwide health problem responsible for an estimated one million deaths annually resulting from liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).  It is estimated there are up to 500 million carriers in the world the majority for whom there is no reliable treatment.  The long term objective of this project is to characterize and optimize a new novel class(es) of small molecular weight antiviral compounds that inhibit transcription from the HBV nucleocapsid promoter by reducing the activity of nuclear receptors and hence blocks HBV biosynthesis. If a cheap and effective small molecular weight inhibitor of HBV transcription can be found and demonstrated to be therapeutically beneficial alone or in combination with other anti-HBV drugs, the long-term societal impact and benefits will be significant.  The PIs plan to sustain this general AOE beyond Phase 3 support by going forward with the development of antiviral drug development targeting other viral diseases.  Considering the unique collection of talent in the area of virology at UIC, the PIs believe the necessary expertise is present to generate a viable program aimed at developing antiviral and potently anti-bacterial compounds against a number of important human pathogens using the same basic approach being used to target HBV which represents the PIs model virus target to demonstrate the general proof of principle.  In the specific area of antiviral compound development against HBV being proposed, PIs have a unique set of HTS and cell culture assays plus animal models that make this AOE unique to UIC.   PIs hope to develop similar systems along the same lines as HBV in collaboration with other UIC investigators to target additional human viral pathogens.  If successful this would raise UIC to national prominence in this area.

Total OVCR Funding: $75,000

3. Multiscale Models of HCV infection: Design of Vaccine Trials and Intervention Programs

Principal Investigators:

• Harel Dahari, Research Assistant Professor, Hepatology
• Lawrence Ouellet, Research Professor, Epidemiology & Biostatistics
• Richard Novak, Professor, Infectious Diseases
• Basmattee Boodram, Research Assistant Professor, Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Other Investigators:

• Stephen M. Feinstone – CBER/FDA
• Marian E. Major – CBER/FDA
• Alexander Gutfraind – Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Sara Del Valle – Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Alan S. Perelson – Los Alamos National Laboratory

Summary:  The PIs propose to develop computational models for studying hepatitis C virus (HCV) immunization and vaccine development. This proposal brings together researchers from several disciplines in Medicine and Public Health and builds upon existing expertise of UIC in several areas related to HCV: modeling infections and treatments, vaccine clinical research, and in the social network and risk behavior of injection drug users(IDUs), a population that is especially vulnerable to HCV.  The proposal includes collaborators from the FDA and Los Alamos National Laboratory, further strengthening the interdisciplinary nature of this proposal. A primary aim of the study is to develop a simulation model, the Agent-based Pathogen Kinetics (APK) model, of HCV infection in the IDU population.  This model would enable the design of HCV vaccine clinical trials.  To do so, the project will draw upon recent epidemiological studies of the IDU population conducted by the UIC School of Public Health's Community Outreach and Intervention Projects (COIP).  COIP has been very effective at engaging and studying this "hidden population" in Chicago, and this project will leverage their success into a more realistic modeling of HCV infection than could be conducted otherwise.  A second aim of the study is to propose the APK model as a tool for vaccine trials for prophylactic HCV vaccine. The long term goals are in responsive to NIH PAR and may be useful for FDA in approving vaccines. It may also be used to forecast epidemics and simulate vaccine efficacy for multiple pathogens and other risk populations.

Total OVCR Funding: $75,000

4. Use of ex vivo expanded cord blood graft to treat hematologic malignancies

Principal Investigators:

• Nadim Mahmud, Assistant Professor, Hematology/Oncology

Co-Investigators:

• Damiano Rondelli, Professor, Hematology/Oncology
• Alex Lyubimov, Director, Toxicology Laboratory

Summary:  The primary objective is to examine the feasibility and safety of culture expanded human umbilical cord blood (CB) grafts for potential use as a curative therapy for patients diagnosed with blood cancers and certain genetic, immune, and metabolic disorders. Each year 115,000 people in the US develop leukemia and lymphoma and many of them die due to the lack of a curative therapy. While there is no definitive way to prevent leukemia and lymphoma, it can be effectively treated. Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation offers the best treatment option for curing most leukemias and other malignant and non-malignant blood disorders. However, the difficulty of obtaining tissue matched donors limits the widespread use of allogeneic HSC transplantation to treat these conditions. One possible alternative source for HSC grafts is CB, but the currently available banked CB grafts are unsuitable for more than 90% of adult patients due to limited number of cells. The limited number of HSC within a single CB graft likely accounts for the high rate of graft failure and delay in reconstitution of blood cells following CB transplantation, particularly in adults. The successful use of expanded grafts in bone marrow transplantation would also potentially allow the PI’s strategy to be used in other cell based therapies where manipulation of stem cells is required to correct a genetic disease. The successful completion of these studies would immediately make UIC a leader in stem cell research and the implications in therapy, particularly to minimize disparities in HSC graft availability, are significant. At the end of the one year AOE study period the PI will have feasibility/safety data to write proposals for the competitive renewal of current grant sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) as well as to apply for an early stage clinical trial grant (NIH RFA-RO1-PAR-11-204) to sustain the AOE project beyond the funded period. 

Total OVCR Funding:  $75,000

5. Infrastructure for the Center for Chemical Imaging

Principal Investigators:

• Andre Kajdacsy-Balla, Professor,  Pathology
• Peter Gann, Professor, Pathology
• Rohit Bhargava, Associate professor, Bioengineering, UIUC

Other Investigators:

• Virgilia Macias-Martinez, M.D., Research Assistant Professor, Pathology
• Michael John Walsh, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Beckman Institute, UIUC

Summary:  The goal of this collaborative venture between UIC and UIUC is to set up, develop, validate, and provide training in the use of FT-IR microscopy for cancer diagnosis and characterization of organ rejection by chemical imaging, and to then establish a Center for Chemical Imaging and AOE at UIC in partnership with imaging expertise at UIUC for advanced diagnostic imaging.  The effort to establish a Joint Center for Chemical Imaging is innovative and resourceful, bringing together expertise from both institutions to build a program and core facility that can provide both UIC and UIUC with training environments and clinical diagnosis abilities that are beyond the scope and level of expertise of either group alone.  This training environment is anticipated to enable pathologists to skillfully use advanced chemical imaging techniques in routine fashion. The long range goal is to prepare a Program Project Grant based on the use of FT-IR microscopy for diagnostic and prognostic purposes which is to be carried out at UIC in collaboration with UIUC imaging experts. The long term focus will be to provide faster and more robust detection of cancer, as well as assessment of treatment response or failure, and determination of tumor boundaries while the patient is still in the OR.

Total OVCR Funding:  $75,000

Phase 3

1. Program in Colorectal Cancer Susceptibility

Principal Investigators:

• Xavier Llor, Associate Professor, Medicine
• Carol Braunschweig, Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Nutrition
• Nathan Ellis, Visiting Associate Professor, Pediatrics

Co-Investigators:

• Vincent Freeman, Associate Professor, Epidemiology & Biostatistics
• Rick Kittles, Associate Professor, Medicine
• Rajyasree Emmadi, Assistant Professor, Pathology
• Hui Xie, Assistant Professor, Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Summary:  This proposed AOE builds on the expertise of multiple investigators from several colleges at UIC. The current status of colorectal cancer studies here at UIC is quite strong and this investment could propel the team to international prominence. The PIs plan to leverage current resources to facilitate a successful application for an NIH program project grant. This project will allow for UIC to become the preeminent site for the study of colorectal cancer and susceptibilities particularly in African Americans.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the US. Although CRC incidence has declined over the past 10 years, incidence rates in African Americans (AAs) are 30% higher than in the other populations. Recent evidence indicates that biological factors contribute to these disparities, because the disparities remain even after adjusting for access to early detection, timely, high-quality treatment, and co-morbidities. CRC is a complex disease with multiple factors influencing risk and etiology, severity and course of disease, response to treatment and outcome. The PIs have established a major collaborative program to advance their understanding in this field, the Chicago Colorectal Cancer Consortium (CCCC), a multi-institutional collaboration with a unique patient catchment as over 60% of the case ascertainment is AA.  Consequently, the case series will have the power to address the biological basis of health disparities in CRC. PIs are developing synergistic projects in four areas: 1) genetic risk factors conferring susceptibility to CRC and their interaction with environmental factors to generate increased risk, 2) role of diet in CRC development and how do human gut microbial communities influence colorectal cancer development, 3) identification of a susceptible gut epithelium that modulates CRC risk, and 4) the role of interactions between the gut epithelium and inflammatory factors in modulating colorectal  cancer development. Besides providing novel biological insights into CRC development, this critical information will revolutionize the approach to CRC screening. Ultimately, the results of these analyses will be used to personalize patient management from primary risk reduction to tailored therapeutic options. Moreover, the biomarkers could lead to non-invasive, low-cost screening tests with high specificity and sensitivity.

Total OVCR Funding:  $150,000

Community Disparities

Phase 1

1. Immigration Research at UIC

Principal Investigators:

• Dina Birman, Associate Professor, Psychology

Summary: Immigration as an Area of Excellence (AOE) provides a distinctive opportunity to define a UIC identity around a critically important area of scholarship that touches Chicago and UIC directly. The proposal is to identify and develop a network of UIC faculty involved in immigration-related research.  This will be followed by the production of a plan for the creation of an administrative structure at UIC, such as a Center or Institute on Immigration Research that will convene researchers, organize disciplinary and multidisciplinary research projects, pursue external funding, and otherwise promote immigration-related research at UIC. The goal is to elevate UIC to a position of national prominence, joining New York University, Princeton, UC San Diego, and Ryerson University as key sites of immigration-related research. This AOE is truly crosscutting, ranging from basic research to the social sciences and the humanities, research that is integral to much of the work (both funded and unfunded) that is done across the campus. Current immigration-related research at UIC spans a number of colleges and departments including Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, Liberal Arts and Sciences and Social Work, among others, though the immigrant focus per se is usually not dominant. It is represented in many research Centers and Institutes on campus including Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy; Hull House Museum; Center for Urban Economic Development; Great Cities Institute; Center for Urban Business; Midwest Latino Health Research, Training, and Policy Center; and Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement. Four broad areas of immigration scholarship represent the primary interdisciplinary concerns at UIC: (1) Health, (2) Education, (3) Economic Opportunity, and (4) Socio-cultural Adaptation. These areas represent domains where future planning can have the greatest substantive payoff in terms of scholarly productivity, engaged research, and grant support.

Total OVCR Funding:  $36,000

2. An interdisciplinary journal on African, African American and Afro-Caribbean Studies

Principal Investigators:

• Barbara Ransby, Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies

Co-Investigators:

• Johari Jabir, Assistant Professor, African American Studies
• Beth Richie, Professor, Institute for Research on Race, Urban Planning, & Policy
• Nicholas Brown, Associate Professor, African American Studies

Summary: The purpose of this Phase 1 grant is to move a prestigious national journal of African American and African Diasporic Studies, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, from the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University in New York to UIC.  The journal has in the past and will continue to address a host of issues relevant to both Community Disparities and Urban Resilience and the Global Environment.   The journal is published quarterly and the process of selecting the content and framing each issue builds intellectual community, forces conversations across disciplinary divides, and generates new ways of understanding and dissecting the Black experience. Professor Ransby was invited to serve as Editor after the death of its founding editor. This move provides an opportunity to create a working group on African Diaspora here drawing from faculty in African American Studies and the affiliates associated with the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy in CUPPA.

Phase 2

1. Urban Medicine Program: Exploring the nexus between education and service

Principal Investigator:

• Jorge Girotti, Assistant Professor, Medical Education

Summary: This project will evaluate the impact of the Urban Medicine (UMed) program on student participants, the College of Medicine, and partner community organizations. UMed was established in 2005 as an optional program for students interested in becoming physician-leaders for urban communities.  Students attend seminars that address community based participatory research methods, community health disparities, and policy and advocacy topics.  Additionally they complete a Longitudinal Community Rotation that connects them with a local organization to develop projects to meet community needs. The questions to be addressed by the evaluation include identifying the appropriate evaluation measures and the curricular needs of community partners which should be incorporated into the program.   Startup funds were provided by the COM and additional support has come from the Chicago Community Trust.  The PIs are seeking additional COM support to institutionalize the program.  Currently only two other medical schools in the country have programs like UMed – both have limitations which UIC’s program has overcome (small size of cohorts and lack of curricular continuity).  This systemic evaluation support would position UIC as the forerunner in addressing persistent health care outcomes in urban settings.     

Phase 3

1. Content learning and identity Construction (CLIC): Science and Mathematics learning among African American Students in Urban Elementary Schools

Principal Investigators:

• Maria Varelas, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• Danny Martin, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
• George Karabatsos, Professor, Educational Psychology
• Justine Kane, Assistant Professor, Teacher Education, Wayne State University

Summary: The proposal outlines a joint effort among science education, mathematics education, educational measurement, and urban education in the College of Education that focuses on learning and development in mathematics and science among Black children in Chicago public elementary schools. To date, there is no research that comprehensively explores the complex relationships among ways in which students construct their selves within a classroom community (e.g., a science or mathematics classroom) and ways in which students participate in the tasks and activities of that community and learn content. The objective of the study is to begin to develop a framework for studying knowledge construction and identity construction as key factors of Black children’s mathematics and science learning in urban classrooms. This theoretical and methodological framework will be a groundbreaking contribution that will further position UIC as a leader in discovering knowledge that can transform urban education around two of the subject areas that are currently receiving increased national attention. The AOE initiative will leverage the PI team’s efforts to secure a large federal (most likely NSF) grant to focus on Black children’s science and mathematics education in urban classrooms in ways that bring attention both to what and how students learn, and to how they position themselves, and others position them, as Black learners of mathematics and science in school settings.

Urban Resilience and the Global Environment

Phase 1

1. Urban water infrastructure, policy, and infectious diseases

Principal Investigators:

• Samuel Dorevitch, Associate Professor, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences
• Charlotte Joslin, Associate Professor, Ophthalmology
• Rachael Jones, Assistant Professor, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences
• Karl Rockne, Associate Professor, Civil and Materials Engineering
• Ruxana Sadikot, Associate Professor, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Summary:  This project will lay the groundwork for creating a UIC Water AOE while developing practical research applications that may be pursued in a multidisciplinary manner.  The establishment of a multidisciplinary research/educational center around this theme within the Great Lakes Area would be unique due to the distinctive focus on urban waters and water infrastructure, public health and medical outcomes, emphasis on latest lab and sampling techniques, and the integration with policy development in collaboration with UIC's Institute for Environmental Science and Policy (IESP). Faculty and students from diverse disciplines across the East and West campuses will be invited to a weekly seminar series at which national leaders will address research priorities in the field of water quality and health.  The speakers will meet with the team of co-investigators to discuss opportunities for collaboration and engage in strategic planning for the AOE.   A preliminary study proposed here integrates various disciplines that collectively explain causes and consequences of compromised urban water quality including but not limited to engineering, environmental microbiology, risk assessment, and population health aspects.  This AOE would make an important contribution to the public health in Illinois and the Great Lakes Area as a whole and therefore has potential local, national, and international significance.

Phase 2

1. Robust ENFONET: Confluence of ENergy Distribution and InFOrmation NETworks     

Principal Investigators:

• Sudip Mazumder, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Philip Yu, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Prasad Sistla, Professor, Computer Science

Summary:  This project addresses challenges that are common to both energy distribution and communications networks.  It will provide a fundamental underpinning of energy-distribution/power and information network science through the computational study of their coupled dynamics enabling understanding of emergent vulnerable behavior. This can lead to robust ENFONET via mitigation of avoidable blackouts, shutdowns, and malfunctions that has cost US economy billions of dollars. The generic and adaptive models and algorithms developed in this project can be extended to analyze interdependencies among other system-of-systems (SOS) and explore diagnosis and prognosis of the networks for health monitoring. Further, the distributed proactive and reactive vulnerability assessment algorithms will lead to robust controls and superior and secure heterogeneous communication protocols as compared to present SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) approaches.  The proposed research will deal with massive dimensionality of the ENFONET and hence its anticipated research outcomes on innovative approaches to distributed modeling, distributed control and communication, and controlled adaptation will be of direct relevance to large-scale wirebased/wireless sensor actuator networks including process control, distributed multi-axis drives, power grid, microgrid, robotics, and building and critical-infrastructure control. Cyber physical energy systems (CPES) such as ENFONET is a relatively new field that merges not only ECE and CS disciplines but also encompasses other areas of engineering (e.g. ME and ChemE) and area of mathematics, physics, and economics. As such, even though there are institutes which have strengths in individual areas of CPES, there is not one or one-set-of institutes(s) that can be considered the ultimate leader. An added reasons for this predicament is due to the fact that, energy related issues often have a strong local component; what works for one region does not always work for everybody. Hence, there is a significant room for UIC to grow. Based on initial analysis, it appears that UIC has at least 20 researchers that can contribute in this area who are spread across the following departments: ECE, CS, MSCS, MIE, CME, Physics, and Business.

Total OVCR Funding: $75,000

2. Development of Railroad Research and Education at UIC

Principal Investigator:

• Ahmed Shabana, Professor, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Co-Investigators:

• Jason Leigh, Professor, Computer Science
• Mohsen Issa, Professor, Civil & Materials Engineering
• Craig Foster, Assistant Professor, Civil & Materials Engineering

Summary:  Much rail research in the U.S. is overseen by the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and consulting firms. Nevertheless, today’s railways, manufacturers, and suppliers are pursuing increased safety, efficiency, sustainability, and productivity through research-based technology advances, to which universities can contribute. UIC has internationally recognized research program focused on the dynamic behaviors of railroad vehicles including vibrations, rider discomfort, and derailments; this program has been supported by FRA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) funding.   This project will make a strategic interdisciplinary advancement into Civil Engineering and the geomechanics of the railroad infrastructure and ballast by providing four COE researchers with support to collaborate with each other for results that can be leveraged for external funding.  The aim is a holistic simulation of the mechanics of the entire railroad system, from the vehicle dynamic system, for which specialized codes already exist, to the track, railroad tie, and ballast system, which have not previously been integrated into vehicle dynamic models that include significant details. Such a systemic simulation capability would make it possible to scientifically determine railroad safe operating procedures under infinitely variable combinations of rail vehicle and rail foundation conditions. The proposed enhancements to existing simulation models should immediately be capable of technology transfer to the FRA, other university research groups, and rail equipment manufacturers. As US rail now enters new territory incrementally, higher speed passenger rail on shared freight track (100-125 mph) and true high speed rail of 220 mph where the US has no prior experience, this AOE will be expanded to include more UIC faculty to build domestic knowledge and lessen dependence on overseas expertise.

Phase 3

1. Building Urban Resilience and Sustainability (BURST): Integrating Adaptive Infrastructure Systems with Institutional and Ecological Functions      

Principal Investigators:

• Thomas Theis, Director, Institute for Environmental Science & Policy
• Isabel Cruz, Professor, Computer Science

Co-Investigators:

• Ning Ai, Assistant Professor, Urban Planning & Policy
• Farhad Ansari, Professor, Civil & Materials Engineering
• Samuel Dorevitch, Associate Professor, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences
• Sarah Dunn, Associate Professor, School of Architecture
• Ernesto Indacochea, Professor, Civil & Materials Engineering
• Kazuya Kawamura, Associate Professor, Urban Planning & Policy
• Jie Lin, Associate Professor, Civil & Materials Engineering
• Emily Minor, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
• Karl Rockne, Associate Professor, Civil & Materials Engineering 
• Eric Welch, Associate Professor, Public Administration
• David Wise, Professor, Biological Sciences
• Moira Zellner, Assistant Professor, Urban Planning & Policy

Summary:  This project will develop a new approach for the conception, analysis, and design of urban infrastructures that is consistent with the sustainability paradigm. It is organized around the principle that resilient and sustainable infrastructures result from a combination of analysis and design, the incorporation of technological advances, intelligent planning, and the interplay of human adaptation and response to the physical and ecological environment. BURST seeks to integrate expertise and findings from engineering systems analysis, information management, agent-based modeling; natural, urban, and industrial ecology; urban planning, economic development, and information theory. This Area of Excellence proposal is the first part of a plan to enhance both research and pedagogical strengths in the area of Urban Sustainability and Resilience at UIC. It is directed at a progressive series of proposal submittals, culminating in a multi-institutional submission to NSF’s Sustainability Research Network (SRN) program during its next planned announcement in the fall of 2013. The funding goal initiated by BURST is intended to result in annual research expenditures of $10 million within five years. The second part of the plan is a proposal to the
Chancellor’s Cluster Initiative to form an interdisciplinary diversity cluster on Urban
Sustainability and Resilience aimed at a set of key faculty hires that will leverage existing strengths at UIC, and catalyze continued growth. The ultimate goal is to propel UIC to a national and international leadership position in the area of urban sustainability and resilience, again within a period of five years.

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