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The Offices of Research, Innovation & Economic Development Sacramento State

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Research & Creative Activity Program

RCA Subcommittee

The Research and Creative Activity Awards Subcommittee, a subcommittee of the Faculty Policies Committee (FPC), administers the Research and Creative Activity Awards program, the University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty, and the University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Senior Faculty.

23/24 Voting Members

  • Sadaf Ashtari, College of Business (Chair)
  • Nikolaos Lazaridis, College of Arts & Letters
  • Mei Shen, College of Education
  • Rohollah Moghadam, College of Engineering & Computer Science
  • Susanna Curry, College of Health & Human Services
  • Anna Patterson, College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics
  • Clara Scarry, College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Samantha McClellan, Library
  • Vacant, At-Large Member
  • Vacant, Faculty Policies Committee Member

Non-Voting/Ex-Officio Members

  • Adam Rechs, Faculty Senate
  • Mariappan Jawaharlal, Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development

RCA Faculty Awards Program

The purpose of the RCA Awards Program is to support faculty research, scholarly, and creative activity, and to encourage faculty contributions to their disciplines. This program is funded in part through the CSU Chancellor's Office and Academic Affairs. It is administered by the RCA Subcommittee with support from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.

In most cases, award recipients will produce a peer-reviewed and/or discipline or field-specific scholarly outcome, such as an article or manuscript submitted for publication, grant proposal, exhibition, performance, prototype, data collection and/or analysis for a grant proposal or publication, etc. Award recipients must also submit a required project report documenting the results of their work at the conclusion of the funding period.

All Unit 3 faculty are eligible and encouraged to apply (including full-time faculty, part-time faculty, temporary faculty, probationary and tenured faculty, lecturers, coaches, librarians, and counselors, as outlined in the Unit 3 Bargaining Agreement).

2024-25 Call for Proposals
Submission Deadline: December 4, 2023.

RCA Awardees

Award for Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity for Early Career

University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty

This award was established in 1989 and is given each year to recognize a colleague in the first ten years of their faculty appointment who has made significant contributions to his or her discipline through scholarly activity, research and publication, or creative and artistic endeavors. The award includes $2,500 in professional development funds and three units of release time from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.

Faculty who are eligible for the award must be tenured or tenure-track faculty within the first ten years of their appointment (including tenure and tenure-track appointments at other universities), and must have been employed at Sacramento State for the past three academic years.

The 2022/23 Early-Career Award Winner

Nicole Fox Awardee Poster

Nicole Fox, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Criminal Justice)

Dr. Nicole Fox earned her PhD in Sociology from Brandeis University, where she studied social movements, religion, and gender, with an emphasis on how communities heal in the aftermath of genocide. Dr. Fox’s interest in studying genocide stems largely from a trip she took to Rwanda in 2010, which changed her life’s trajectory. After traveling to Rwanda, Dr. Fox decided to study Rwanda for her dissertation and, specifically, to analyze how people remember the genocide. She returned there to live during 2011 and 2012 for her dissertation work.

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Award for Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity for Senior Faculty

University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Senior Faculty

This award was established in 1989 and is given each year to recognize a colleague in the first ten years of their faculty appointment who has made significant contributions to his or her discipline through scholarly activity, research and publication, or creative and artistic endeavors. The award includes $2,500 in professional development funds and three units of release time from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.

Faculty who are eligible for the award must be tenured or tenure-track faculty within the first ten years of their appointment (including tenure and tenure-track appointments at other universities), and must have been employed at Sacramento State for the past three academic years.

The 2022/23 Award Winner

Katherine McReynolds Awardee Poster

Katherine McReynolds, Ph.D. (Professor of Chemistry)

Dr. Katherine (Kathie) McReynolds is a native Californian. She is proud to be a product of the CSU system, having received her BS in Biochemistry from Cal Poly SLO in 1994. Upon graduating, she immediately embarked on her journey to earning a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Arizona. While in graduate school, Dr. McReynolds studied carbohydrate chemistry under Dr. Jacquelyn Gervay-Hague and focused on the synthesis and biological evaluation of glycolipids against HIV. This began her career-long study of the biomedical importance of carbohydrates. Upon completion of her PhD in 1999, she returned to California to the Sacramento area and started her postdoctoral studies under Dr. Frederic Troy at UC Davis. Here, she focused on the chain lengths of a specific sugar, sialic acid, on cell surfaces and the implications of this on cancer metastasis vs. normal embryonic development.

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