June 3, 2026

Please join the Office of Research Development in congratulating the faculty members who have received Spring 2026 Faculty Development Awards and University Small Research Grants. 

Nine Faculty Development Award proposals were awarded funds totaling $27,729. 

The Spring 2026 FDA awardees are: 

Four University Small Research Grant proposals will receive funds totaling $19,031. 

The Spring 2026 USRG awardees are: 

Congratulations to all awardees! 

Faculty Development Awards and University Small Research Grants are awarded each fall and spring by the Office of the Vice President for Research through the Office of Research Development. 

Faculty Development Awards support travel expenses to present research, scholarly or creative work or a performance at an international meeting or to visit an external funder or sponsor. University Small Research Grants are seed grants to support small research projects, scholarly activity, and other creative efforts. Both programs are meant to catalyze a faculty member's RSCAD career success. As such, new faculty and faculty from disciplines with minimal outside support are given priority for both awards, as are trips or projects that enhance awardees' abilities to compete for extramural funding. All proposals are peer-reviewed and discussed in a panel. Unsuccessful applicants are given feedback on how to improve their proposals. 

The FDA and USRG reviewers were Mary Lou Marino, Office of Research Development; Ramasamy Sakthivel, Office of Research Development; Gina Becker, Office of Research Development; Maria Diehl, Psychological Sciences; Angela Kraemer-Holland, Education; Benjamin McCloskey, Modern Languages; Nadia Oweidat, History; Naidan Tu, Psychological Sciences; Anna Zemlyanova, Mathematics; Zhiwei Zhang, Political Science. The contributions of the reviewers are highly appreciated.   

Please join the Office of Research Development in congratulating the faculty members who have received Spring 2026 Design, Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Awards. 

Ten Design, Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Awards proposals were awarded funds totaling $98,338. 

The 2026 OVPR awardees are: 

Five 2026 DASH awards are being supported by the One K-State Fund: 

Congratulations to all awardees! 

Design, Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Awards are awarded each spring by the Office of the Vice President for Research through the Office of Research Development. 

Design, Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Awards support faculty researchers working in the fields of design, arts, social sciences, and humanities. This is an annual opportunity for one-time, one-year $10,000 awards to support research, scholarly work, or creative activities. 

All proposals are peer-reviewed and discussed in a panel. Unsuccessful applicants are given feedback on how to improve their proposals. 

The DASH reviewers were Mary Lou Marino, Office of Research Development; Ramasamy Sakthivel, Office of Research Development; Gina Becker, Office of Research Development; Grant Alford, Architecture, Planning and Design; Gina Besenyi, Health Sciences; Bruce Glymour, Philosophy; Vera Smirnova, Geography and Geospatial Sciences; Karin Westman, English; Anna Marie Wytko, Music, Theatre and Dance. The contributions of the reviewers are highly appreciated.   

Joyce Baptist, faculty member in Couple and Family Therapy, is looking for participants (18 to 65 years old) for a clinical study aimed at improving treatments for major depression. Volunteers will be randomized into one of two treatment groups, where they will receive 16 sessions of either Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).

For more information or to volunteer, please contact Tanvi at tgadgil@ksu.edu. IRB approval # 11206.

The 2027-2028 Fulbright U.S. Student Program competition launched on March 31! The Program offers over 1,800 awards to approximately 140 countries each year, allowing award recipients to conduct independent research, graduate study, or an English Teaching Assistantship in a host country of their choosing. U.S. citizens who hold will hold a bachelor’s degree by the award start date, and who will not have a PhD conferred by the application deadline, are eligible to apply. The application will close on October 6, 2026, at 4 p.m. Applicants may visit the website for more information on webinars, eligibility requirements, application components, country award details, and more.  

K-State’s Office of Scholar Development and Undergraduate Research’s (SDUR) staff, Beth Powers and Kyle Padden, will work with students over the summer to meet the internal campus deadline of August 15. Individuals can learn more about the Student Fulbright program and K-State's process here. Beth and Kyle welcome questions from interested students, faculty or staff at sdur@ksu.edu.

NSF webinars & office hours:

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) will host an informational webinar to provide a program overview and respond to questions from prospective applicants to PAR-27-032 "Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (ESI)".

Find more information or join the meeting here.

Thursday, June 4, 2026

The U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP) invites you to attend the second of four introductory webinars on the recently released NSF X-Labs initiative. This second webinar will focus on the topic: Quantum Interconnects and Integrated Photonics. Register in advance to attend.

NSF X-Labs represent a bold, flexible, and outcomes-driven initiative designed to build and accelerate novel platform technologies capable of unlocking entirely new sectors, including new fields of scientific inquiry. The program will support full-time research and development (R&D) teams focused on use-inspired scientific breakthroughs and foundational platform technologies that traditional university and industry labs cannot easily address. NSF X-Labs teams will benefit from ambitious R&D goals, operational autonomy, milestone-based funding, and the ability to engage across academia, industry, national laboratories, and nonprofit sectors. NSF X-Labs will bet on ambitious, full-time teams working with urgency and purpose, and provide them with the structure, resources, and flexibility necessary to cultivate early-stage platform technologies that will accelerate breakthroughs and unlock entirely new sectors of the economy.

Congress appropriated $1.27B in FY26 funding for CDMRP through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 signed into law on February 3, 2026. CDMRP is releasing its FY26 research program funding opportunities and hosting four webinars for the program areas. These meetings will be recorded. Live attendance as well as the recordings can be viewed using the same links provided below.

June 3, 12-1 p.m. Topic areas: Alzheimer's, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, Ovarian Cancer, Pancreatic Cancer, Peer Reviewed Cancer, Peer Reviewed Medical, and Vision.
June 10, 12-1 p.m. Topic areas: Arthritis, Lupus, Melanoma, Military Burn, Multiple Sclerosis, TBI/Psychological Health, Tick Borne Diseases and Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.
June 24, 12-1 p.m. Topic areas: Autism, Bone Marrow Failure, Combat Readiness, Epilepsy, Hearing Restoration, Orthopedic, Reconstructive Transplant and Spinal Cord Injury.
July 8, 12-1 p.m. Topic areas: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Joint Warfighter Medical, Kidney Cancer, Neurofibromatosis, Parkinsons, Prostate Cancer, Rare Cancers and Toxic Exposures.

BioNexus KC invites you to transform your scientific images into art, featured in a professional exhibition and online auction that supports STEAM education in the Kansas City region.

Your research tells a powerful story. Submit your scientific images to our Science2Art program and help showcase the impact of science across our region. The deadline to submit is June 7, 2026.

By submitting your research or data as art, you can:
- Bridge the scientific and artistic communities
- Inspire the next generation of STEAM innovators
- Extend the reach and visibility of your work beyond academia

Every piece contributed helps fuel something larger than the artwork itself. To date, Science2Art has raised over $170,000 to reinvest in educational programs.

Monday, June 8

The U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (NSF MPS) holds regular office hours to share information with materials researchers, administrators and others in the U.S. materials research community.

The MPS Materials Research office hour event on June 8 will focus on the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (NSF CAREER) program. The agencywide NSF CAREER program supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead in the advances of their department or organization's mission.

Register here.

We are currently recruiting peer reviewers with expertise in agricultural economics, finance and insurance in addition to agricultural resilience, soil science and natural resource management for the Resilient Agriculture Finance and Insurance Research Collaborative, a joint initiative of FFAR, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.  

The purpose of this program is to accelerate the development of finance and insurance innovations that enable farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses to invest in practices, technologies and production systems that improve farmer resilience to adverse events that affect their operations.

Qualified reviewers with expertise relevant to the submitted full proposals will be asked to review up to three proposals in August of this year. In appreciation for completing a review, an optional honorarium is available to eligible, non-government employees. 

To participate and receive more information, please complete the following two-minute form by June 26.