DISC has continued its research seed funding program designed to incentivize transdisciplinary, convergent research teams focused on tackling grand challenges. Seed funding allows OU researchers to incubate ideas with the potential for future extramural support.
| Project Title | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Bias-Aware Evaluation of Generative Search Engines: An Exploratory Study | Jiqun Liu (PI) | $9,985 |
| Genomics and machine learning to predict the zoonotic potential of bat hemoplasmas | Daniel Becker (PI) | $10,000 |
| Efficient Computational Approaches for Rapid Evaluation and Prediction of Processing-Microstructure Relation in Metal Additive Manufacturing | Shuozhi Xu (PI), Cesar Ruiz (co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Advancing Young Children's Mental and Behavioral Health Equity in the face of Climate Change through Machine Learning and Environmental Data: A Pilot Study | Xiaolan Liao (PI), Dan Wang (co-PI), Hongwan Li (co-PI), Huajian Cai (co-PI), La'Chanda K. Stephens-Totimeh (co-PI), David Bard (co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Hybrid image/data-driven machine learning approaches for structural design of advanced composites | Yijie Jiang (PI), Hanping Ding (co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Oklahoma Natural Resource GIS Data Acquisition and Preparation for PTMApp Proof of Concept | Lori Han (PI) | $10,0000 |
| Mining Big Data to Understand Innovation and Growth in the Long-Term | Kyle Harper (PI), Kun Lu (co-PI) | $9,857 |
| ForenCaps: Advanced Capsule Networks for Audio Forensic Analysis | Shangqing Zhao (PI), Samuel Cheng (co-PI), Christopher Freeze (Co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Improve the Safety of Urban Mobility Using the Integration of Smart Infrastructure and Connected Vehicles | Golnaz Habibi (PI) | $10,000 |
| Physics-Informed Forecasting and Risk Assessment of Human-Induced Seismicity | Junle Jiang (PI) | $10,000 |
| Qualitative Data Collection of Ukranian Migrants in Poland | Martin Piotrowski (PI), Nathan Marks (Co-PI), Marta Warsaw(Co-PI), Annabel Ipsen(Co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Unveiling Shadows: An Exploratory Study of Misinformation Dynamics and Immigrant Integration in Community Discourse on NextDoor | Qiong Wang (PI), June Abbas(Co-PI), Heyjie Jung (Co-PI), Jeong-Nam Kim (Co-PI), Ted Matherly (Co-PI) | $9,550 |
| Project Title | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Community Informed AI-based Treefall Vulnerability Assessment within the Built Enviroment under Extreme Weather Events | Aikterini Kyprioti (PI), Chris Malloy(Co-PI), Georgia Kosmopoulou (Co-PI), Justine McCarthy (Co-PI), Kuhika Ripberger (Co-PI), Dimitrios Diochnos (Co-PI) | $5,000, (ICAST contributed $26,000) |
| Mitigating Deepfakes in Platforms and Organizations | Yifu Li (PI), Lacey Schley (Co-PI), Matthew Jensen (Co-PI), Rui Zhu (Co-PI) | $5,000, (ICAST contributed $25,000) |
| Creating Opportunities to Navigate Health and Safety Hazard in Ottowa County, Oklahoma by Designing a Geospatial Database | Laurel Smith (PI), Todd Fagin (Co-PI), Jackie Vadjunec (Co-PI), Jennifer Koch (Co-PI) | $5,000, (ICAST contributed $23,000) |
| Shedding Light on the Shadows: Economic Integration in the Face of Anti-Immigration Stigma | Weiyu Wang (PI), June Abbas (Co-PI), Heyjie June (Co-PI), Jeong-Nam Kim (Co-PI), Sunha Yeo (Co-PI) | $5,000 (ICAST contributed $25,000) |
| Project Title | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| A Deep Learning Approach to Identify Center Pivot Irrigation in the High Plains and Quantify Hydrological Dynamics | Todd Fagin (PI), Jason Vogel (Co-PI) | $5,000 |
| The OU Microplastic Research Center: The Importance of Soil Environments and Climate Change | Tingting Gu (PI), Mark Nanny (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Producer Knowledge and Perceptions of Biochar for Improving Soil Health and Combating the Invasive Eastern Red Cedar in Rural Oklahoma | Lori Ann Han (PI), Matthew Bray (Co-PI), Robert Nairn (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Project Title | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Advanced Characterization of Hybrid Composites using Deep Learning | Sanjida Ferdousi, Md Nurul Islam | $2,500 |
| Uncovering The Microbiome: Data–Enabled STEM Engagement in Rural Oklahoma | Horvey M. Palacios (PI), Robin Singleton (Co-PI), Brittany Bingham (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Exploring User Cognitive Aspects in Human-Large Language Model Interaction: A Feasibility Study | Ben Wang (PI), Jinmiao Chen (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Developing a Comprehensive Short Form Assessment Tool for Misophonia Stratification | Catherine Bain (PI), Jordan Norris (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Construction, utilization and cosmology of the Indigenous Achuar House in the Central Western Amazon | Felipe Flores (PI) | $2,200 |
| Mitigating Chatbot Communication Breakdown: A User-Chatbot Congruence Perspective | Weiyu Wang (PI), Hua Ye (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Intermittent-Flow Respirometer for Small Aquatic Organisms | Justine Rionach McCarthy (PI), Dr. Laura Stein (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Materials Language Processing: A Pilot Study on Domain-Specific Fine-Tuning and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models | Xin Wang (PI), Anshu Raj (Co-PI) | $2,500 |
| Project Title | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| The Interaction between Virtual Multi-Sensory Environments and Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in Central Oklahoma | Nega Heidari Matin (PI) Anna Nguyen (PI) Ye Ji Yi (Co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Spatially Explicit Delineation for Boundaries of Social-Environmental Systems: A Case in the Rio Grande - Rio Bravo basin | Selena Feng (PI), Jennifer Koch (co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Implementing an automated, high-resolution tracking system to reveal social network dynamics in a socially gregarious songbird | Alexandra Bentz (PI), Golnaz Habibi (co-PI), Eli Bridge (co-PI) | $10,000 |
| Developing a Novel Methodology in R for Mapping Biometric Data onto Architectural Floorplans | Angela Person (PI), Chris Black (co-PI) | $7,500 |
| An Improved Data Science Application to Support Operational Disease Forecasting | Mike Wimberly | $10,000 |
| The Water-saving Potential of Sprinkler Irrigation Systems Across Winter Wheat Farms in Oklahoma | Nishan Bhattarai, Pradeep Wagle | $10,000 |
| Towards a Robust Active Learning Workflow for Machine Learning Assisted Free Energy Simulation of Enzyme Reactions | Yihan Shao | $10,000 |
| Leveraging Machine Learning and Weather Radar to Identify Changes in Bat Migration and Implications for Pathogen Dispersal | Daniel Becker, Amy McGovern, Eli Bridge, Jeff Kelly, Jeremy Ross | $10,000 |
| Integrating Multiple Datasets to Develop a Historical Comprehensive Hourly Urban Weather Database (CHUWD) for Energy System Modeling | Chenghao Wang | $10,000 |
| Applying Micro-Level Data to Estimate the Economic Value of Hazard-Related Information | Jayash Paudel, Kim Klockow-McClain, Justin E. Sharpe | $7,500 |
| Essential yet Disposable: Confronting Data Challenges for Studying Refugee and Immigrant Workers During COVID-19 | Annabel Ipsen | $7,500 |
| Nanocrystalline Transition Metal Oxides for a New Generation of Lithium-Ion Batteries | Wilson Merchan-Merchan, Jie Cai, Mrinal C. Saha, Bin Xu, Dong Zhang | $10,000 |
| Pilot Study to Investigate a Systematic Framework to Improve Data Quality for a National Child Welfare Database | Yutian Thompson, Hairong Song, David Bard, Jane Silovsky, Jonathan Picklesimer, Yaqi Li | $10,000 |
| Availability of Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations and EV Adoption Rate | Kwangyul Choi, Anni Yang | $10,000 |
| Interactive Visual Analytics Framework for Identifying Unique Motifs in Cas9 Protein Sequences | Ji Hwan Park, Rakhi Rajan | $7,000 |
| Asian Immigrants' Diabetes Disparity | Yong-Mi Kim, Sunny Kim, Suchismita Bhattacharjee, June Abbas, Sailatha Thomas, Pranay Kathuria, Insung Kim | $10,000 |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Examining the Role of Large-Scale Language Models and Prompt Engineering in Enhancing Department of Defense Supply Chain Readiness | Naveen Kumar (PI), Pankhuri Malhotra (co-PI) | $14,000 |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Interweaving Hydrology and Indigenous Knowledge for Flood-related Environmental Justice with the Otoe-Missouria Tribe | Farina King, Yang Hong, Allen Li, Mengye Chen, Chengbin Deng,Theresa Tsoodle | $10,000 from DISC $20,000 from ICAST |
| Leveraging Big Data to Improve Quality in Infants’ and Toddlers’ Language Learning Environments | Wonkyung Jang, Diane Horm, Ryan Kasak, Kun Lu, Ji Hwan Park, Kyong-Ah Kwon | $10,000 from DISC $20,000 from ICAST |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Assessing the knowledge, awareness, and perception of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on renewable energy technologies in Nigeria: A paradigm shift in energy education. | Chinedu Candidus Nsude | $2,500 |
| Trends In Adolescent Suicide Attempts During The Onset Of A Global Pandemic, And The Protective Factors Of School Based Socialization | Adon Rosen, Justin Durham | $2,500 |
| Rockfish Project | Robin Singleton, Alice Lee | $2,500 |
| Synthesizing Graduate Student Research with Global Climate Science Priorities | Angela Rosellini-Labombarde, Ebone Smith | $2,500 |
| Urban Landscape: Eco-Social Interactions and Park Configurations Influencing Human Exposure to Ticks in Oklahoma City | Melissa Marquez, Himel Talukder, Shu Sun | $2,410.95 |
| Facilitating Gradient Student Involvement in the CODE Workshop | Elizabeth Besozzi, Paula Cimprich, Mehrnaz Afkhami | $2,500 |
| With Our Own Eyes: Using Photovoice for Youth in Foster Care to Understand Aspirations | Rin Ferraro, Sarah Connelly, Heather Lepper Pappan | $2,490 |
| Using High-Speed Film to Make Evolutionary Inferences About Feeding Biomechanisms | Michelle St. John (PI), Laura Stein (Co-PI) | $4,999.97 |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Automated Pancreatic Tumor Segmentation with Improved Capsule Networks | Samuel Cheng, Bin Zheng, Theresa Thai | $80,000 |
| A proof-of-concept study aimed at leveraging cognitive computing to optimize patient selection, speed of accrual and on-treatement data capture for phase 1 oncology clinical trials at the Setphenson Cancer Center | Abdul Rafeh Naqash, Chongle Pan, Kun Lu | $20,000 |
| Project | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Advancing data science to understand social attitude changes related to climate disasters | Heather Bedle | $8,000 |
| Leveraging Commuting Data to Understand Diurnal Variation in Poverty Exposure | J. Tom Mueller | $8,000 |
| Interacting genetic and imaging biomarkers for sex differences in Alzheimer's disease risk | Yuan Yang, Dee Wu, Andry Yabluchanshiy, William Sonntag | $10,000 |
| Locating, Cataloging, and Assessing Historical Land Ownership Data in Rural African American Communities in Western Oklahoma | Kalenda Eaton | $7,000 |
| Increasing Belonging Through Undergraduate Research Experiences for Community College Students interested in Data Science | Ann Beutel, Matthias Nollert | $8,800 |
| Active Learning Method for Fair and Useful Learning to Rank (L2R) in Information Retrieval | Jiqun Liu, Chao Lan | $9,800 |
| Quantifying the Availability of Groundwater in Underdeveloped Rural Areas from Geophysical Data | Sina Saneiyan | $6,500 |
| Analysis of Single Molecule RNA Sequencing Data to Discover How Viruses Reprogram Host Gene Expression | Susan Schroeder | $10,200 |
| The Social and Economic Cost of Brands Staying Silent on Sociopolitical Issues | Pankhuri Malhotra, Yashoda Bhagwat, Nooshin Warren | $10,000 |
| Statistics Helper by Claire Curry, University Libraries | Claire Curry | $10,000 |
| A proof-of-concept study aimed at leveraging cognitive computing to optimize patient selection, speed of accrual, and on-treatment data capture for phase 1 oncology clinical trials at the Stephenson Cancer Center | Kun Lu | $10,000 |
| The Decision Environment of Resilient Communities | Katerina Tsetsura, Dean Hougen, Xiaochen Zhan | $12,433 |
| Air, Water, and Work in Ottawa and Delaware Counties | Laurel Smith | $10,000 |
| Congressional Correspondence Handwriting Textract Project | Michael Crespin, JA Pryce | $2500 |
| Access Granted: Engaging with Fragile Illuminated Manuscripts | Bill Endres, Kristi Wyatt, Bobby Reed | $10,000 |
| A Publicly Available, High-Resolution Dataset on Land Cover Characteristics for the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area | Jennifer Koch, Kevin Neal | $7,208 |
| Project | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Securing Critical Networks from Weaponized Disinformation Attacks: Initial Surveys | Kash Barker, Elena Bessarabova, Andrés González, Sridhar Radhakrishnan | $10,000 from DISC $10,000 from OADII |
| Enhancing DoD Vaccine Innovation and Supply for Warfighters and Biodefense | Myongjin Kim, Junying Zhao | $10,000 from DISC $10,000 from OADII |
| Project | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding Equity and Opportunity for Myanmar Refugee Children and their Families | Vicki Lake, Boo Young Lim, June Abbas, Wonkyoung Jang, Chie Noyori-Corbett, Jiening Ruan, Sheri Castle | $10,000 from DISC $20,000 from ICAST |
| Developing Mobile Technology to Assist with Youth Diversion Services | David Mcleod, Dean Hougen, Constance Chapple | $10,000 from DISC $20,000 from ICAST |
| Longitudinal Development of Children Growing up in Poverty: The Mix of Child, Family, School, and Neighborhood | Shinyoung Jeon, Sheri Castle, Liz Frechette, Mike Wimberly, Bryce Lowery | $10,000 from DISC $20,000 from ICAST |
| Community Informed AI-based Treefall Vulnerability Assessment within the Built Environment under Extreme Weather Events | Aikaterini Kyprioti, Dimitrios Diochnos, Chris Malloy, Justine McCarthy, Kuhika Ripberger | $5,000 from DISC $26,000 from ICAST |
| Mitigating Deepfakes in Platforms and Organizations | Yifu Li, Rui Zhu, Lacey Schley, Matthew Jensen | $5,000 from DISC $25,000 from ICAST |
| Creating Opportunities to Navigate Health and Safety Hazard in Ottowa County, Oklahoma by Designing a Geospatial Database | Smith, Todd Fagin, Jackie Vadjunec, Jennifer Koch | $5,000 from DISC $23,000 from ICAST |
| Shedding Light on the Shadows: Economic Integration in the Face of Anti-Immigration Stigma | Qiong Wang, June Abbas, Heyjie Jung, Jeong-Nam Kim, Ted Matherly, Sunha Yeo | $5,000 from DISC $25,000 from ICAST |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Creation of a Sustainable and Holistic Refugee Resettlement Model (SHRRM) | Chie Noyori-Corbett, June Abbas, Suchismita Bhattacharjee, Ronald Frantz Jr., Sunny Lee, Ying Wang, Jiening Ruan, Qiong Wang | $20,000 |
| Enabling Tribal Data Sovereignty | Paul Spicer, Amanda Cobb-Greetham, Laura Harjo, Raina Heaton, Taiawagi Helton, Kelvin White, Deven Carlson, David Ebert, Jennifer Koch, Audrey Reinert | $20,000 |
| Understanding, Predicting and Countering Vaccine Misinformation and Disinformation | Shane Connelly, Georgia Kosmopoulou, Kash Baker, Rachel Blum, Barbara Carlson, Mark Doescher, Christian Grant, Amanda Janitz, Matthew Jensen, Lori Jervis, Sunny Lee, Glenn Leshner, Laura-Isobel McCall, Shaila Miranda, Nancy Snow, Heshan Sun, Sridhar Radjakrishnan, Kent Teague, Aaron Wendelboe | $20,000 |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Expediting the Industrial Adoption of Additively Manufactured Titanium Alloys by Deep-Learning Assisted Process-Property Design and Informative Machine Learning Augmented Process Optimization and In-Situ Monitoring for High Throughput Additive Manufacturing of Structural Composites | Yingtao Liu, Iman Ghamarian, Jin-Song Pei, Dean Hougen, Le Gruenwald, Zahed Siddique | $10,000 |
| Towards Improving the Prediction of Blocking Patterns and Extreme Weather on Subseasonal-to-Seasonal Timescales | Steven Cavallo, James Rupert, Dimitrios Diochnos, Sivaramakrishnar Lakshmivarahan, Audrey Reinert, Jason Furtado | $10,000 |
| The Decision Environment of Resilient Communities | Katerina Tsetsura, Xiaochen Zheng, Dean Hougen | $10,000 |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
| Accelerated Optoelectronic Materials Design and Discovery Guided by Machine Learning and Advanced Computation | Dean Hougen, Samuel Cheng, Kun Lu, Bin Wang, Byram Saparov | $3,000 |
| Blending data streams to create reliable ecological forecasts | Dean Hougen, Yifu Li, Jeff Kelly, Charles Nicholson | $4,000 |
| Machine-Learning (ML) Assisted Molecular and Coarse-Scaled Dynamics | Samuel Cheng, Deepak Devegowda, Dean Hougen, Yihan Shao | $3,000 |
| Awardee | Team Members | Amount Awarded |
| Wastewater Synoptic Survey of Opioids and Other Illicit Drugs in Rural Communities across Oklahoma | Jason Vogel, Erin Maher, Daniel Snow, Bradley Stevenson, Halley Reeves, Katrin Khun, Bryce Lowery | $10,000 |
| The Health and Economic Impact of a New Multidisciplinary Clinic to Treat Infective Endocarditis (IE) due to Intravenous Drug Use (IDU) | David Bard, Aneesh Venkat Pakala, Nelson Ivan, Agudelo Higuita, Michael Brand, Junying Zhao, Hairong Song | $5,000 |
