Office of University Communications 

Funding for sponsored research and programs tops $22 million

SPRINGFIELD — For the first time, Missouri State University has topped the $22 million mark for sponsored programs. Preliminary numbers for Fiscal Year 2008 show that Missouri State’s external funding reached an all-time high of $22.4 million, more than doubling its FY 2003 total of $11 million in just five years.

“Our record of sustained growth continues,” said Dr. Jim Baker, the university’s vice president for research and economic development, and director of the office of sponsored research and programs. “Our faculty, staff and administrators work hard to compete for these funds. And the fact that we’ve been able to bring these crucial dollars to Missouri State is a testament to both the quality and quantity of work that is produced at this university.”

This year’s total was 11 percent higher than the FY 2007 amount of $21.7 million. The bulk of the funding for FY 2008 (July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008) came from federal sources, which show a 4 percent increase from last year for an approximate total of $13.1 million. Substantial funding increases were realized from the state (up 20 percent to $6.2 million) and businesses (up 32 percent to $1.7 million). Non-profit organizations showed a 62 percent decrease to $669,191, and international sources were down 88 percent to $32,620. The total also includes $85,523 in funding from counties and cities.

Baker said there were a total of 141 grants awarded for FY 2008. Of the divisions that received external funding, the College of Natural and Applied Sciences received the highest number of awards with 47 totaling $2.5 million. Research and economic development, headed by Baker, received the most funding with approximately $12.5 million, much of which was awarded for the Roy Blunt Jordan Valley Innovation Center.

A sampling of research, education and service projects funded by external sources during Fiscal Year 2008 include:

Regina Bowling , director of the Southwest Missouri Area Health Education Center, and Dr. Helen Reid, acting dean of the College of Health and Human Services, received $638,905 from the Missouri Foundation for Health to establish the Missouri Health Literacy Enhancement Center.

Dr. Dale Law,executive director for the Viticulture and Enology Science and Technology Center (VESTA), Dr. Barry Gumpand Dr. Stanley Howell, per course faculty at the West Plains Campus, and Dr. Karl Wilker, associate research professor of agriculture, received an award of $1,645,899 from the National Science Foundation to ensure that the VESTA Regional Center of Excellence is established and sustained in a manner that addresses the needs of the Mid-America region grape and wine industry.  

Dr. Suzy Cutbirth , director of the Southwest Regional Professional Development Center, received $450,000 from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to hire, house and supervise six full-time employees to work with the RPDC staff, state consultants and supervisors of instruction to improve the academic performance of students with disabilities and ensure regulatory compliance in districts and/or schools in southwest Missouri through consultation, support and the delivery of professional development initiatives as developed by the Division of Special Education.

Dr. David Hough,dean of the College of Education, and Joan Armstrong-Tiehen, associate director of Project ACCESS, received $303,576 from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to provide professional development to Missouri educators and to assist parents with children who experience autism spectrum disorder.   

Mr. Matthew Curry, assistant director of the Jordan Valley Innovation Center, and Rishi Patel, senior research scientist for the Center for Applied Sciences and Engineering (CASE), received $1,385,000 fromthe Office of Naval Research via Brewer Science to perform supporting research in the development of new materials and new processes by building a series of relatively easy-to-build MEMS devices to test the packaging materials and the new processes in real-world device fabrication. 

Dr. Steven Younger, CASE research professor, and Dr. Emmett Redd, professor of physics, astronomy and materials science, received $275,000 fromthe National Science Foundation to perform research and to create an optical fixed-weight learning neural network (OFWL-NN). This network will use optical computing hardware to operate at very high speed – about 10,000 times faster than a Pentium computer and about 10 times faster than the fastest supercomputer. 

Allen Kunkel , associate vice president for economic development, received $142,559 from the Missouri Department of Economic Development to support the operation of Springfield Innovation, Inc. (formerly JVIC, Inc.) as one of only nine Missouri Innovation Centers. Springfield Innovation, Inc., is a non-profit organization that helps entrepreneurs bring new technologies to the marketplace.

Dr. Laszlo Kovacs, research professor of agriculture, Dr. Wenping Qiu, associate research professor of agriculture, Dr. Richard Biagioni, professor of chemistry, and Dr. Paul Durham, director of the Center of Biomedical and Life Sciences, received an $897,955 award from the Missouri Life Sciences Research Board to develop new, high-value commercial products and to enhance disease resistance in grapevines. The commercial products will be related to identifying individual compounds or classes of compounds that confer the health benefits of grapes. That information will lead to the development of grape products, such as food supplements and herbal condiments, with scientifically proven dietary value. Disease resistance in grapevines will be accomplished through gene identification.