For the fourth consecutive year, Missouri State University received an excess of $20 million in grants, according to the office of sponsored research and programs. During Fiscal Year 2010, which ended June 30, 184 grants were awarded, totaling $20,108,260 in additional resources for the university.

Externally sponsored grants and contracts assist university departments, faculty and staff in achieving their goals of education, research and service projects. The economic downturn greatly reduced the amount of funding available from many of the federal, international, nonprofit and local sources, but according to Marina Zordell-Reed, sponsored research and programs coordinator, state agencies and businesses were able to provide more funding, which helped to compensate for the decline in other areas.

“This was a difficult year in terms of garnering external funding for the university. We had many funding agencies that were dealing with much smaller budgets, which in turn meant decreased dollars to some of our programs and in some cases discontinuation of the funding,” said Zordell-Reed. “The faculty and staff of Missouri State University should be commended on their efforts to support these programs and projects. They took what could have been a dire year in terms of funding and found different sources of funding, keeping our overall funding levels very close to what we have been able to obtain in previous years.”

Federal agencies continued to provide the greatest amount of funding for FY10 (July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010), with an approximate total of $11.23 million. State agencies supplied $4.96 million (compared to $3.7 million in FY 09), county and city agencies provided $106,697, businesses provided $2.45 million (an increase of 50 percent from FY09), nonprofit agencies provided $1.34 million and international agencies funded approximately $10,000 in projects.

These grants will help advance the university’s initiatives. A sampling of research, education and service projects funded by external sources during Fiscal Year 2010 include:

Dr. Lifeng Dong, assistant professor of physics, astronomy and materials science, received the Cottrell College Science Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. The award is for the research project “DNA-Templated Synthesis of Platinum Nanoparticles on Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes and Structural Characterizations.” The award will provide $35,000 to support Dong and his students’ work, including travel to the National Center for Electron Microscopy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to conduct experiments.

Missouri’s Department of Higher Education awarded Dr. Lynda Plymate, professor of mathematics, a $175, 558 grant for her project entitled “Building and Connecting Mathematical Concepts Through In-Depth and Technology-Rich Explorations.”

Diane May, assistant professor of planning, was awarded a $24,950 grant for her project, “Missouri Small Wastewater Facilities Need Assessment.” The funding was provided by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources via the Boonslick Regional Planning Commission.

Dr. Janice Greene, professor of biology; and Celeste Prussia, Bull Shoals Field Station manager, received a grant of $11,350 from the Greater Ozarks Audubon Society to fund the “Green Leadership Academy for Diverse Ecosystems (GLADE).” GLADE is a week-long residential academy at the Missouri State University Bull Shoals Field Station. Sixteen area teens with the desire to impact their communities in the areas of environmental sciences and conservation leadership, were chosen to participate.

Dorothy Wittorff-Sandgren, community development coordinator for the Southwest Missouri Council of Governments, received an $18,252 grant from the City of Buffalo, Mo. for her project, “City of Buffalo Multi-Purpose Mallory Elementary School Tornado Safe Room.” The Southwest Missouri Council of Governments (SMCOG) is a voluntary association of local governments in the ten-county area of southwest Missouri.

Dalen Duitsman, director of the Ozarks Public Health Institute, received a $20,000 grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health via the University of Missouri-Columbia to complete the project, “MU Case and Smokebusters-Phase II Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Initiative.”

Missouri State University received a $148,937 grant from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for the “Universal Newborn Hearing Screening – Reducing Lost to Follow-Up” project. This project will provide hearing screening services, follow-up services and education for families of newborns who do not pass a hearing screening at birth or that are diagnosed with hearing loss shortly after birth.

The Southwest Regional Professional Development Center (SRPDC) at Missouri State University, directed by Suzy Cutbirth, received a grant totaling $1,517,538 from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This is a renewal of a multi-year contract for the SRPDC. The funds will further programming and maintain services.