RIT Researchers Achieve New Milestone in Level of Sponsored Funding

A growing commitment to research activity at Rochester Institute of Technology has been rewarded with the highest level of sponsored funding in the university’s history.

RIT’s principal investigators (PIs) were awarded more than $32.3 million in grants during 2005, according to the university’s Office of Sponsored Research Services. That’s an increase of $2.3 million over the previous year. Nearly 1,100 grant proposals were submitted last year by 265 members of RIT’s faculty and staff.

“There’s an old axiom that says, ‘If you don’t ask, you won’t receive,” says Marjorie Zack, director of Sponsored Research Services. “We put together a lot of vision this past year—a lot of good grant writing—and there were hundreds of people on campus engaged in that activity.”

The value of RIT’s individual grant requests last year ranged from $250 to $17 million. The largest award during that period was $3.6 million from the Office of Naval Research to support the study of remanufacturing in RIT’s Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies.

Additionally, during the past year, 10 researchers and research entities reached a total funding level of $1 million or more as a result of their individual grant-writing activities at RIT since 2000. These new inductees to the Million Dollar PI Club were among those honored during a ceremony on campus for RIT’s PIs on Feb. 22.

Risa Robinson, associate professor of mechanical engineering in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, is one of the 2005 “millionaires.” Robinson admits researching and writing a grant proposal can be time consuming and that there are no guarantees of funding.

“The process can be discouraging, particularly for young investigators,” she says. “It’s really great that RIT recognizes the effort it takes just to write a proposal. The millionaires club is an added bonus and a fun way to mark a milestone in one’s career.”

Robinson is in the midst of a pair of separately funded studies, including one sponsored by Philip Morris USA Inc. That project explores new mechanisms to better measure the impact on diseased lungs from the inhalation of toxic aerosols. The other study, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, measures the risk to smokers from specific carcinogens found in the smoke of newer cigarette brands.

Other inductees to RIT’s Million Dollar PI Club from 2005 include Greg Evershed, senior program manager at RIT’s Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies (CIMS); Susan Foster, professor of research and teacher education at RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID); Santosh Kurinec, professor and department chair of microelectonics engineering; Marc Marschark, professor and director of the Center for Education Research Partnerships at NTID; Kenneth Posman, industrial education program manager at RIT’s Printing Industry Center; Jeffrey Robinson, director of Substance and Alcohol Intervention Services at NTID; James Winebrake, professor and department chair of science, technology and public policy; the Imaging Products Laboratory within CIMS; and Manufacturing Technologies within CIMS.

Sponsored Research Services has inducted 28 millionaires into the Million Dollar PI Club since its inception in 2001.