The Offices of the President, the Provost, and the Vice President for Research are pleased to announce the 14 recipients of the 2020 Faculty Opportunity Funds. The Faculty Opportunity Fund program was created in 2018 to support Chapman University faculty in the development of new and innovative research, scholarship, and creative activity. A total of $177,037 was awarded this year to six (6) Colleges/Schools as part of 2020 Faculty Opportunity Funds.

Thirty-eight (38) proposals totaling $512,641 were submitted to this competitive awards program. They were reviewed by four disciplinary faculty review panels consisting of faculty from Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Argyros School of Business and Economics; Attallah College of Education Studies; Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences; College of Performing Arts; School of Pharmacy; and Schmid College of Science and Technology. Panel recommendations were made to Thomas Piechota, Vice President for Research; Ren Ostrom, Faculty Fellow; and Tara Gruenewald, Faculty Development Committee Chair. Congratulations to the following recipients:

“Straumr”: Royal Scottish National Orchestra Recording Session and Ablaze Records International Release ($10,625)
Jeffery Holmes, College of Performing Arts

Transfection of Breast Cancer Cells with Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) as a Novel Approach to Study Combinatorial Cancer Treatment Strategies ($14,970)
Hamidreza Montazeri Aliabadi, School of Pharmacy

 Enhancing Optical Metrology Using Directional Asymmetry of Polarizers ($15,000)
Jerry LaRue, Schmid College of Science and Technology, Chemistry
Justin Dressel, Schmid College of Science and Technology, Physics

 Bakry: Sudan’s Thirty-Year-Long Year ($15,000)
Crystal Murphy, Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Department of Political Science
Sally Rubin, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts (Co-PI)
Brittany Estrada, Producer (Co-PI)

Testing Hypotheses to Explain Population Decline in the Common Loon ($14,950)
Walter Piper, Schmid College of Science and Technology, Biological Sciences
Brian Hoover, GCI Postdoc Fellow, Chapman University (Co-PI)
Brenna Gormally, GCI Postdoc Fellow, Chapman University (Co-PI)

Biography of Ed Roberts, the Father of the Disability Rights Movement ($7,848)
Scot Danforth, Atallah College of Educational Studies
Christina Lee, NASA (Co-PI)
Andy Hodson, The University of Centre in Svalbard (Co-PI)
Lise Øvreås, The University Centre in Svalbard (Co-PI)
Marya Alford, University of Southern California (Co-PI)

 Monograph: Landlocked Imaginations ($9,150)
Rei Magosaki, Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science, Department of English

War Letters Filmed Documentary ($15,000)
John Benitz, College of Performing Arts, Department of Theatre

Bio-inspiration for the Next Generation of Firefighting Technologies ($15,000)
Douglas Fudge, Schmid College of Science and Technology, Biological Sciences

Quantitative NMR Analysis of Concurrent Protein Phosphorylation Events ($15,000)
Innokentiy Maslennikov, School of Pharmacy

Infants Reaching for Rewards ($14,494)
Susan Duff, Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Physical Therapy

The Egg as a Tool for Noninvasive Assessment of Welfare ($15,000)
Patricia Lopes, Schmid College of Sciences and Technology, Biological Sciences
Dr. Brenna Gormally, GCI Postdoctoral Fellow at Chapman University (Co-PI)

Cardiac Cell Death Induced by SK Channel Negative Modulators ($15,000)
Miao Zhang, School of Pharmacy, Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Surya Nauli, School of Pharmacy, Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences (Co-PI)