San Diego State researchers received about $127 million for grants and contracts in 2011-12.
The total is slightly less than the 2010 academic year, when researchers secured about $145 million. The decrease follows the end of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, which funded SDSU research projects working toward stimulating the economy.
However, SDSU Vice President for Research and dean of the Graduate Division, Dr. Stephen Welter said SDSU’s success rate for receiving grants remains well above the national average.
“Overall, our grantship has been phenomenal,” Welter said. “The quality of scholarship is really outstanding.”
Research at SDSU is diverse. In 2011-12, grants were awarded for programs and projects ranging from health to performing arts.
Director of the National Language Resource Center at SDSU Mary Ann Lyman-Hager received more than $2 million in total awards. Those awards will fund programs working to quickly teach indigenous languages and cultures to troops overseas.
Mechanical engineering professor Dr. Kee Moon received grants for neural engineering to research and develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled with the brain.
Welter said SDSU faculty falls within the top 12 percent receiving funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Awards from the NHLBI fund cutting-edge research in the use of stem cells for heart regeneration, as well as projects to understand links between tissue inflammation and heart diseases.
While SDSU research has global, national and local impacts, im- mediate effects are felt on campus. Not only are professors in all areas of study involved with research and projects in their fields, but undergraduate students have opportunities to get involved as well.
“We (SDSU Research Foundation) make very active and conscious efforts to engage under- grads in research,” Welter said. “Students should understand the importance of the linkage between research and scholarship. There is direct feedback of the quality of education for students when faculty is actively engaged in re- search.”
