In the fall of 2016, 18 letters of interest for a combined total of over $9 million in funding were submitted for the second round of the Next Generation Program and 11 of those letters of interest were approved for submission of their full proposals. In the spring of 2017, a university-wide faculty committee appointed by the provost chose the five winning proposals from the submissions.
Center for the Quantitative and Statistical Sciences (QUEST)
Katherine Masyn (Department of Biostatistics) School of Public Health
This proposal establishes the Georgia State Center for the Quantitative and Statistical Sciences (Quest). Quantitative and statistical sciences form the bedrock of scientific inquiry and are the glue of transdisciplinary research endeavors. The elevation of Georgia State to a highly competitive and productive 21st century research university compels an evolution of its quantitative science research program and institution-wide methodological infrastructure. Quest will leverage and expand existing strengths in data science and research computing at Georgia State by providing a complementary and innovative core in quantitative research methodology, including study design, sampling, measurement, and data analysis. Quest will accelerate the generation and refinement of state-of-the-art quantitative methods, promote interdisciplinary collaborations, and supply critical support for the large-scale research enterprises of Georgia State faculty across the social, behavioral, educational, policy, health, biomedical, communication, and learning sciences.
Transcultural Conflict and Violent Extremism (TCVE)
John Horgan (Global Studies Institute)
Transnational security threats continue to pose extraordinary social and political challenges at home and abroad. In response, Georgia State has attracted some of the best and brightest minds working on the problems of terrorism and violent extremism. Building on this foundation, this proposal sees the expansion of that mission into countering violent extremism and cyber-security. Countering violent extremism means developing evidence-led strategies to inoculate our communities from radicalization, and to provide communities with the tools to resist the allure of online predators targeting young people for recruitment into terrorist groups. Additionally, as more and more terrorist groups shift key operations and activities into the online sphere, knowledge of the capacity, intentions and tactics of state and non-state terrorist actors (including hackers) to cause damage to our critical infrastructure and democratic processes is essential for strengthening the integrity of our national security. Under the leadership of GSU’s Dr. John Horgan, and working with faculty across multiple disciplines at Georgia State, these new hires, in addition to dedicated administrative positions, will consolidate Georgia State’s growing national and international reputation as a center of excellence for producing actionable research to tackle today’s pressing security issues. This proposal will also result in the creation of a center (specific name to be determined) that will be at the forefront of research, teaching and training of today’s (and tomorrow’s) researchers, analysts and practitioners
Cybersecurity and Public Policy – Focus on Financial and Health Information Technology
Balasubramaniam Ramesh (Department of Computer Information Systems) Robinson of Business, and Richard Wright (Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology) Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University announces a new interdisciplinary initiative to address the challenges of cybersecurity and public policy in two strategically important sectors of the U.S. economy – the financial technology and health information industries. The new initiative builds on the international reputation Georgia State enjoys in the study of the adoption of information technologies, especially in the area of human compliance with security regulations and policies. It also takes advantage of Georgia State’s research expertise in the areas of criminal decision-making and crime prevention policy. By wedding the human elements of cybersecurity to computer science research on technological strategies for the protection of cyberspace, the new initiative will provide national and international level leadership in research on cybersecurity. This path-breaking initiative combines the research talent housed in three colleges – the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, and the College of Arts and Sciences – to develop a comprehensive understanding of the interface between the human and technical challenges of cybersecurity. Georgia State University is ideally suited to launch this initiative: Atlanta is a top 3 market for cybersecurity businesses; the world’s unrivalled financial transaction capital; and the center of the nation’s Health Information Technology industry.
Urban Drivers of Resilient Youth (ResY): Culturally Informed Research to Reduce Health Disparities Among Urban Youth
Gabriel Kuperminc (Department of Psychology) College of Arts and Sciences
Resilience is the process by which people are able to overcome adversity in their lives. The Resilient Youth (ResY) initiative seeks to build interdisciplinary scholarship that uses the concept of resilience as a framework for addressing health disparities among urban youth. ResY scholars will focus on understanding and intervening to improve young people’s personal capacities, their relationships with parents, peers, and teachers, and positive connections to their community and culture as the key factors to promote resilient youth. ResY scholars will also address the features of neighborhoods, schools, and communities that can either promote or hinder resilient outcomes. The ResY initiative will extend GSU’s expertise in disparities faced by urban youth, especially those from ethnic/cultural minority groups, living in poverty, experiencing homelessness, or with marginalized identities (e.g., LGBTQ). The proposal builds on existing strengths among current senior and supporting GSU faculty in Psychology, Public Health, and Sociology that have established, externally funded, and nationally/internationally recognized research programs. The initiative will attract new faculty and seed a new postdoctoral fellowship program that will collaborate with current faculty to build an internationally recognized Center of Excellence focused on scholarship focused specifically on urban drivers among youth in Atlanta and other major urban centers in the U.S. and across the globe.
Building Advanced Translational Imaging Facility (ATIF)
Jenny Yang (Center for Diagnostics and Therapeutics-Department of Chemistry) College of Arts and Sciences
The goal of the Center for Diagnostics and Therapeutics (CDT)’s proposal entitled “Advanced Translational Imaging Facility (ATIF)” is to build an Advanced Translational Imaging Facility to achieve the mission of the Next Generation Faculty Program. The development of ATIF will meet the urgent needs to support 55 research projects (17 group projects) from Center for Molecular and Translational Medicine, Center for Obesity and Reversal, Center for Brain and Neurosciences, Center for Inflammation, Immunity & Infection, Center for Nano-Optics, Center for Obesity Reversal, Language Acquisition and Resource Center, Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Neurosciences Institute, Departments of Chemistry, Biology, Nutrition, Physics, Computer Science, and Mathematics & Statistics. It will significantly accelerate our research and scholarly profile by overcoming major barriers in the development of translational biomedical and life sciences research, assist the GSU research team to achieve national and international recognition as a leading institution, and effectively attract and recruit leading scientists to join us at GSU. The university-wide commitment from various research centers, institutes and departments has also clearly demonstrated the strong impact that it will bring to the funded research.