Funding
For more information or guidance on identifying and applying for optimal funding opportunities for your project contact the Center on Health, Aging, and Disability.
2023-2024 UIC-UIUC Applied Health Sciences Interdisciplinary Collaborative Grant Program
The Colleges of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) are pleased to announce the new Collaborative Grant Program. This program aims to foster and incentivize collaborations and equitable partnerships among faculty at UIC and UIUC, with the goal of creating and positioning cross-campus interdisciplinary teams to obtain larger internal and external grants.
Travel Grants
This fund is designed to support tenure-track faculty, tenured faculty, academic professionals, and lecturers/instructors/clinical associates/research associates (not post-docs or students) who are presenting research papers or posters.
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Tenure-track and tenured faculty
This fund is designed to support tenure-track faculty, tenured faculty who are presenting research papers or posters. This fund is to be used after other sources of funding, like the Campus Research Board’s Scholars Travel Fund, have been exhausted. Travel grants can be used for multiple trips but are limited to $1,000 per year (July 1-June 30th) per person. This funding will not carryover from year to year.
Specialized Faculty and Academic Professionals
CHAD will provide travel support in the amount of $500 each year for academic professionals and specialized faculty (i.e. clinical, teaching, or research professors) presenting research or other scholarship at a conference. Travel grants can be used for multiple trips, but are limited to $500 per year (July 1-June 30th). This funding will not carryover from year to year.
CHAD Pilot Grants
The goal of the Center on Health, Aging, and Disability’s Pilot Grant Program is to support innovative, groundbreaking interdisciplinary research aimed at advancing our understanding of health and wellness, aging, disability and the maintenance of a high quality of life. This annual call is issued in the spring semester and is limited to tenured and tenure-track faculty with in the College of Applied Health Sciences. Support is limited to $30,000 and 18-month projects.
Pilot Grant Application Guidelines can be found here.
Please use this page to submit your application.
For more information, please contact Wendy Bartlo at wbartlo@illinois.edu
Recent CHAD Pilot Grant Recipients
2024
Far Right or Far from Right? Examining Community Resilience to Right-Wing Extremism in German Leisure Contexts
Joelle Soulard & Yannick Kluch, Recreation, Sport, and Tourism
Right-wing extremism represents a substantial global threat. Addressing this problem necessitates in-depth research, especially in the context of Germany, where a recent surge in far-right crimes has occurred. Our study employs Magis's (2010) community resilience framework to examine the impact of far-right activities within leisure contexts, such as sports clubs and tourist sites, and how communities mobilize against extremism, uncovering mechanisms of resilience building. Data will be collected using 60 in-depth interviews. This study addresses a critical research gap by considering leisure contexts as both potential vectors and resistors to extremism, thereby enhancing our understanding of community resilience and well-being.
Harnessing the Memory of Exercise to Combat Age-Related Muscle Loss
Hernandez-Saavedra, Diego, Health and Kinesiology
Aging is a degenerative process that reduces skeletal muscle function and mobility. This is important, given that loss of muscle mass and increased frailty are early hallmarks of aging. Thus, identifying therapies that can delay and prevent the onset of muscle function decline is of utmost importance. Exercise is a powerful lifestyle intervention that can protect muscle against age-related decline while increasing the metabolic, contractile, and endocrine capacity of muscle. Here, we will dissect how exercise training primes skeletal muscle at the single-cell level and elicits a long-lasting exercise memory, which can be harnessed to negate aging and boost health span.
Robot Support for Individuals with Physical Disabilities
Harshal Mahajan, Health and Kinesiology
Assistive robots have the potential to support people with motor impairments by promoting independence, enhancing safety, and lowering caregiving costs. We propose to improve access to the Stretch assistive robot (Hello Robot Inc.) by developing and rigorously testing a new hands-free, minimal input controller. We will employ participatory design processes in three phases to iteratively improve the design of the hands-free controller and compare it with existing joystick controller for performing in-home activities such as cleaning surfaces and item retrieval. Participants will provide in-depth feedback on design modifications, ease of use, task load, and trust with the robot and interfaces.
This project has been selected to be the cost-share grant in support of the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE), funded by the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Aging). The goal of CREATE is to harness the potential benefits and power of technology to maintain, support, and foster the cognitive, emotional, and physical health of aging adults to enhance independence, well-being, and quality of life.
Targeted neurofeedback training to alleviate tinnitus distress
Fatima Husain, Speech and Hearing Science
Neurofeedback based training allows participants to voluntarily regulate brain response and associated behavior. fMRI neurofeedback is under-studied as a therapeutic intervention for tinnitus, despite success in alleviating mutual psychological symptoms in other psychiatric disorders. We will employ real-time fMRI neurofeedback for tinnitus sufferers and train them to regulate the functionally affected regions. Our previous research has identified the brain region of precuneus as showing overall decreased connectivity in tinnitus, which is correlated with tinnitus annoyance. Modulating precuneus activations with fMRI feedback has improved overall psychopathology in other disorders. We hypothesize that regulation of precuneus activity and connectivity through biofeedback shall induce lasting effects for overcoming tinnitus distress.
This project has been selected to be the cost-share grant in support of the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE), funded by the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Aging). The goal of CREATE is to harness the potential benefits and power of technology to maintain, support, and foster the cognitive, emotional, and physical health of aging adults to enhance independence, well-being, and quality of life.
2023
Soyoung Choi, KCH
Co-Designing an Alexa-Based Conversational mHealth System with Visually Impaired People to Promote Physical Activities
Matthew Hanks, KCH
Determining the Role of Physical Activity on Shoulder Musculoskeletal Adaptation, Biomechanics, Pain, and Pathology in Pediatric and Young Adult Manual Wheelchair Users
Nick Pitas, RST
Examination of the efficacy of a community-based leisure walking intervention to promote positive mental health in university students through the elicitation of awe.
Rachel Hoopsick, KCH
Elucidating the drivers and mechanisms of moral injury among frontline healthcare workers: A mixed-methods study
2022
- Hyojung Kang
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Geospatial Variability of Illicit Opioid Use and Disparities in Treatment Resources
- Alicia Kraay
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Population heterogeneity and behavior change drive risk of COVID-19, norovirus, and rotavirus transmission
2021
- Raj, Mina
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Towards the development of guidelines for inclusive foods in long-term care
- Hernandez, Manuel
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Artificial intelligence energy-regulation modeling to predict and classify fatigue levels and types in people with multiple sclerosis: A feasibility study
- Allen, Jacob
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Gastrointestinal And Metabolic Effects from a Prebiotic, Lifting, and Aerobic iNtervention (GAMEPLAN)
2020
- Zou, Sharon
- Assistant Professor, Recreation, Sport and Tourism
- Exploring an Efficient and Equitable Entrance Fee for Public Lands: A Community-based Investigation in the Indiana Dunes National Park
2019
- Mattie (Hahn), Laura
- Assistant Professor, Speech and Hearing Science
- Impact of Child and Maternal Gestures on Word Learning in Down Syndrome
- Khan, Naiman
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Role of Omega-3 Lipid Metabolites in Obesity and Cognitive Function
- Konopka, Adam
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Establishing the common marmoset as a model of age-related osteoarthritis
2018
- Berdychevsky, Liza
- Assistant Professor, Recreation, Sport and Tourism
- Tailored Internet-Based Sexual Health Education for Older Adults: Conducting Seniors’ Needs Assessment and Developing the Messages
- Mejía, Shannon
- Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Intraindividual Dynamics of Fall Risk
- Monson, Brian
- Assistant Professor, Speech and Hearing Science
- Capturing perinatal auditory experience
- Wilund, Ken
- Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
- Implementation of an Anti-Hypertensive Medication Deprescribing Protocol in Hemodialysis Clinics
For more information, please contact Wendy Bartlo at wbartlo@illinois.edu
Grant Database
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Use the grant database, Grant Forward, to look for any funding opportunities that are compatible with your research interests.
Campus Funding
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The Jump Applies Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation program in partnership with the University of Illinois College of Engineering.