The Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research honored the teams with the inaugural Outstanding Faculty Collaborative Research award, according to the University.
The teams will receive a $15,000 monetary award to be split among a maximum of five faculty members per team.
To demonstrate their accomplishments in research, scholarship and creativity, both teams will give a presentation about their projects Dec. 12 at an inaugural reception, according to the University.
“These new awards are an example of the immediate steps we are taking as a campus to encourage and support meaningful faculty collaborations,” IU-Bloomington Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel said in a University release. “The faculty members involved with these cross-disciplinary projects are tangibly demonstrating the way shared research and observation from different perspectives leads to innovation and discovery.”
The first team is made up of Yves Brun , the Clyde Culbertson Professor of Biology and Michael VanNieuwenhze, associate professor of chemistry, according to IU.
Brun and VanNieuwenhze came together to study the growth of bacteria.
The pair created a new system to determine how bacteria growth is generated.
This is done by coloring cell walls, according to the University.
This project led to better understanding of bacterial growth patterns, which translates to better growth control related to antibacterial development.
Brun and VanNieuwenhze’s work has been noted before when they were featured in the scientific journal Nature in December 2013.
The second team is comprised of Margaret Dolinsky, associate professor of digital art in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Hope School of Fine Arts; John Gibson, associate professor in the Jacobs School of Music; and Roger Hangarter, Class of 1968 Chancellor’s Professor of Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences , according to the University.
Dolinsky, Gibson and Hangarter’s project titled “Plant Sensibility” merges imagery, musical score and scientific data.
The goal of this project is to further awareness for the importance of plant life in a sustainable world, according to the University.
The team has collaborated previously for exhibitions “sLowlife” and “Imag(in)ing Science.”
The multimedia exhibition “sLowlife” showcased time-lapse movies of plants responding to their environments, according to the University.
The “Imag(in)ing Science” was featured at the IU Bloomington’s Grunwald Gallery in September 2013.
“Interdisciplinary ?collaborations are essential to addressing our contemporary world’s complex problems,” said Michael J. Wade, interim vice provost for research at IU Bloomington, in a University press release. “We are thrilled to present this first-time award to two such exceptional teams of faculty, who demonstrate so well the ways in which research can be enriched and expanded through collaborative work.”
Lindsay Moore
