Internal Grant Programs
Managed through the Office of Research Development Services (ORDS), the Division of Research offers grant programs to support research and creative activities and the dissemination of results.
The internal grant programs aim to strengthen and reinforce best practices in grant writing and submission, thus applications are expected to follow the published program guidelines and proposal requirements. Proposals that do not meet these expectations will not be reviewed. Deadlines are enforced. ORDS staff, who are not part of the review process, are available for consultation about your application.
- Inquiries: or-osp-propdev@uwm.edu
Internal Grant Programs
Discovery and Innovation Grant (DIG)
Supports initial stages of research with the intent of making projects more competitive for completion or expansion through external funding. Applicants must demonstrate that the work is not just an incremental extension of their current or past projects or the field in general. Recipients are expected to submit external grant proposals within three years of the start of funding for at least three times the DIG budget.
Advancing Research and Creativity (ARC)
Supports meritorious research and creative projects across all disciplines at UWM. Projects may be at various stages of development. Awards are expected to result in scholarly, scientific, and artistic products that will increase the national and international recognition of the awardees, their programs, and the institution.
Faculty-Industry Partnership Seed Grant Program (FIPS)
Supports multi-disciplinary partnership development and the preparation of joint proposals that will lead to externally funded research, development, or translational projects.
Finish Line
Supports work that is needed to address review comments in high scoring but unfunded proposals upon resubmission. Proposals are reviewed internally.
Research Assistance Fund (RAF)
Supports a wide variety of activities, including conference travel for presenting your research. Awards are intended for faculty and career academic staff with immediate research needs that cannot be supported through other campus funding. Proposals are reviewed internally.
Advancing Research and Creativity Grant Recipients
FY27
| John Berges Professor, Biological Sciences Microplastics in the nearshore Lake Michigan lower foodweb: invasive Hemimysis as a monitoring species |
| Dawei Jian Assistant Professor, Business (Supply Chain, Operations Management & Business Statistics) Dynamic Incentives and Information Management in Digital Supply Chains |
| Nan Kim Associate Professor, History and Anthropology Atomic Memory: Nuclear Technologies on Display |
| Bonita Klein-Tasman Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Developmentally-Attuned Play- and Humor-Infused Exposure (DAPHIE) for Children with Williams Syndrome: Community Dissemination and Implementation Trial Pilot |
| Ishmael Konney Assistant Professor, Dance From Azonto to Afrodance: Documenting Ghana’s Role in African Popular/Street Dance Culture |
| Christopher Lawson Associate Professor, Educational Psychology There and back again: An iterative fieldtrip project to support, engage, and inspire a community of educators from formal and informal learning settings |
| Arsenio Andrew Pacheco Professor, Chemistry & Biochemistry UWM Co-Investigator: Jarett Wilcoxen, Assistant Professor, Chemistry & Biochemistry Elucidating complex reactions in the biological nitrogen cycle |
| Xiaohua Peng Professor, Chemistry & Biochemistry Tumor-Selective Cancer Therapy via Vitamin C-Induced Oxidative Stress and ROS-Activated Prodrugs |
| John Roberts Professor, Sociology Methods for Archaeological Network Analysisn Technology |
| Alyssa Sheeran Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice & Criminology Beyond the Bench: Assessing the Effectiveness of Milwaukee County’s Mental Health Court Docket |
| Alex Wier Assistant Professor, Music Electrified Percussion: A New Method Book and Repertoire Collection for Percussion and Live Electronics |
Discovery and Innovation Grant Recipients
FY27
| Jane Hereth Assistant Professor, Social Work UWM Co-Investigator: Mair Culbreth, Dance EMBODY: A Community‑Engaged, Movement‑Based Intervention to Support LGBTQIA+ Young Adults |
| Xiaoli Ma Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering Developing Selective Membranes for Recovering Critical Minerals via an Integrated Computational and Experimental Approach |
| Dean Nardelli Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences Development of Novel Models of Dysregulated Lyme Disease |
| Charles Paradis Associate Professor, Geosciences UWM Co-Investigator(s): Yin Wang, Civil Engineering; Shangping Xu, Geosciences Uranium Adsorption at the Air-water Interface: a Key Mechanism Governing the Fate of Uranium in the Environment |
| Tom Shi Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering Evaluation of Vehicle Telematics Data for Real-Time Safety and Mobility Application |
| Jorg Woehl Associate Professor, Chemistry & Biochemistry External Co-Investigator: Samuel Cohen, Institute for Advanced Study Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Image Formation in Far-Field Optical Microscopy |
Faculty-Industry Partnership Seed-grant (FIPS) Recipients
FY26
| Ching-Hong Yang Distinguished Professor, Department of Biological Sciences Commercialization of RejuPrime: A Novel Biostimulant for Enhancing Crop Resilience to Abiotic Stress |
| Alexander Arnold Professor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry Independent Functional and Physicochemical Benchmarking of Sustainable EcoFizz™ Detergents as Alternatives to Tween-20 and Brij Surfactants |
| Feng Guo Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering Development of Bidirectional-Switch-Based Parallel SiC/GaN Hybrid Three-Level T-type Active-Front-End for High-Power and Ultra-High-Efficiency Fast-Charging Stations |
| Qingsu Cheng Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering Scalable Automation for Organoid-Based Cancer Research |
| Junjie Niu Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship Professor, Department of Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering PFAS Removal via Electrochemical Oxidation in Water |
| Priyatha Premnath Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering Engineering of Selective p21 Inhibition with Radical Scavenging Hydrogel Matrices: A Strategic Academic-Industrial Partnership for Regenerative Wound Therapy |
| Nikolai Kouklin Professor, Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Polycrystalline Zinc-Phosphate Thin Films: Multispectral Low-Cost Solar Energy Photovoltaics for Industrial Deployment |
| Jian Zhao Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Nondestructive Testing and Field Monitoring of Adhesive Anchors in Precast Concrete Connections |
| Xinyi Shen Assistant Professor, School of Freshwater Sciences SAR2FIM: An AI-Based Real-Time Flood Inundation Nowcasting, Forecasting, and Impact Assessment |
| Madhusudan Dey Professor, Department of Biological Sciences Antimicrobial Compounds from the Bacterium Xenorhabdus szentirmaii |
| Rani F. El Hajjar Professor and Department Chair, Civil & Environmental Engineering Machine Learning and Acoustic Methods for Non-Destructive Characterization of Thermoplastic Polyolefin Membranes |
| Srishti Sardana Assistant Professor (UWM), Adjunct Assistant Professor (Columbia University), Visiting Faculty (Ashoka University) Companio: Co-Designing a Human-Centered Digital Therapeutic to Integrate Behavioral and Biomedical Care for Chronic Wound Healing in Rural Older Adults |
| Yin Wang Richard and Joanne Grigg Fellowship Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Accelerating the Development of the Next Generation Membrane/Composite Water Filters through an AI-Driven Digital Twin Framework Based on Pore Scale Simulations |
| Sergei V. Kuchin Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences Characterization of Yeast-Derived Sterols Relevant to Honeybee Health |
| Konstantin Sobolev Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering FireShield: Development of an Advanced Cellular Concrete System for Wildfire Protection |
| Woo Jin Chang Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Rapid Characterization of the Portable Minimum Viable Lead Detection Device for Onsite Drinking Water Quality Monitoring |
| Mark Freeland Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and Women & Gender Studies Field to Fire: The Transformative Power of Indigenous Agriculture in Human and Environmental Health |
| Dong Fang Deng Professor, School of Freshwater Sciences Building a Circular Economy for Great Lakes Aquaculture: Converting Soy Sauce By-Products into Sustainable Aquatic Feed |
| Alyssa Schnorenberg Scientist I, Department of Mechanical Engineering Comparing Suspension and Non-Suspension Power Assist Technologies for Reducing Vibration and Impact Exposure in Wheelchair Mobility |