SPARC Funding

SPARC is a major investment administered by the Offices of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement. This program aims to support interdisciplinary research and creative activities on campus. SPARC seed funds allow UMass faculty to build upon and enhance existing campus strengths such as data science, health and wellbeing, social justice and equity, sustainability and the environment, and technology, arts, and society, as well as other emerging areas at the leading edge of research and innovation.  

SPARC seed funds are designed to empower creativity, support interdisciplinary collaborations, strengthen the campus’s areas of excellence, promote equitable collaborations, attract external funding, and bring other forms of recognition to our faculty. This funding opportunity is designed to enable scholarly teams to launch or advance interdisciplinary work to address prevailing challenges or explore new areas of inquiry. 

SPARC seed grants are being awarded to teams of faculty members and librarians, with strong preference for teams that include members from at least two different schools/colleges within the university. The projects proposed by each team are expected to represent a new direction or aspect of interdisciplinary collaboration, align with one of the themes of interdisciplinary excellence identified above, and generate significant and tangible outcomes that “spark” continued momentum in research and creative activity. 

• SPARC Tier 1: To support conceptualization projects that bring together new teams to pursue research and creative projects and develop new working themes. Strong preference given to teams with no prior collaborations. Up to $10,000.
   
• SPARC Tier 2: To support advanced collaborative projects that lead to one or more interdisciplinary publications, an exhibition, or the development of a proposal to pursue smaller external funding opportunities (including state, corporate, foundation or federal funding). Up to $20,000.
   
• SPARC Tier 3: To support grant development projects from foundations or federal agencies (average of $1M+ total costs per year for at least three years). Teams in this tier will be provided professional consultation and staff support from the Office for Research Development on developing a proposal for external funding. Applicants identified a target funding opportunity prior to applying. Up to $50,000.
   
• SPARC Tier 4: To support proposals for center-level funding or other large-scale grants from federal agencies (average of $3M+ total costs per year for at least 5 years). Teams in this tier will be provided professional consultation and staff support from the Office for Research Development on developing a proposal for external funding. Applicants identified a target funding opportunity prior to applying. Up to $75,000.

• Cotton, Climate, Gender and Racial Capitalism in the Americas 

Svati Shah (Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Nicholas Caverly (Anthropology), Francois Lapointe (Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences), and other key personnel from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and the University Libraries 

• Bridging Instrumental Rheology and Human Perception in Plant-Based Dairy Matrices 

Alissa Nolden (Food Science) and Jonathan Rothstein (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering)

• Toward Intelligent RNA-Based Biopesticides: A Design Framework for Sustainable Greenhouse Thrips Control

Jianyu Li (Stockbridge School of Agriculture) and Mingxu You (Chemistry)

• Mechanics of Collective Cell Behavior: An Integrated Computational-Experimental Approach

Yelena Bernadskaya (Biology) and Andreas Buttenschoen (Math and Statistics)

• Developing Interprofessional Education for Future Interprofessional Practice Leaders in Public Schools

Tim DeLuca (Speech, Language & Hearing Science) and Alexandra Lauterbach (Student Development)

• Urban Greening for Healthy Communities in Massachusetts and Beyond

Theodore Eisenman (Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning), Raphael Arku (Environmental Health Sciences), Peter Dunn (Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning), and key personnel from the School of Public Health and Health Sciences

• Force-sensing natural grass sports fields: A novel platform for athlete safety and performance

Evan Mascitti (Stockbridge School of Agriculture), Katherine Boyer (Kinesiology), Meghan Huber (Mechanical & Industrial Engineering), and Donghyun Kim (Computer Science)

• AI to enable reliable structure prediction of pathogenic membrane protein complexes

Alejandro Heuck (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology) and Anna Green (Computer Science)

• Understanding the Relationship Between Pavement Condition and Traffic Safety Disparity Using Statistical Analysis and Large Language Models 

Egemen Okte (Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Michael Knodler (Civil & Environmental Engineering)  

• Taming Degradation of Mixed Halide Perovskite Solar Cells via Kinetic Control

D Venkataraman (Chemistry) and Ashwin Ramasubramaniam (Mechanical & Industrial Engineering)

• Advancing the research, educational, and outreach capacity of the UMass Natural History Collection with external funding

Ben Normark (Biology), Tristram Seidler (Biology), Jason Kamilar (Anthropology), Jeremy Andersen (Environmental Conservation), and key personnel from the College of Natural Sciences, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, and College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

• Dying to Learn Dynamics: Uncovering Velocity Fields from Streaklines 

Alec Linot (Chemical Engineering) and Isabel Scherl (Mechanical & Industrial Engineering)

• Optimizing dynamic forest management to meet the biodiversity and carbon goals of climate-smart forestry

Malcolm Itter (Environmental Conservation) and Hari Balasubramanian (Mechanical & Industrial Engineering)

• Development of Wearable Device Methods for Detecting Cerebral Palsy in Infants and Toddlers

John Sirard (Kinesiology), Ivan Lee (Computer Science), Melanna Cox (Kinesiology), and Christine St. Laurent (Kinesiology)

• Living Dead: Revealing Social Connection Over Centuries of Obituaries

Jennifer Lundquist (Sociology), Anne Kerth (Afro-American Studies), Eunkyung Song (Data Analytics and Computational Social Science), and Naomi Gerstel (Sociology)

• Spatial Well-being Lab

Caryn Brause (Architecture), Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson (Epidemiology), and key personnel from the College of Education, Student Affairs & Campus Life, and Campus Planning

• Science for AI Governance

David Jensen (Computer Science), Shlomo Zilberstein (Computer Science) and other key personnel from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

• Strengthening Healthcare Innovation through Nursing and Engineering (SHINE-2): Building National Capacity for Nurse–Engineer Healthcare Innovation

Frank Sup (Mechanical & Industrial Engineering) and Karen Giuliano (Nursing)

• Planning for UMass Sustainable Compute & AI

Mohammadhassan Hajiesmaili (Computer Science), Ramesh Sitaraman (Computer Science), Prashant Shenoy (Computer Science), and David Irwin (Electrical and Computer Engineering)