The University of Louisville Alumni Magazine: for alumni, faculty, staff, students and anyone that is a UofL Cardinal fan.
Issue link: https://louisville.epubxp.com/i/643329
1 8 | L O U I S V I L L E . E D U Research Grant awards up 25 percent UofL faculty submitted a record number of research proposals last f scal year, resulting in a big increase in the number of grant awards. In FY '15, UofL faculty posted 1,357 proposals, which secured $136.8 million in grant awards, a 25 percent increase in awards over FY '14. "UofL faculty have great ideas which can add knowledge in their f elds of study and could poten- tially be world changing," said Executive Vice Presi- dent for Research and In- novation William Pierce, PhD. "Now we're doing a much better job getting those concepts on paper, getting them to the right people and, as a result, securing more funding for research projects springing from UofL." The School of Medi- cine accounted for more than half the research proposals from UofL last year (795), though Arts and Sciences (147) and Public Health and Information Sciences (35) had the largest percentage increases over FY '14, according to f gures from Pierce's off ce. Statistics and informa- tion about proposals and awards can be found on the EVPRI website: louisville.edu/research. Collaboration involved massive melt When it comes to glass, Che Rhodes does it all — but he recently had a project outside the art world's norm. As the f ne arts professor who leads UofL's glass program, Rhodes is used to all processes — blowing glass, casting it, fusing it — and helping students learn about the material's properties and how to manipulate it into artwork. So when a leading national lead-crystal company approached him about helping with a military project, he was intrigued. "It was for the Department of Defense," Rhodes said, although he declined to identify the exact use and the company involved. "It's not for any kind of weaponry." The company needed to melt a large amount of borosilicate glass, like the heat-resistant type used in bakeware, in a controlled environment, he said. The glass melts at very high temperatures. Rhodes said he melted about 60 pounds of glass in an electric oven in the Cressman Center for Visual Arts' facility. The project took "about 2,000 degrees to get the effect they wanted." Then the company could take the big, 6-inch-thick slabs of glass — about three times the size otherwise achievable — and continue testing for its particular ap- plication. This was Rhodes' largest industrial project. "It's def nitely the most interesting and major one aligned with an academic mission. This was somebody that was truly trying to develop the glass for a new application." Rhodes said he enjoyed "the collaborative spirit" of the monthlong experiment. Fine arts professor Che Rhodes with borosilicate glass slabs. UofL researcher develops tool to help parents with pregnancy loss An estimated 25 percent of all pregnancies result in miscarriage, stillbirth and newborn death within 28 days of birth. More than one million families experi- ence perinatal loss in the United States each year. Up to one-third of these parents will suffer from intense grief, which has been associated with high levels of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. Marianne Hutti, PhD, APRN, professor at the School of Nursing, is developing the Perinatal Grief Intensity Scale (PGIS) to help nurses and physicians predict which parents — mothers and fathers — are most at risk for developing intense grief and who would benef t from follow-up care to cope with pregnancy loss. Last fall, Hutti and her research team surveyed women who had recently suffered perinatal loss as a f nal step in developing the tool, expected to be completed this summer. "Parents with intense grief usually recognize this event as the loss of a child, but those around them do not necessarily understand the event in those terms," Hutti said. "We want to make sure that the women and men who are having intense grief receive the follow-up care they need." Hutti