Internal Grants, Awards, & Opportunities

The university created a new faculty classification entitled University Research Scholar in the 2006-07 academic year. Appointment is for a three-year term and is intended to recognize scholars for their special contributions to the university and their academic disciplines. With this recognition, the university will also provide additional support for its University Research Scholars to undertake activity that will ensure ongoing research productivity at the University of New Haven. University Research Scholars have a reduced teaching load in order to devote more time to their research project under the program. In addition, a supply budget is provided to facilitate the faculty member’s research.

Current Scholars

Carmela Cuomo

Dr. Cuomo’s research award has enabled her to expand the horseshoe crab research originally begun while working at Yale University, prior to being hired at the University of New Haven.  Work has continued in  isolating, growing and characterizing potential biofuel feedstock species from Long Island Sound.  Dr. Cuomo was recently asked to assist with editing a proposed book on horseshoe crab biology and paleobiology for Springer-Verlag’s Geobiology series.  

Subroto Roy

Dr. Subroto Roy’s current research interests include digital marketing, supply chain and innovations for business and non-profits. Dr. Roy digital marketing focus include online advertising and we data analytics and early ideas can be seen at his blog www.StratoServe.com

Eddie Luzik

The Luzik Group is currently studying the production and processing of biofuels derived from non-food plants sources that also do not compete with agriculture, and are often part of the biomass waste stream. We are continuing to investigate the development of new and improved synthetic organic chemical reactions of under the guidelines of green chemistry.

Eva Sapi

Dr. Sapi’s research group investigates the different forms of Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease bacteria, to better understand how Borrelia can hide from the immune system as well as from antimicrobial therapies. Her recent research shows that Borrelia burgdorferi is capable forming a protective layer around itself – called biofilm – which could render it to be very resistant to antibiotics and provide a logical explanation as to why extensive antibiotic treatment for patients with a tick-bite history could fail. The goal of her research group is to fully characterize this novel form and to identify novel antibacterial agents that are effective in killing all forms of Borrelia burgdorferi.

Kamal Upadhyaya

Dr. Upadhyaya’s research focuses on Macroeconomics Impact of Oil Price Changes in selected Asian Countries; Remittances, Inflation and Exchange Rates; Does U.S. Macroeconomic News Make Emerging Financial Markets Riskier; Government Size and Economic Growth: Evidence from Southeast Asia.

Sabir Umarov

Dr. Sabir’s current research focuses on Fractional Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov equations and their associated stochastic differential equation; Random walk approximation of time-changed non-Markovian stochastic processes; Algebras of pseudo-differential operators with singular symbols and their application to nonlocal boundary value problems.

Roman Zajac

Roman Zajac is conducting research on the patterns and pace of changes in salt marsh and geomorphological and vegetation structure related to climate change and how such changes affect the biodiversity and dynamics of salt marsh fauna.

Ibrahim Baggili

Dr. Baggili is the director of the University of New Haven’s Cyber Forensic Research and Education Group/Lab (UNHcFREG) and is working on methods and techniques that improve cyber forensics science. His team is currently developing the Artifact Genome Project funded by Purdue’s VACCINE- a US Department of Homeland Security Center for Excellence.

Christopher R. O’Brien

Dr. O’Brien’s research is the identification of scavengers and their role in decomposition of forensically important remains in Connecticut and Long Island Sound.

W. Amory Carr

Dr. Carr’s research interests focus on identifying psychological characteristics which predict, and psychosocial interventions that reduce criminal recidivism among mentally ill offenders.  His current projects include assessing treatment attrition and criminal justice outcomes for mentally ill probationers enrolled in an enhanced day reporting program.  

Daniel Mabrey

Dr. Mabrey’s research program focuses on natural resource development and stability in developing countries.  He is currently conducting this research in East Africa with the support of King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center based in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Jiajuan Liang

Dr. Liang’s research focuses on new statistical methods for modeling financial date and latent-variable modeling techniques for multilevel data.

Cheng Lu Wang

Dr. Wang is currently working on several research projects, including consumer identity and brand purchasing behavior, consumer regret after purchase and the likelihood of transmitting negative work of mouth.

The University of New Haven Summer Research Grants, of $3,250 (taxable) each, are available for full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty. They may be used to support new or continuing research in the applicant's discipline during the summer. Recipients are to present a report of the results of their research at a seminar during the academic year. Also, recipients will be expected to devote full time to the projects during the summer, except for a reasonable vacation period. These grants are to be used in lieu of summer teaching. They may not be used to support research leading to a doctoral dissertation.

A limited amount of Research Funding is available for individual awards to full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty, not to exceed $2,000 each. The awards may be used to:

1. Provide travel funds
2. Pay for support services for research
3. Purchase research equipment and supplies

Faculty and Staff Awards

Each of these awards carries a cash prize of $1,000 along with a commemorative plaque and is bestowed at a dinner event to which all faculty are invited at the end of the spring term.  At that event, all official nominees and awardees are recognized.

The award selection committees include a faculty member from each college; the committee for the teaching and experiential education, advising and service awards also include one undergraduate and one graduate student.

2011 Award Recipients:

Excellence in Teaching, Full-Time Faculty - Eddie Luzik
Excellence in Experiential Education - Renee Prajer
Excellence in Research/Creative Activity - Randall Horton
Excellence in Service - Bradley Woodworth and Tim Palmbach
Excellence in Student Advising - Donna Morris
Excellence in Academic Support by a University of New Haven Staff Member - Arleen Anderson