AY 2025–2026 Rutgers Research Council Awards Recipients

The Individual Fulcrum Awards Program is tailored to individual researchers and those in the creative arts who are testing out new ideas to accelerate their scientific inquiry, program of research and scholarship, or creative production. This year's Individual Fulcrum awards total $107,177.

Award Winners

Georgiy Akopov
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Metal Borocarbides as Poison-Resistant Catalyst

Mark Bray
Assistant Professor, Department of History, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: The Spanish Swindle: The First International Scam

Kaysha Corinealdi
Associate Professor, Department of Latino & Caribbean Studies, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Finding Thelma: A Radical Political History

Maureen Donaghy
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences, Rutgers–Camden
Project Title: More Than a Roof and Four Walls: Resident-Engaged Housing Programs across the Global South and North

Sue Huang
Assistant Professor, Department of Art & Design, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Total Archive: Science, AI, and the Collective Memory

Daniel Maggio
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Social Protection and Local Labor Market Conditions

Varlik Nukhet
Associate Professor, Department of History, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–Newark
Project Title: NECRO-IST: Necrogeographies of Istanbul

Trinidad Rico
Associate Professor, Department of History, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Heritage half-lives: legacies of the atomic age in Patagonia

Jia Shang
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–Newark
Project Title: Near-infrared, chiral molecular dyes with circularly polarized luminescence for in-depth animal imaging

Hana Shepherd
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Changing Norms around the Use of Generative AI Tools at Work and Home

Evelyn Wang
Associate Professor, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Silent Utterances

Lu Wang
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: From Atoms to Planets: Quantum Mechanical Insights into Solar System Formation

The Research on Social and Racial Justice Award, inspired by President Holloway’s Equity Report and the university’s commitment to fostering excellence in and as a beloved community, supports academic research on racial and social justice in all domains of intellectual, social, artistic, and environmental life. Funding for this year's Social and Racial Justice Awards totals $57,185.

Award Winner

Christopher Thomas
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, College of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–Camden
Project Title: Bridging Divides or Deepening Rifts? Depolarization, Punitiveness, and Racial Attitudes in U.S. Politics

The Collaborative Multidisciplinary Award offers the opportunity for a group of faculty members across disciplines to work together on a new, shared problem or line of research. Since complex intellectual and social problems often require multiple perspectives and viewpoints to solve them, the program is designed to foster and reward creative and collaborative interdisciplinary work. This year, funding for the Collaborative Multidisciplinary Awards totals $75,000.

Award Winners

Jackie Stanmyre
Assistant Research Professor, Center for Gambling Studies, School of Social Work, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Gambling and College Athletes and Coaches: A Mixed-Methods Study

Yamada Tetsuji
Professor, Department of Economics, College of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–Camden
Project Title: Analytical Study using Modern Statistical Methods and Machine Learning Algorithms on Health Disparity, Healthcare Accessibility During COVID-19, and Related Health Issues in the State of New Jersey

Dake Zhang
Department of Educational Psychology, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: AI based platform for struggling students' math problem solving during Computer-based assessment

The Engaged Climate Action Award is designed to support faculty whose work addresses the global climate crisis and its solutions at a variety of scales. This year, funding for the Engaged Climate Action Award totals $6,610.

Award Winner

Britt Bertolet
Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, School of Arts & Sciences–Newark
Project Title: Impact of artificial aeration on greenhouse gas production in New Jersey urban lakes

Sandrine Colard
Assistant Professor, Department of Arts, Culture and Media, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–Newark
Project Title: Double Exposure(s): A History of Photography in the Colonial Congo (1885–1960)­

Simon Wickhamsmith
Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of English, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Project Title: Shih Mountain

Carla Giaudrone
Associate Professor, Department of Languages and Cultures, College of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers–Camden
Project Title: Suavemente ondulado: Landscape, Environment, and Geographic Imagination in 20th-Century Uruguayan Literature