Category: CRG Stories

George Mason and Virginia Tech Collaboration Creates Connections in Science Policy

Today, Virginia is one step closer to bridging the gap between science and policy — a critical relationship necessary to navigate a range of socio-technical issues including climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, and poverty. Creating this connection was the result of a yearlong research project to identify U.S. and Virginia science policy programs which engage STEM-H scientists and engineers in science policy with the end result of helping both elected and non-elected officials access technical information to assist in decision making.

This work was completed thanks to a coalition of faculty and students supported though a 4-VA@Mason grant. The team was led by KL Akerlof in George Mason’s Department of Environmental Science & Policy and Todd Schenk, Chair and Associate Professor in the Urban Affairs and Planning Program of the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech and Director of the Science, Technology & Engineering in Policy Program.

To advance best practices for professional mentorship of early career researchers and to build capacity for training researchers to engage in public policy, the team developed a database of U.S. science policy programs and conducted a case study of those in Virginia through surveys and interviews with their leaders. Akerlof and Schenk were assisted in the study by Adriana Bankston, an expert in science policy, and Mason students Kelsey Mitchell, Kate Saylor, and Aniyah Syl, and Kenneth Dewberry at Virginia Tech.

Following the yearlong collaboration, the results—along with program blogs and a listserv—has been developed and is featured on a new website created to support this emerging network of science policy programs: https://scipolprograms.org/.

The results of their research showed that the majority (57%) of U.S. science policy programs are state based. These programs include student organizations, government placements and fellowships, and academic certificates, degrees, and other training. However, it was recognized that there is only a limited ability to implement evidence-based approaches within these programs.

The team compared programmatic outcomes from Virginia’s science policy programs with those described in academic literature. Academic and professional scholarship in science communication, and public affairs suggests that curricula for engaging scientists and engineers should broadly cover communication and policy processes.

In addition, they found that training programs would benefit from evaluation models and measures, although the lack of consistent theoretical foundations and constructs across this highly multidisciplinary scholarship reduces their utility. It was concluded that a common framework, which includes shared terms and relationships, is needed to promote the transdisciplinary growth of the field.

With the results of their analysis in hand, the team held a state webinar on science policy programs featuring 11 of the 13 Virginia program leaders. The project was also highlighted at a Virginia Sea Grant Symposium and was the topic of an American Geophysical Union e-lightning talk.

Bankston and Akerlof presenting research findings

While the results of the study proved important, the project also provided rich opportunities to the students participating in the effort. Undergraduate student Syl and doctoral candidate Mitchell helped lead the webinar and participated as co-authors on the publications. Further, Syl co-presented at the Virginia Sea Grant Symposium. Plus, master’s student Saylor successfully defended her thesis on the Commonwealth of Virginia Engineering and Science (COVES) Policy Fellowship. She subsequently presented her results to the President of the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Dr. James Aylor.

The first of two research articles based on the project has just been accepted with minor revisions by the journal Evidence & Policy. A second article has also been submitted for publication. They are also in conversation with the leadership of the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine about the development of a new weeklong science policy program for undergraduate students from across the Commonwealth’s public universities.

Akerlof reflects on receiving the 4-VA@Mason award, “This funding supported our cross-institutional collaboration and ability to conduct baseline research and networking that have been fundamental to understanding how the landscape of science policy training programs is evolving across the United States.”

Following a Slow Start, 4-VA@Mason Research on Species Resilience Produces Landmark Results

Associate Professor David Luther, who has spent the last 14 years in George Mason’s Biology Department studying ecology, evolution, and conservation, recognizes the importance of playing the long game in research and education. Great outcomes don’t happen overnight. But even Luther couldn’t have imagined the hurdles and roadblocks ahead of him following 4-VA@Mason’s approval of his 2019 Collaborative Research Grant proposal “Species richness resilience to habitat fragmentation and restoration in tropical rainforests.”

Luther’s vision was to document and measure differences, using audio and video devices, in the animal community composition and the rate of recovery of animals in secondary forest and forest fragments – areas where contiguous forested areas are broken into smaller forest patches, separated by barriers such as roads, agriculture, or utility corridors. His plan was to install recording equipment at 50 sites as part of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. Luther paved the way for this project by connecting with the Brazilian National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA), an Amazon research institution based in Manaus.

The proposed budget was entirely devoted to purchasing the wide array of materials necessary for the effort — cameras, acoustic recorders, batteries, and other supplies — along with the international travel needed to bring the project to fruition. Luther then assembled a team of faculty and student research volunteers at 4-VA partner schools and on the George Mason campus.

Just underway in 2019, all efforts came to a complete halt in March 2020 as Covid-19 struck worldwide. Luther faced a myriad of challenges: the inability to travel to Brazil and enter the field site; students selected for the research had to pivot to new endeavors which would allow them to graduate while studying remotely; and partner schools needed to move on to other projects during what would be the two-year waiting period. What’s more, one of the key members of the planning team, George Mason’s Tom Lovejoy, passed away in December of 2021. Lovejoy was recognized as one the world’s leading conservation biologists and often referred to as the “godfather of biodiversity.” In his passing, Luther lost a critical member of the team and a mentor.

However, Luther stayed the course, revamped his team, re-wrote the schedule, and maintained his commitment to get the project moving forward as soon as possible. Finally, in June 2022, he received the green light to move ahead. Between June and October 2022, 136 cameras and 81 acoustic devices were installed across 50 sites at BDFFP.

Today, to Luther’s great delight, the results have proved far more successful than he could have ever anticipated. Tens of thousands of animal images from camera traps and audio recordings have already been collected.

To analyze the data, Luther built a team of 15 George Mason undergraduate researchers, artificial intelligence experts, and a non-profit organization (Arbimon) that specializes in analyzing acoustic recordings from the tropics to help identify animals.

In the fall of 2022, Luther mentored student researchers to help with the endeavor. Aline Medeiros, a PhD student in Environmental Science and Policy (ESP), helped manage the undergraduate researchers working on the audio files. Volunteer students on this project were Alexis Lembke, Amanda Jones, Adriana Em, Madison Cheung, Morgan Ellingsworth, and Grace Carriero. Medeiros will also use the captured data as the basis of her PhD research.

Another set of students helped identify animals in the camera images and entered that information into a large database. Hibo Hassan, Jordan Seidmeyer, Katie Russell, Carolian Sanabria, Adrian Em, Alix Upchurch, Piper Robinson, Tristan Silva-Montoya, and Estefany Umana spent hours creating this treasure trove of records. Emilia Roberts, a MS student in ESP, managed these undergraduate researchers.

Explains Luther, “For the acoustic recordings, we built templates for 250 bird species, and trained AI models to automatically detect and classify songs for each. We have already detected 201 of the 250 species. The model performed very well in our evaluations, achieving an average precision across all classes of 0.94. Thanks to our model, new recordings can be passed through it to automatically detect species calls, facilitating long-term monitoring and efficient analyses moving forward. We are now working with local experts in Manaus, Brazil to apply the same platform for frogs at our study sites in the Amazon rainforest.”

The biodiversity data of birds and mammals is being used to assess how each species responds to variations in forest structure and recovery from forest fragmentation. Luther brought on Konrad Wessels from George Mason’s Geography & Geoinformation Science Department to assist with satellite information from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation instrument (GEDI). GEDI uses high resolution lasers to provide detail in three-dimensional forest structure. The GEDI results will build predictive models looking at how the three-dimensional forest structure can forecast mammal and bird diversity and individual species occurrence in tropical rainforests. In an important finding, the team has determined that the diversity of three-dimensional forest structure heights and density of foliage is the biggest predictor of mammal and bird diversity.

The project continues to gain traction. The team has created a website featuring the results of the acoustic portion of the research, https://bio.rfcx.org/bdffp-acoustics, which has been very well received.

In addition, some of the acoustic training models were used by teams competing for the X-Prize, a competition designed to encourage technological developments supporting “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.”

Luther also applied for and received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant which built off of the 4-VA funded study and is being used in part to continue both the camera and acoustic research. Luther and Wessels recently submitted a grant to NASA to expand on the research findings and apply them to the entirety of the Amazon basin.

Concludes Luther, “Through 4-VA@Mason, this project is up, running, and delivering fantastic information that will help scientists worldwide better design monitoring schemes for biodiversity in remote tropical forests, as well as those interested the relationship between habitat structure and degradation and species resilience to disturbance. The grant helped us get to the first step, and we are confident this project will continue to expand in the future with our excellent Brazilian collaborators, current NSF funding, and other future external funding.”

George Mason Team Identifies Technology to Enhance Artificial Photosynthesis

When a 4-VA Collaborative Research Grant results in the production of a novel concept for technology solutions to support energy and climate issues, while also sharing resources and data between higher education institutions in Virginia and providing faculty and student research opportunities, it is another win for the program.

This was achieved following 4-VA’s approval of a proposal by George Mason’s Yun Yu, an Assistant Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, for a grant entitled Nanoscale Visualization of Electrocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction Activity at Cu Nanocatalysts. Yu’s goal was to investigate options in catalytic electrode materials to improve and enhance electrocatalysis, a process essential for harnessing sustainable energy sources for artificial photosynthesis. While nanostructures are currently recognized as the most successful catalyst for many chemical reactions, there is more to understand about tailoring their crystalline planes to improve activity and selectivity.

Yu wanted to gain deeper insights into various nanocatalysts used in carbon removal technologies. The conventional approach to conducting this study often involves measuring the entire catalyst, composed of numerous small particles with varying sizes and shapes. However, critical information, such as the impact of heterogeneities on performance, is often lost in such ensemble measurements. Yu saw the potential for leveraging the the nanoscale scanning electrochemical microscopy on the George Mason campus to obtain detailed surface reactivity maps of nanocatalysts. However, to do so, Yu needed to acquire shape-controlled nanostructures, including copper nanowires, copper nanocubes, and nickel–iron layered nanosheets. He did so through a partnership with Sen Zhang, Associate Professor of Chemistry at UVA.

Yu’s team, graduate student Dan Tran and undergraduate students Solyip Kim, Melissa Nguyen, and Mackenzie Dickinson played a key role in the project, receiving funding and real-world research experience. Together, they identified furfural reduction, an important reaction for sustainable biofuel generation. They noted a distinct contrast in activity between copper and graphite support. “These preliminary experiments have demonstrated the viability of our scanning electrochemical technique in spatially resolving catalytic activity across nanoscopic structures,” explains Yu. They further expanded the application to the study of nickel–iron catalysts. “Our data suggested that adding trace amount of cerium oxide to the catalysts significantly enhances water oxidation activity. We would not have these insights without this powerful electroanalytical technique.” says Yu.

The initial results have provided Yu with a springboard to develop external grant proposals to systematically study the role of cerium oxide and quantify the effects of its loading on the apparent catalytic activity of the developed catalysts. “This 4-VA opportunity allowed us to create a partnership with UVA, create a team to implement further investigation via George Mason’s nanoscale scanning electrochemical microscopy, and now apply for further funding to move this project forward,” concludes Yu.

Pictured in Featured Image: Graduate student Dan Tran operating the scanning electrochemical microscope.

Researchers Develop Computational Models to Support Successful Organization of Local Events

As illustrated in Robert Putnam’s renowned book “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” Americans have become increasingly isolated over the decades, often spending leisure time alone without social gatherings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this issue of isolation was exacerbated, calling further attention to the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation in the United States.

To help encourage in-person gatherings, Event-Based Social Networks (EBSNs), such as Meetup.com and Facebook Events, have become an increasingly vital tool for facilitating these occasions based on shared interests — ranging from farmers’ markets to game nights. To maximize the effectiveness of EBSNs, a group of Mason faculty members with interests in community engagement, machine learning, and geographical data analysis wanted to take a closer look at how these arranged local gatherings fluctuated depending on community and group characteristics. They were able to undertake this analysis following the approval of their 4-VA@Mason Collaborative Research Grant proposal entitled “AI for AI: Toward Community-level Human-AI Collaborations in Local Meetups.”

Led by Myeong Lee, Mason’s Assistant Professor of Information Science and the Director of the Community Informatics Lab, the researchers also included former College of Science faculty members Olga Gkountouna, who assisted with machine learning model development, and Ron Mahabir who provided insight on geographical data analysis. Amr Hilal of Virginia Tech helped with data analytics from a machine learning perspective.

While it is known that EBSN users’ participation in Meetup events are influenced by group organizers’ promotions and event frequency, the effects of ecological factors, such as the number of similar groups surrounding a Meetup group, had not been previously studied. The goals of the project were to quantitatively examine how EBSN groups’ ecological features shape the performances of Meetup groups within that organizational ecology. They also wanted to create baseline benchmarks for how state-of-the art AI technologies can predict Meetup groups’ success.

To do so, the team conducted two studies of Meetup data for 500 cities in the US, extracting factors pertaining to “Meetup niches,” which considers similar groups surrounding a Meetup location.

The results revealed intriguing patterns, one of which was that if a Meetup group’s description resembles other groups in their geographical area, it tends to attract more participants. In a second finding, the team implemented three advanced machine learning models to predict the success of local Meetup groups, finding that the performances of these prediction models vary across different categories and cities, with some outperforming the state-of-the-art models.

“Overall, our research during the 4-VA project period will provide a basis for understanding human-AI collaboration at the community level by revealing how various factors shape and predict the success of local groups,” says Lee.

Lee credits the success of their findings to a strong team of student researchers, including graduate students Julia Hsin-Ping Hsu who worked on developing deep learning models and ecological features and Ishana Shinde who assisted in calculating community-level features. Undergraduates Victoria Gonzales focused on descriptive statistics of variables; Joel Adeniji managed visualization; and Nnamdi Ojibe handled data cleaning and geographical data aggregation.

The group is now disseminating their findings in the field – one study was published at the International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T), and the other is under submission to a premier journal. Lee is planning to write an external NSF grant using the preliminary results from the research, proposing the curation of Meetup-based social gathering data with the promising community-level ecological factors.

“The 4-VA@Mason grant significantly helped me and my team jump-start the project and develop the research studies,” says Lee. “What’s more, it allowed the team to connect with researchers outside of Mason to discuss additional meaningful community-based topics, thus broadening our future possibilities.”

4-VA Team Applies Novel Technology to Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Incorporating control-theoretic methods into neuroscientific research was the interest that brought together Xuan Wang, Assistant Professor in Mason’s Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mainak Patel, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at William and Mary. Supported by a 4-VA grant, the two wanted to look closer at adapting cutting edge technology in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to create a new approach to facilitate the prediction and regulation of the firing rate dynamics of brain neurons. The real-world application of this research is to facilitate brain disease treatment, such as epilepsy, and brain-computer interface.

“As a result of this project, we have developed two network models, a firing rate dynamics model describing the microscale neuronal activities of the brain; and another to measure the small changes in blood flow that occur with brain activity,” explains Wang. “We have also created an effective data-driven algorithm that can reconstruct and predict the rate and fMRI dynamics of the brain.”

Wang and Patel received human brain fMRI data from United States Naval Academy through Assistant Professor Duy Duong-Tran and support from Li Shen, Professor of Informatics in Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Results of the research have been publicly shared via two abstracts at the Organization for Human Brain Mapping conference. Follow-up work submitted to the 2024 Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention Conference is currently under review. Another paper on the project was submitted to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transaction on Automatic Control and is currently being considered for publication.

Graduate student Muhammad Umair (left), who gathered and processed fMRI and firing rate data for the research, won first place at the College of Engineering and Computing Innovation Week at Mason with a poster titled ‘Subject and Task Fingerprint using Dynamic Reconstruction from fMRI Time-series Data’.

Based on the results of the 4-VA project, Shen, Duong-Tran, and Wang are currently preparing a National Science Foundation grant proposal for more extensive research.

“Thanks to the seed funding from 4-VA, my collaborators were able to jump-start our research. We successfully validated preliminary hypotheses and will now leverage our findings further. Currently, we are in the process of applying for larger grants to sustain and expand our efforts on this topic,” adds Wang.

4-VA@Mason Funded Project Creates Professional Learning Series to Support Inclusive Classroom Co-teaching

Almost 10% of Virginia’s students aged 6-21 are identified as students with disabilities. Of this group, almost 68% spend the majority of their school day in inclusive, general education classrooms receiving special education services through co-teaching partnerships of general and special education teachers.

Observations of this teaching arrangement, however, reveal challenges faced by special education teachers who often simply act as an assistant. Consequently, they are often not able to deliver the specially designed instruction necessary to meet the learning needs of the student with disabilities. Co-teachers often do not understand the expectations for this scenario, or they have not received the professional learning appropriate for their classroom. Without a true co-teaching partnership, the achievement outcomes for students may not be met.

This dilemma had been on the mind of Margaret Weiss, Associate Professor of Special Education at Mason who has long researched co-teaching and pre-service teacher preparation. She saw an acute need to develop and then test a hybrid professional learning series to prepare general and special education teachers in secondary inclusive classrooms to implement effective co-teaching practices.

In projecting out this need, Weiss knew that longtime colleague Wendy Rodgers, an Associate Professor at VCU, would be the perfect collaborator. Rogers specializes in inclusive classrooms, co-teaching, learning disabilities, single-case design methods, collaboration, and classroom observation. As VCU is a partner in the 4-VA network, Weiss was able to invite Rodgers to join her in a 4-VA proposal as a co-principal investigator, which was subsequently greenlighted by the 4-VA@Mason Advisory Board.

Weiss and Rodgers began by assembling a team including graduate student Karli Zilberfarb at VCU and Holly Glaser from Mason for module development and production, and Boris Gafurov at Mason to develop applications. Together, they created five professional learning modules which include information, readings, checklists, sample lesson plans, reflection documents, video samples from teacher classrooms, and application activities for teachers who are learning to co-teach together. The series was then pilot tested by teachers at Liberty High School in Fauquier County, Va. Although not originally planned, the 4-VA team also developed a web-based, shareable co-teaching lesson planning application that is also being pilot tested in local schools.

Weiss enlisted the help of Virtual Virginia’s Steven Sproles as module host and the Virginia Department of Education Training and Technical Assistance Center at Mason for further review of materials.

Upon presentation to teachers, the series was especially well received and was found to be very helpful as the procedures were implemented in classrooms. Weiss notes, “It has been great to be able to create these materials. We are very excited about reactions we have from school divisions and professionals in Virginia and beyond.” (School divisions in North Carolina and Georgia have already shown an interest in the program.)

Continues Weiss, “This 4VA grant was a fantastic opportunity for Wendy and me to bring our ideas to fruition; we had not been able to dedicate the time and energy to making it happen before this grant. I am hoping that this pilot study will set us up in a great position to apply for a significant external funding award.”

Globalization in Reverse: A Look at the Diffusion of K-Pop in the United States

Over the last decade, Korean pop culture (K-pop) has swept the United States with unexpected and unprecedented popularity. However, an investigation behind the supra-ethnic and cross-border nature of this explosion of interest is almost nonexistent in literature and within Virginia research universities where the Asian student population has grown dramatically in recent years.

To look closer at this phenomenon, Byunghwan Son in Mason’s Global Affairs Program was interested in creating an intellectual space where systematic research on contemporary Asian and Asian American studies subjects could be nurtured and fostered. To do so, he turned to a 4-VA@Mason Collaborative Research Grant for funding to build on data he had already collected between 2019-2021. His objective was to conduct additional interviews necessary to glean a more in-depth understanding of the cross-ethnic and -racial nature of K-pop. Son’s plan was to coordinate faculty at Mason and UVA to recruit and advise graduate and undergraduate students to conduct the work, providing rich research opportunities. These opportunities would include collecting, cleaning, and coding interview data of K-pop fans in North America.

Two of Son’s colleagues at Mason — Dae Young Kim, Associate Professor in Sociology & Anthropology and Young A Jung, Assistant Professor in Modern and Classical Languages –- supported the student research and acted as mentors. Senior Lecturer Yoon Hwa Choi at UVA joined the project to do the same. “We were committed to galvanizing and enhancing the scholarly collaboration between Mason and UVA researchers at both the faculty and student levels,” explained Son.

Armed with the 4-VA grant, the team got to work. Nine students at Mason and two at UVA were recruited to undertake the goal of interviewing 50 fans of K-pop music to provide more insight for their research. “The success of our project was due in large part to the effectiveness and competence of the research assistants. They were key to this effort,” says Son.

Faculty and Students Studying K-pop fans in the US

The research revealed interesting results. “We recognized a number of important commonalities amongst the K-Pop enthusiasts — these fans found untraditional types of genders in K-pop artists, were torn between their own racial identities and their loyalty to the artists (which often didn’t align very well), lean liberal ideologically but remain reluctant to make direct political actions and have found a new place of belonging in the fan communities,” notes Son.

Mason students participating in the research were graduate student J. Orisha and undergraduates Kennedy Pendlebury, Janai Byrd, Alexus Kelley, Sarah Lepre, Nida Nawaz, Pilar Gore, Kiah Percy, Sohee Kim, and Yoo Jeong Seong. At the time of the research both Kim and Seong were students studying on the Mason Korea campus.

Working with Choi at UVA were undergrads Anusha Choudhary and Jessica Caroline Ross.

“This grant gave us the opportunity to collect an exceptionally rich amount of interview data on K-pop fans. Not only is our interview data larger in numbers and wider in scope than any previous study we know of, but each of the interviews also engages the fans in significantly deeper and more intricate ways. We attribute much of this innovation to the cross-university collaboration of 4-VA as it enabled us to reach some of the interviewees that we otherwise would not have recruited.”

A paper outlining the research was presented to the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS). Currently, the PIs are submitting their data to peer-reviewed academic journals.

4-VA Team Develops Communication Center Tutor Training

While Communication Centers on college campuses are a relatively new concept — they were originally introduced to provide student support for basic communication and public speaking courses — over the last 20 years they have exploded in number have expanded offerings to include a wide range of communication skills assistance. Although the model has been widely credited for a range of student accomplishments, there is a recognition that overburdened faculty charged with operating the centers suffered from the lack of time and resources necessary to create and deliver suitable training materials for tutors. This challenge was faced at the Communication Centers located on several 4-VA campuses — Mason, JMU, and VT.

Shelby Broberg, Communication Center Director on Mason’s Fairfax campus, connected with Paul Mabry, Communication Center Coordinator and Assistant Professor at JMU, and VT’s Brandi Quesenberry, Director of Undergraduate Programs and Zack Sowder, Advanced Instructor and Associate Director at VT’s CommLab to see how they might lessen the training needs bottlenecks using a 4-VA grant.

“Shelby’s vision to work in collaboration with her partners at JMU and Tech exemplifies how 4-VA can work for higher education in Virginia,” says Janette Muir, Vice Provost, Academic Affairs, and 4-VA@Mason Campus Coordinator. “By sharing resources, strengths, and workloads, this team has created a training package that is a valuable tool for both faculty and students.”

The project began with an extensive survey of 53 Communication Center Administrators and 35 Communication Center Consultants. Explains Broberg, “Through our research we were able to conclude that the majority of communication centers in the nation need a more cohesive, effective, and accessible training program for their consultants.”

They then developed open-access training materials with ten modules of interactive content for communication center consultants: https://sbroberg.wixsite.com/communication-center. “This content was largely sourced and developed by our undergraduate students who participate in training and have extensive experience as the target audience for these educational materials,” noted Broberg. The students were Sabeen Akhtar, Erandy Cruz-Alcantara, Erin Hess, Fadzayi Sambana, and Kamryn Satterfield from Mason; and Heather Opie, Sara Montgomery, Riley Miller, Grace Warren, and Tessa Cyrus from JMU.

Broberg credited graduate students Briana Stewart, Aditi Goel, and Neha Gour of Mason and Mercy Faleyimu of JMU for leading the undergraduate team.

The project and results were presented at the National Association of Communication Centers (NACC) Conference last spring in Blacksburg, Va, and recently at the National Communication Association conference in National Harbor, Md. Broberg reports, “The response was really exciting. Directors from centers all across the country were grateful for the new resources to help training be more consistent and reliable nationwide.”

The Communication Center Training Team at the National Communication Association conference — L to R: Mercy Faleyimu (JMU), Brandi Quesenberry (VT), Shelby Broberg (Mason) Zack Sowder (JMU)

The 4-VA project will now be extended to two other areas identified as needing support within Communication Centers — working with multilingual clients and STEM related content. “This is somewhat unsurprising as our college campuses continue to become more linguistically diverse and current trends of popular majors include STEM-related studies,” says Broberg.

“We believe these resources will meet a crucial need for Communication Centers to train their consultants to provide expert feedback to the diverse needs of students we see on campuses across the country,” concludes Broberg. “Participants have been incredibly enthusiastic and there has been a great deal of interest in the outcomes of our 4-VA supported research.”

Mason Study Aims to Reduce Avian Window Collision Mortality

Ornithologists, ecologists, environmentalists in the Mason Nation, and many others will welcome the findings of one of the most expansive survey-based studies to date designed to reduce avian window collision mortality. Avian window collisions are a national concern, with estimates of avian mortality between 300 million to one billion birds every year in the United States. The investigation, conducted over the past 12 months on multiple Mason campuses, was led by Biology Professor Daniel Hanley and his co-PI David Luther, with support from collaborator John Swaddle at William and Mary. Most significantly, the study has identified a critical factor — the gloss of the windows – as playing a significant role in avian window collisions and is the first research of its kind to make this important link.

The study was funded with a grant from 4-VA@Mason, as part of 4-VA’s commitment to help launch pilot explorations which support collaborations of faculty in higher education throughout the commonwealth. The 4-VA research also encourages opportunities for student research that can make a positive difference for Virginia and beyond.

Jamison teaches students about window strikes at a volunteer event on the Fairfax campus

Smith distributes information to raise awareness about the project at one of two events he led during Global Bird Rescue Week.

Hanley explains, “Through a large-scale Mason community effort, we conducted one of the most comprehensive investigations on this subject. We completed 3,415 surveys across multiple Mason campuses — 3,017 on the main Fairfax campus alone — and found 82 total fatal collisions, with 62 at the Fairfax campus.” The surveys were undertaken by a team of more than 40 volunteer undergraduate students under the direction of graduate students Quentin Jamison and Shawn Smith.

“On our Fairfax campus, the strikes were not clustered in any particular area. Instead, we found that certain buildings were more problematic than others. Not surprisingly, buildings with greater glass coverage experienced more fatal window strikes, as this has been documented before,” notes Hanley.

Smith documents a window strike mortality event during a citizen science walk.

Smith shares avian insights with volunteers using the Lab’s teaching collection.

The researchers recorded the abundance of window strikes within the campus interior. Horizon Hall and Southside posed the greatest risk on the Fairfax campus, however, Exploratory and Thompson Halls also had a large number of strikes.

The core of the study considered the reflective properties of windows on 34 buildings as well as the proportion of glass on each side of these buildings. The team implemented a model to determine which factor could predict the count of fatal avian window strikes. “We used high-end glossmeters — Rhopoint IQ — to quantify the degree to which the glass reflects light and images to on-coming birds. There have been very few studies that have experimentally measured these features of glass. Therefore, our study provides a critical baseline for future endeavors in this field,” says Hanley.

The team coordinated with Mason Facilities, the Patriot Green Fund, and other interested parties. Further, they aligned with researchers and students at Virginia Tech, Radford, Bridgewater College, and William & Mary who are tracking fatal window collisions on their campuses. Additionally, outside organizations including the Virginia Master Naturalists and the Virginia Chapter of The Wildlife Society participated. Through this 4-VA supported research, PIs Hanley and Luther aim to greatly reduce window strikes throughout Mason campuses.

Jamison presented the project at the 2023 annual meeting of The Wildlife Society’s Virginia Chapter.

Graduate student researcher Jamison presented preliminary study results at the annual winter meeting of the Virginia Chapter of the Wildlife Society and, as a result, the group is now building a consortium on causes of window strikes and methods of reduction among researchers at the other universities in Virginia. Jamison presented at the American Ornithological Society conference in Ontario, Canada this summer as well.

Jamison at the American Ornithological conference.

There’s more to come. “We have a draft manuscript on the topic, in collaboration with Dr. Swaddle from William and Mary, which will be submitted to a peer reviewed journal later this year,” notes Hanley. “We are now focusing on the sensory perception aspect of avian vision and understanding how birds see the glass (or not) while flying in order to design methods to make the glass more obvious to the birds so that collisions are reduced.” This research could result in external funding from energy companies and developers to install avian collision avoidance systems on their infrastructures — wind turbines, power lines, transformers, and buildings.

More than forty undergraduate students participated on the project, including: Aaidah Nizumudeen, Aaron Amin, Aaron Morton, Alexander Perez, Amal Ahmad, Ari Masters, Carolina Sanabria, Caroline Tate, Caty McVicker, Chloe Fowler, Deena Chouf, Eatha Lynch, Elham Sarangi, Emily Le Bron, Grace Rapoza, Grace Shimizu, Holly Haw, Hye Jeong Kim, Jessica Winey, Jordan Bertaux, Jordan Davis, Kaitlyn Moore, Kate Mateyka, Katie Russel, Kennedy Ream, Kiersten Jewell, Maddy Gonzalez, Merri Collins, Mohammad Alaadhab, Morgan O’Donnel, Natali Walker, Nibal Negib, Nimra Kashif, Quinn Griffin, Raina Saha, Ruth Leilago, Sameer Jame, Sara Abarra, Sarah Weikel, Trent Gasso, and Zahra Slimani.

Virginia Tech undergraduate students Madeline Alt and Rachel Morse also shared expertise from years of surveys on their campus.

“We couldn’t have pulled all this together without the 4-VA@Mason funding,” concludes Hanley. “This was a significant undertaking, and we needed the time and space to get this done right. We believe this is just the beginning of what we hope will be a turning point in reducing avian collision mortality.”

4-VA@Mason Awards Funding for 12 Promising Investigations Led by Mason Faculty plus Eight Additional Collaborations for Mason Co-PIs

4-VA@Mason, announces the Collaborative Research Awards for the 23-24 academic year — with 12 projects spearheaded by Mason faculty, and eight for Mason faculty acting as Co-PIs. “These 4-VA@Mason Collaborative Research Grants are the core of what our state program is all about — providing seed funding to encourage faculty from our eight partner schools to launch novel research efforts and build critical relationships among the institutions,” said Janette Kenner Muir, Vice Provost, Academic Affairs and Campus Coordinator of 4-VA@Mason.

Approved proposals were from a range of colleges at Mason including the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Computer Game Design/Virginia Serious Game Institute; the College of Humanities and Social Sciences; the College of Engineering and Computing; and the College of Science.

One proposal funded this year is Dr. Chris Jones’ work, Using Taxonomic, Pigment, and Molecular Analysis to Characterize Algal Blooms in the Shenandoah River. Professor Jones, a member of the Environmental Science & Policy Department and Director of the Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center, has already seen the benefit of 4-VA support with growing research projects focused on harmful algal blooms that threaten Virginia’s Shenandoah River and also plague waters throughout the world. In the Shenandoah, these blooms originally consisted of green algae, which while troublesome for recreational activities, did not present a danger to humans and wildlife. In the past two years, however, the blooms have included cyanobacteria that contain toxins. Environmental engineers recognize that it is critical to identify the toxic bacteria quickly and definitively, but current methodologies are inadequate. Jones’ team of Mason faculty and students, together with their partners at Old Dominion University, will tackle this important challenge.

The following are the 4-VA@Mason 2023-24 Collaborative Research Grant winners, with partner schools in parentheses.

Akerlof, Karen Bridging Science and Policy in the States: A Study of Emerging Mechanisms to Train Scientists and Engineers (VT)
Enfield, Jacob MySQL Murder Mystery (VMI)
Furst, Kirin Emlet The role of the air-water interface in breakthrough of PFAS and phthalate esters during wastewater treatment (VT)
Jones, R Christian Using Taxonomic, Pigment and Molecular Analysis to Characterize Algal Blooms in the Shenandoah River (ODU)
Kang, Pilgyu Machine learning assisted laser manufacturing of alloy nanoparticle graphene hybrid materials for high performance hydrogen sensing (UVA)
LaFrance, Michelle The Virginia Community and Public Writing Collaborative (JMU, VCU, VT, UVA)
Lawrence, Heidi A Rhetorical Approach to Challenges in Blood Donation (VT)
Raffegeau, Tiphanie Using Virtual Reality to Study Cognitive and Affective Risk Factors for Falls in Older Adults (ODU)
Straus, David The Role of Diabatic Heating in Determining Atlantic Storm Paths (UVA)
Van Aken, Benoit Protection of RNA by Association with Macromolecules Implications for Wastewater Based Epidemiology (VT)
Yu, Yun Nanoscale Visualization of Electrocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction Activity at Cu Nanocatalysts (UVA)
Zhu, Ziwei Towards Consolidated and Dynamic Debiasing for Online Search and Recommendation (VT)

The following Mason faculty received funding as Co-PIs collaborating with other 4-VA institutions in parentheses:

Chowdhury, Ahsan The Commonwealth Proofs Project Collaborative: Promoting Students’ Understanding of Logical Implications and their Transformations (VT)
Dromgold-Sermen, Michelle New American Resources: Partnerships and Initiatives at Virginia Higher Education Institutions to Strengthen Virginia’s Migration Support (VT)
Jing, Hao Acoustics-enabled Noncontact Manipulation, Patterning, and Assembly of Complex-shaped Micro/nanoparticles for Advance Manufacturing (VT)
LaToza, Thomas Visualizing Code Changes to Understand Students’ Mental Models in Programming Education at Scale (VT)
Stone, Victoria Increasing Mental Health Services in K-12 Settings by Helping Provisionally Licensed School Counselors Meet the Requirements for Full Licensure as Professional School Counselors in Virginia (JMU)
Stone, Victoria Supporting K-12 Students after Psychiatric Hospitalizations: Piloting Mixed Reality Simulation Training for School Mental Health Professionals (UVA)
Van Aken, Benoit Hyperspectral imaging for the real-time detection of microplastic particles in seafoods (VT)
Zhu, Ziwei Break the Dilemmas between Model Performance and Fairness: A Holistic Solution for Fairness Learning on Graphs (VT)

“We are looking forward to the new discoveries we will find with these 4-VA collaborative projects,” comments Vice Provost Muir, “Our faculty, students, and the Commonwealth of Virginia will benefit from these partnerships as the schools approach the work from their own perspectives and strengths, building solid partnerships for future initiatives.”