The winners of the CEHD Research Acceleration seed grant program have been announced. The program is open to all CEHD faculty and P&A researchers and awards are given in two classes of projects: Developmental and “Jump Start.”

The Developmental Project award of $200,000 over two years was presented to Jason Wolff (EPsy), Jed Elison (ICD), and Jessica Simacek (ICI) for their project, “Presymtomatic Intervention for Autism in Infants.”

The goal of the Developmental Project program is to grow existing interdisciplinary partnerships and support novel studies that break new ground or extend previous work in new directions.

Four “Jump Start” Project proposals of $25,000 each went to:

• Susan Walker (FSoS) and Lana Yarosh (Computer Science) for “Data Driven Measures of Online Community-Based Family Engagement for Quality Early Childhood Education.”
• Alyssa Meuwissen (CEED), Traci LaLiberte (SSW), and Christopher Watson (CEED) for “Validating the Reflective Interaction Observation Scale (RIOS) in the Field of Social Work.”
• Juergen Konczak (KIN), Naveen Elangovan (KIN), and Victoria Interrante (Computer Science) for “WristBot: Development of a Robotic System for the Rehabilitation of Wrist/Hand Function.”
• Lindsey Weiler (FSoS), Rebekah Hudock (Pediatrics), and Emily Goldberg (director of the Autism Mentorship Program) for “A Feasibility and Pilot Study of the Autism Mentorship Program for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

The goal of the Jump Start Project program is to support research at the early stages of project development to obtain pilot data for future grant submissions.