The Office of the Vice Provost for Research has appointed 20 faculty to the new Limited Submission Opportunities Plus review committee. These faculty will use their expertise to bring the most innovative and competitive Vanderbilt research submitted for limited submission opportunities, or LSOs, to the attention of external sponsors.
The new committee members were nominated by the deans of their respective schools and represent a broad range of research areas across the university.
Dozens of LSOs—external funding opportunities that limit numbers of applicants—arise each year from federal, foundation and corporate sponsors as diverse as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Japan Foundation and Johnson and Johnson.
Find out about funding opportunities through the LSO+ list-serv here. >>
The Office of the Vice Provost for Research proactively identifies LSOs and publicizes them to the Vanderbilt community with ample time to prepare proposals. Since 2017, the office has provided streamlined support for faculty applying to these opportunities, a process called LSO+, as part of PIERS, the Provost’s Initiative to Enhance Research and Scholarship, which is designed to bolster the university’s competitiveness in research funding.
When more applications are received than can be submitted, the committee reviews all the submissions before selecting the most competitive to be submitted to the sponsor as institutional nominees. The committee’s feedback ensures that Vanderbilt’s most compelling proposals are advanced to the sponsor.
About a fifth of the 104 opportunities run over the past fiscal year required the selection of institutional nominees. With that number expected to grow, the size of the LSO+ review committee has been increased with more areas of expertise represented.
Recent successes include:
- Associate Professor of History Sarah Igo won a highly competitive National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend after being selected as the institutional nominee for Vanderbilt.
- E. Bronson Ingram Distinguished Professor of Engineering Janos Sztipanovits was awarded $4 million through the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships in International Research and Education.
- Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Biological Sciences Antonis Rokas became a finalist for the coveted Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists.
The new LSO+ Review Committee members began their appointments on August 1 and will serve through July 31, 2020:
- Amy Booth (Psychology and Human Development, Peabody College)
- Kenneth Catania (Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Science)
- William Collins (Economics, College of Arts and Science)
- David Cortez (Biochemistry, School of Medicine – Basic Sciences)
- Peter Cummings (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, School of Engineering)
- Larisa DeSantis (Earth and Environmental Sciences, College of Arts and Science)
- Katherine Friedman (Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Science)
- Todd Graham (Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Science)
- Irina Kavarina (Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Medicine – Basic Sciences)
- John McLean (Chemistry, College of Arts and Science)
- David Merryman (Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering)
- Bonnie Miller-McLemore (Divinity School)
- Shelagh Mulvaney (School of Nursing)
- Ann Richmond (Pharmacology, School of Medicine – Basic Sciences)
- Robert Scherrer (Physics and Astronomy, College of Arts and Science)
- Mark Schoenfield (English, College of Arts and Science)
- Richard Simerly (Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine – Basic Sciences)
- Robert Webster (Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering)
- Christopher Wright (Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Medicine – Basic Sciences)
- John York (Biochemistry, School of Medicine – Basic Sciences)
Learn more about the LSO+ process on the Research@Vanderbilt website.