Daniel Attinger, associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Reza Montazami, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, both received awards from the Presidential Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research program created by President Steven Leath.
Attinger received a proof-of-concept award of up to $100,000 for one year. He is the principal investigator of a project titled “Computationally Engineered Plant Institute.” The project focused on the future of food security entails collaboration between engineers and plant scientists.
Montazami is part of a project called “Integrated, Interdisciplinary Vaccine Research Against Antigenically Diverse Viruses” that received a pursuit funding award for up to $1.5 million over three years. The purpose of the project, which is led by principal investigator Michael Cho from biomedical sciences, is to develop novel strategies with a long-term goal of producing efficacious and cost-effective vaccines against viruses such as HIV-1 and influenza virus.
The Presidential Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research program was created to support research efforts with the possibility of leading to major advances, discoveries and technologies.