Roundup of new research funding
RESEARCH & INNOVATION
Faculty from across the University of Richmond are kicking off the academic year by further digging into their research areas with grant support from various agencies and organizations.
Biology professor Carrie Wu received more than $200,000 in grant funding from the United States Department of Agriculture to continue her research on the invasive spread of wavyleaf basketgrass into mid-Atlantic forests.
Wavyleaf basketgrass is recognized as a USDA high-risk invasive species. It has spread extensively throughout Maryland and expanded into more than 15 counties across Virginia, as well as parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C. The spread can be attributed to animals, hunters, and hikers because the seeds of the invasive plant are sticky.
Wu’s research focuses on developing maps and strategies to help contain the invasive plant’s spread.
“Our work will inform conservation and management strategies for this and other species undergoing range expansion,” Wu said.
Jillean McCommons, a history and Africana studies professor, was awarded a fellowship to support her scholarship on gender, race, and ethnicity in Appalachia.
The Wilma Dykeman “Faces of Appalachia” Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, which honors the legacy of Tennessee writer Wilma Dykeman Stokely, includes funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Appalachian Studies Association.
McCommons is writing a book on the history of the Black Appalachian Commission, a grassroots organization created in 1969 to advocate for the economic needs of Black people in the mountains, and will use the fellowship funding to visit archives and collect oral histories from former members of the BAC throughout Appalachia. She is particularly interested in the contributions of Black Appalachian women to the commission.
“Wilma Dykeman wrote so many field-defining books on Appalachia,” McCommons said. “She did what many of us aspire to do, and I am pleased to be a part of that legacy.”
Accounting professor Ashley Austin will conduct new research on the use of AI in audits with grant support from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Austin and her research partners will develop strategies to help auditors examine AI-generated financial reports using appropriate safeguards and will share their findings with accounting firms around the world.
“Generative AI can be used to create detailed and accurate financial statements, forecasts, and analyses,” Austin said. “However, despite their high level of accuracy and persuasiveness, AI insights are not absolute fact, and auditors would benefit from safeguarding measures to enhance their own skepticism when evaluating insights that a client generated with AI assistance.”
Law professor Marissa Jackson Sow is researching Black and Indigenous legal issues with grant support from the Institute of International Education.
An expert on contracts, international law, and feminist legal theory, Jackson Sow will use this funding to support her work on an edited volume and making all materials she is using for her projects freely available to the public.
“I am developing repositories of legal materials that focus on Black and Indigenous people and curating digital installations that will further amplify Black women’s human rights histories,” said Jackson Sow.
Additional faculty grant and research news can be found here.