Office of Research & Grants

Pre-Award Administration works closely with faculty and staff to identify funding opportunities and offers guidance on the application process, proposal compliance requirements, and university policies. The pre-award team works directly with the Principal Investigator (PI) through one-on-one meetings to assist with the following:

• Provide support with the interpretation of guidelines and instructions of sponsor requirements
• Assist in the preparation of budgets and cost-sharing arrangements (if applicable)
• Assist with proposal development with non-discipline specific sections of the proposal
• Support in the submission of the proposal

Post-Award Administration manages all grant awards and works with the Finance Office on award set-up and financial reporting. This support includes:

• Work with the PI to manage the award from start to the close-out of the award
• Ensure that the PI has access to and knowledge needed to monitor budgets, expenses, and balances
• Assist with preparing progress and financial reports as well as any other reporting requirements
• Monitor agency requirements and advise PIs regarding changes in agency and federal regulations
• Act as the liaison between the PI and the program officer on any award modifications including no-cost extensions, budget revisions, and changes in key personnel
• Support award close-out and submission of final financial report and any other documents required by the funder

Melissa Quan, EdD
Director of the Center for Social Impact

Established in 1985 and dedicated to serving the Greater Bridgeport region, RYASAP (Regional Youth Adult Social Action Partnership), a program from the Tow Foundatinon, is committed to ensuring the safe and healthy development of youth, young adults, and families. The organization achieves this mission by actively engaging with various entities, including organizations, public officials, and community leaders, on matters that are of utmost importance to the community.

RYASAP's overarching objective is to drive transformation within existing systems and institutions, such as education, healthcare, and the justice system, while simultaneously creating and fostering alternative models and methods that promote healthy community growth. This comprehensive approach involves utilizing focus group data findings to gather broader insights and input on residents' experiences of violence and their perspectives on prevention within Bridgeport's three primary low-income housing communities.

Peter Van Heerdan
Executive Director Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts

As a Quick Center signature offering, the Open VISIONS Forum aims to bring diverse perspectives and world views from across the political and cultural landscape to engage in dynamic public discourse in an informal academic setting. Open VISIONS is intended to provide an opportunity for open dialogue and the free exchange of ideas on some of the most challenging issues facing our society.

The Open VISIONS Forum engages the 'life of the mind' with the Connecticut community. Its mission is to integrate the academic perspective of the University's students and faculty with the wide general interests of our regional audience. Through an ongoing series of lively and informative lectures, these public conversations present eminent opinion-makers, artists, authors, and learned contributors to the humanities and sciences and civic and political commentators to engage the audience with topical issues facing a global and national agenda.

Sriharsha ("Harsha") Sundarram, PhD
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering

In 2023, the Foundation renewed its generous support of the School of Engineering & Computing with a grant that helped further the cutting-edge research of Dr. Sriharsha (“Harsha”) Sundarram, guarantee student involvement in the Baja Buggy design competition and provide necessary equipment for both the Statics-Dynamics-Strength of Materials course and the robotics laboratory.

Andrea Canuel
Associate Director for Community-Engaged Learning - Center for Social Impact

In partnership with Cesar Batalla School/STEP and the Wakeman Boys and Girls Club, Jones-Zimmermann Academic Mentoring Program (J-Z AMP) is an afterschool enrichment opportunity for middle school students from underserved communities in Bridgeport, CT, to receive individualized academic support from undergraduate students in a safe and structured environment. JZ-AMP is an offshoot of the longstanding Student Teacher Empowerment Partnership (STEP) between the University’s Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions, CFPL, and Cesar Batalla School. Since 2011, STEP has engaged faculty, staff, and hundreds of Fairfield undergrads with almost every classroom teacher at Cesar Batalla.

Academically at-risk middle schoolers performing below grade-level in both math and reading are recommended for JZ-AMP based on standardized
test results and teacher assessments. After participating in JZ-AMP during middle school, it is hoped that students will go on to attain high school diplomas in four years at a rate of 85%, compared with Bridgeport Public School’s average of 74.9%.

Jenna LoGiudice, PhD, CNM, RN, FACNM
Associate Professor of Nursing - Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies

The purpose of the proposed Trauma-informed Care for Midwifery Education & Diversity (TICMED) program is to increase the midwifery workforce through support of student nurse midwives (SNMs) at Fairfield University’s Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies (Egan School) over the next four years in order to effectively prepare and increase the number of SNMs to be Certified Nurse Midwifes (CNMs). This enables students to deliver evidence-based, culturally competent practices to address maternal health disparities, using the evidence-based approaches of trauma-informed care to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.

Sidike Paheding, PhD
Assistant Professor of Computer Science

The project, funded by a U.S. Geological Survey subaward from Michigan Technological University, involves conducting a comprehensive assessment of the latest advancements in underwater image enhancement techniques using the dataset provided by USGS. The primary goal is to provide valuable insights and recommendations for the development of innovative image enhancement methods, with a specific focus on enhancing underwater image quality to enhance performance in downstream tasks such as object detection, segmentation, and classification.

Key tasks and deliverables include providing guidance to research scientists and graduate students to develop and implement underwater image enhancement techniques. Collaboration in the selection and application of cutting-edge underwater image enhancement methods, particularly in areas like illumination and color enhancement, is a vital component of the project. Furthermore, the project aims to identify or create appropriate evaluation metrics to effectively assess image quality and measure the impact of image enhancement on object detection and segmentation. The culmination of this effort will be a comprehensive final report, and the dissemination of findings through publication in reputable journals and conference papers.

Paul Baginski, PhD
Associate Professor - Mathematics
Janet Striuli, PhD
Professor - Mathematics


The Fairfield Algebra Regional Meeting (FARM), scheduled for December 2023, signifies the inaugural session of a planned annual algebra conference at Fairfield University. These conferences will spotlight specific algebraic subfields, with this year's primary focus on group theory. Dr. Striuli and Dr. Baginski envision FARM as a foundational element for the long-term goal of establishing an algebraic community centered around Fairfield University, given its strategic positioning to become a hub for the advancement of algebraic research, especially among young faculty and students in the region.

This NSF grant will support the travel expenses of conference participants, placing particular emphasis on graduate students and early career faculty from the metropolitan area of New York City and Southern New England.