Summer Team Impact Projects

The Office of Undergraduate Education is calling for proposals for Summer Team Impact Project Grants (STIP) for Summer 2025. Pending funding, these projects will support multidisciplinary summer projects of undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members. These faculty-led projects will explore a central theme, a research question, or a community-identified problem. 

We are particularly seeking proposals that speak to the mission of the Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning, however, all proposals are welcome. The deadline for submissions is November 22, 2024. These projects will proceed in the summer of 2025 pending funding.

Submit a Summer Team Impact Proposal on a question, challenge, or topic, of personal and professional interest. See the submission guidelines and the narrative outline for all the materials that are required as part of the submission.

Questions: email impactgm@gmu.edu

To submit your proposal, you will need the following information: 

1. Your contact information and the information of any faculty or staff members of your team.

2. A project summary (350 words).

3. A Project Narrative (see details below).

4. Student Recruitment Plan

• A position description for undergraduate student researchers, which will be posted on Handshake
• A separate one page document that outlines your student recruitment plan.

5. Project Budget  

• Mentor and Graduate Student Stipends - Each grant can support up to 2 Faculty and staff mentors with a stipend of $3,000 each. In addition, each grant can receive one of the following:
  • Additional faculty mentor with a $3,000 stipend.
  • Graduate student with a $6,500 stipend.

• Undergraduate Students: $6,000 each for each undergraduate student (6-10 students per grant). Please provide the number of expected students.
• Supplies: up to $4,000. Please list items and approximate costs

In a single PDF file, upload a narrative—of no more than four pages—that addresses all the following:

• Overview of the central question or problem and the project that students will be participating in over the summer
• Timeline for the 10-week program including:
  • A first-week student boot camp
  • Enrichment activities for the participating students
• Undergraduate Participation
  • Describe how the undergraduate students will be participating in answering the central question or problem.
  • Describe what you think the undergraduate students will learn and/or take away from their summer experience working with you.
  • Describe expected student interest in the project.
• Involvement of partners
  • Tell us how you are connecting with campus partners, such as the library and research centers
  • If applicable, what off-campus partners are you engaging to answer this question. A letter of support from outside partners participating would be a benefit to the proposal if applicable.

An-Di Yim (Forensic Science)

There are currently eleven human decomposition facilities in the United States, and the GMU Forensic Science Research and Training Laboratory (FSRTL) is the only one in the Mid-Atlantic region. Since it’s relatively new, it is currently unknown how the surrounding communities in Northern Virginia perceive such facilities as a whole, and what their attitudes toward whole-body donation to such facilities are. Moreover, decomposition rate varies significantly between regions and current research in the region is lacking. Therefore, the goal of the project is two-fold: first, the project aims to understand the attitudes toward whole-body donation to human decomposition facilities (body farms) amongst the surrounding communities in Northern Virginia and recruit potential donors for body donation; second, this project aims to conduct decomposition research to understand the factors influencing decomposition unique to this area using advanced technologies. The Forensic Science Program has the technical capabilities to offer 3D documentation. Decomposition and its effects on the environment have not been documented using 3D technology, and such technology is ideal for capacity building for education and outreach beyond the GMU community.

Ellen Serafini (Modern and Classical Languages) 

Children who speak a language other than English at home represent the fastest growing segment of the U.S. education system. In Northern Virginia where George Mason is located, the ethnically and linguistically diverse population clearly reflects the changing demographics across the U.S. and U.S. education in particular. To better meet the academic, affective, linguistic, and social needs of language minority students, language educators have increasingly turned to bilingual or heritage language education to address disparities in educational outcomes often in the form of dual language immersion (DLI) programs that offer content instruction in English and a minority language. How can we increase the effectiveness of these programs in meeting the needs of bilingual students and decrease disparities in educational outcomes?  

Haw Chuan Lim (Biology) 

The research project explores how tropical understory insectivorous birds respond to forest degradation, fragmentation, and quality loss. Conducted in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, the study seeks to understand the mechanisms driving avian declines, including arthropod scarcity, dispersal limitations, microclimate changes, and visual constraints. Tropical bird populations, particularly in Asia, face unique pressures from deforestation, making this research critical for conservation.

Amira Roess (Global and Community Health) 

One Health is the study of the complex relationship between human, animal and environmental health in the context of cultural, social, political and economic realities. However, One Health rarely integrates these disciplines and almost never includes the experiences of minoritized populations.  We will begin to fill this gap by comparing the experiences and concerns surrounding human-wildlife encounters from the perspective of racially minoritized populations and compare it with that of White populations. We will focus on human-deer interaction in urban parts of the DMV since this interaction is now known to be increasing and poses a significant threat to human health. Specifically, deer are known to carry ticks, along with viruses they carry, and transmit them to other animals and humans, increasing the risk of Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases. Recently, deer were also found to carry the virus that causes COVID-19 and it is believed that humans infected deer via close direct contact or through a pet or other intermediary. The implications of this on future coronavirus outbreaks is unclear. There is also growing concern that chronic wasting disease a prion disease carried by deer found in the DMV could lead to a debilitating neurological condition in humans that leads to death. Given the structural (medical) racism that is pervasive in the US, the burden of emerging diseases would fall disproportionately on minoritized populations. In fact, our ongoing USDA-funded study found that in urban DMV, compared to White individuals, Black individuals are more concerned about emerging disease from deer and Latinos do not like seeing deer. Low-income populations more often reported fear of emerging disease compared to higher-income populations. With support from STIP, six undergraduate students and one graduate will work on this first study to answer the research question: What are the differences in the experiences and concerns about human-deer interactions of racially minoritized populations compared with that of other populations in urban DMV? They will use a mixed-methods approach that will integrate semi-structured interview data with social media data to answer this research question. 

Samuel Acuña (Bioengineering) 

Chronic pain is a significant public health challenge and one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Its origins are multifactorial, encompassing biological, psychological, and social dimensions. Understanding chronic pain requires going beyond physical symptoms to consider the lived experiences of those affected. For instance, chronic pain disproportionately impacts women and individuals from lower-income groups, highlighting the importance of exploring pain through a biopsychosocial lens.