Thorson Excellence in Engineering Research (TEER) Grants Program
The Thorson Excellence in Engineering Research (TEER) Grants Program was established in 2017 through the generosity of Donald R. Thorson, who earned his degree in chemical engineering from MSU’s College of Engineering class of 1949.
Mr. Thorson’s gift of $2.7 million has been set up as an endowment with yearly awards of $100,000 given to support MSU COE research objectives. Following discussions with engineering faculty, College of Engineering Dean Brett Gunnink established the TEER Grant Program to apply the endowment and enable faculty to engage in activities that will enhance research opportunities within the college. Each year, faculty will have the opportunity to submit a TEER Grant proposal for evaluation by Dean Gunnink and COE leadership.
The goals of the TEER program is to enhance:
- Faculty development. Examples include:
- Release time to allow faculty members to develop a major new proposal.
- Travel-related proposal development with other institutions
- Support of a post-doc to facilitate proposal/publications
- Center/institute development. Examples include:
- Funding to pursue center/institute research initiatives
- Funding to develop or enhance industrial and private sector collaborations
- Development of opportunities for new centers/institutes within the College of Engineering
- Research and educational infrastructure. Examples include:
- Purchase of research equipment
- Software acquisition
TEER and Bryan grant applications are generally due in March of each year and should be sent to Beth Varnes at elizabeth.varnes@montana.edu. Award announcements are typically made in May. For questions and specific deadlines, contact Beth Varnes.
- Faculty members submit requests for a TEER or Bryan grant to Beth Varnes at elizabeth.varnes@montana.edu. In the request, they will describe the activity they propose to engage in and indicate if the activity will occur for Fall, Spring, Summer semesters (or combination). The proposal should include a brief (two-page) overview that clearly describes how the proposed activities will enhance one or more of the goals of the TEER and/or Bryan Grants Program. The submission must also include a budget summary, two-page CV from each Principal Investigator involved, and a statement of time devoted to the project. Please combine these items into one document in PDF format. If the budget includes a course release (tenure track faculty), the course release should be budgeted at $9,500 per course ($7,000 per course + $2,500 for benefits). Other budget requests that include faculty time must include the associated benefit cost. Summer salary (include benefits at 20%) is permitted for both grants and will provide a maximum of one month. Extra compensation cannot be included, however incentives such as provision of travel funds is allowable if fully justified in the proposal.
- The proposals will be shared with the college Academic Council members. The Academic Council members will review all requests and submit a prioritized list. Prioritization should address how the proposals will have a substantial impact on the goals of the TEER and Bryan Grant Programs. This prioritization information will be provided to the Dean. The Dean may consider input from others in the college for their ranking. The Dean and the Associate Deans will make the final decision. Faculty will be notified of the decision.
- Faculty who are successful in securing a TEER or Bryan grant will be expected to submit a one-page statement of accomplishments to the Dean within 30 days of grant completion. Final report summaries will be posted on the college website.
Grant History
|
Grant title
|
Principal investigators
|
Award amount
|
|---|---|---|
|
Research Equipment Purchase Support for 3D Printed Multiplex Microfluidic Electrochemical Biosensors for Early Cancer Diagnosis |
Yang Cao, Elizabeth Johnson, Stephanie McCalla |
$24,252 |
|
3D Vision for Precision Agriculture |
Ross Snider, David Arathorn |
$25,000 |
|
Pursuing NIH Funding for GSoC: Improving RNA Assembly |
Lucia Williams, Brendan Mumey |
$25,000 |
|
Teaching Programming to Non-CS/CE Students: An Adaptive Learning Framework Approach |
Ali Yalcin, Brock LaMeres, Mary Ann Cummings |
$25,000 |
|
Curriculum Revision of the BS in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering |
Ali Yalcin, Bernadette McCrory, Sage Kittelman, Yang Cao, Faraz Dadgostari, Staci Turoski |
$24,919 |
|
|
Total:
|
$124,171
|
| Grant title | Principal investigators | Award amount |
|---|---|---|
| A Novel 19F/1H Dual Tuning Super Wide Bore Radio Frequency Probe to Study Energy Transport in Porous Media with Near- and Supercritical Fluids by MRI | Joseph Seymour, Sarah Codd | $25,000 |
| Thorson Excellence in Engineering Research Grant Proposal to Support Purchase of a FlowCam 8100 for the CBE/MSU Microscopy Core Facility | Philip Stewart, Ross Carlson, Matthew Fields, Cat Kirkland, Ellen Lauchnor, Otto Stein, Paul Sturman | $24,170 |
| Center for Equity in Engineering within MSU's NACOE Submitted to the Thorson Excellence in Engineering Research (TEER) Program | Paul Gannon, Sweeney Windchief | $25,000 |
| ICAL Request for Support to Acquire a Field-Emission Scanning electron Microscope (FESEM) | David Dickensheets, David Mogk | $20,000 |
| Classroom- and Field-based, Mobile Eye Tracking for Collaborative Teaching and Research within the College of Nursing and Engineeering | Bernadette McCrory, Elizabeth Johnson | $25,000 |
| Pilot of Mindfulness Based Faculty Mentorship Training Program | Jennifer Brown | $10,000 |
| Fostering National and International Collaborations Resulting in Biofilm- Biomaterial- and Algal Bietechnolgy- focused Engineering and research Center Proposal Development | Robin Gerlach | $9,500 |
| Total: | $138,670 |
| Grant title | Principal investogators | Award amount |
|---|---|---|
| Pilot of the Mindfulness Based Graduate Mentroship Program | Jennifer Brown | $10,000 |
| Development of a New Undrained Dynamic Torsional Shear Test Device to Measure the Static and Cyclic Shear Strength of Soils at Large Deformation | Mohammad Khosravi, Steve Perkins | $25,000 |
| Solubility Studies for Fundamental Preliminary Data | Stephanie Wettstein | $10,000 |
| Indian Education for All (IEFA) in Engineering: Faculty Development to Enhance Research, Teaching, and Service | Paul Gannon, Sweeney Windchief | $25,000 |
| Total: | $70,000 |
| Grant title | Principal investigators | Award amount |
|---|---|---|
| Markerless Motion Capture System for Multi-Scale Multi-Modal Locomotion | Mark Jankauski, Erick Johnson, Ron June, Scott Monfort, Corey Pew |
$25,000 |
| Expanding Cross College Research Capacity Through Acquisition of a Temperature-Controlled Probe Stage for the New Confocal Raman Microscope | Christine Foreman, Kevin Hammonds, Stephan Warnat, Heidi Smith, and Markus Dieser |
$25,000 |
| Developing/Improving the Communication Skills of Undergraduate Students |
Jennifer Brown and Stephanie Wettstein |
$19,000 |
|
Grant title
|
Principal investigators
|
Lorem ipsum
|
|---|---|---|
|
Advancing On-Chip Exosome Profiling for the Montana Health Care and Biomedical Community
|
Anja Kunze, Stephanie McCalla
|
$24,991
|
|
Initiating a Cybersecurity Research Program within the NACOE
|
Brock LaMeres, Clem Izurieta, Ross Snider, Michael Neeley
|
$25,000
|
|
Development of 3D Printing for Multi-Material Hierarchical Design
|
Cecily Ryan, Stephan Warnat, James Wilking
|
$25,000
|
|
|
Total:
|
$74,991
|
|
Grant title
|
Principal investigators
|
Award amount
|
|---|---|---|
|
Enabling the Study of Life in Ice
|
Christine Foreman
|
$9,680
|
|
International Collaborative Research: MSU and the University of Stuttgart
|
Adie Phillips, Catherine Kirkland, Robin Gerlach, Al Cunningham
|
$6,000
|
|
Toward a Center for Systems Biology Engineering
|
Ron June, Brendan Mumey, Ross Carlson
|
$20,000
|
|
Micro-Sensors Fabrication and Testing in the MSU – SubZero Facility to Measure Biological
Activity
|
Stephan Warnat, Christine Foreman, Kevin Hammonds
|
$23,575
|
|
|
Total:
|
$59,225
|
|
Grant title
|
Principal Investigators
|
Award amount
|
|---|---|---|
|
Expanding Cryo-materials & Bio-materials Research at Montana State University with
the Acquisition of a Cryo-stage for the Zeiss Scanning Electron Microscope
|
Kevin Hammonds, Adie Phillips
|
$25,000
|
|
Building Education Research Capacity within the College of Engineering
|
Brock LaMeres, Paul Gannon, William Schell
|
$25,000
|
|
Laying the Groundwork for a NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) in Optical Sensing
Systems
|
Joe Shaw, Ross Snider
|
$25,000
|
|
|
Total:
|
$75,000
|
For more information contact Elizabeth Varnes, Special Assistant to the Dean, elizabeth.varnes@montana.edu.