Office of Research & Grants

Amplifying the Resident Voice | The Tow Foundation

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.

Open VISIONS Forum | The Bank of America Charitable Foundation

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. 

School of Engineering & Computing Projects | Earl & Hildagunda A. Brinkman Private Charitable Foundation

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.

J-Z AMP | The M&T Charitable Foundation

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%.  

Trauma-informed Care for Midwifery Education & Diversity - Maternity Care Nursing Workforce Expansion Program | HRSA

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. 

Enabling the Future of Great Lakes Biological Resource Assessment | U.S. Geological Survey

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.

Fairfield Algebra Regional Meeting (FARM) | The National Science Foundation

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.