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| Sherry Pagoto, PhD | |
Sherry Pagoto, PhD, associate professor of medicine, and research collaborator Deepak Ganesan, PhD, associate professor of computer science at UMass Amherst, are among the UMass researchers who received 2012 UMass President's Science and Technology Initiatives Fund grants, as announced by UMass President Robert L. Caret.
The $750,000 in grants to faculty members from throughout the UMass system support six promising research projects, which range from creating standards for testing robotic systems to detecting financial fraud in large-scale securities data to developing new skin cancer imaging technologies. The grants provide seed funding to accelerate research activity across all five campuses and position researchers to attract larger investments from external sources to expand the scope of their projects.
Co-principal investigators Dr. Pagoto and Dr. Ganesan will receive $185,000—the largest of the six 2012 grants—to explore mobile health technologies, such as wearable jewelry and smartphones, on patients with a variety of health conditions, including an initial study to develop wearable sensor software with real-time data analysis and patient feedback.
“We are excited to have received this support because the field of mobile health (mHealth) is positioned to revolutionize medicine and health care on a global scale,” said Pagoto. “Across the UMass campuses, we have the expertise to be a major player in this revolution. With the support of the President’s Science and Technology Fund, we have been given the opportunity to create collaborations and infrastructure as well as build upon our collaborative research in ways that will make this happen.”
The 2012 initiatives include a range of innovative research with the potential to contribute to the growth of the commonwealth’s economy, especially in the science and technology sectors, and extend the boundaries of human knowledge.
“The Science & Technology Fund advances the work of producing the discoveries and technological breakthroughs that will improve lives, create jobs and preserve our planet,” said President Caret. “It supports the ideas and inventiveness of our faculty and fosters a culture of collaboration across all five campuses that attracts investments and underscores our role as an innovation engine for the commonwealth.”
Since 2004, the Science & Technology Fund has provided $7.5 million to support 60 projects, which, in turn, has generated $207 million in funding from outside sources for vital research efforts and led to the creation of nearly 20 research centers on the five campuses.
