Funding and Awards
Funding and Awards
IBS-affiliated students have been granted a wide variety of funding and awards for their research, teaching, and service; see a selection of these grants and awards below.
IBS Small Grants Spring 2023
Samina Islam
I received the IBS small grant which I used to partially support my air fare cost to Bangladesh for fieldwork. My fieldwork includes two phases of in-depth interviews with left-behind women in two climate vulnerable sites in Bangladesh. I have completed the first phase of the interviews and it went excellent. I will move to another field site again for the second phase next week. My research is concerned with understanding the social, economic and emotional well-being of left-behind women. I am using mixed method in my research and this qualitative data from fieldwork will complement my existing quantitative data and provide a deeper understanding of the well-being of these women, especially in climate vulnerable places.
Fedor Popov
The IBS small grant money will be pooled with the funding I received from other sources and used for paying for a survey I plan to conduct in Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in early Fall 2023 as a part of my PhD project. Initial plan was to organize a survey in mid/late Summer but we had to postpone it until after the vacation season ends. Unfortunately, due to political reasons I cannot leave the US and do a full-fledged field work, so the data from this survey is of extreme importance for me. Survey data will be used alongside textual materials and data from existing surveys in two case areas (Republika Srpska and Russia).
Lauren Herwehe
I will use the IBS small grant to cover travel costs to perform preliminary dissertation fieldwork in Mozambique. For this fieldwork, I will conduct interviews with smallholder farmers and other experts to research how farmers adapt to multifaceted vulnerability induced by civil conflict, cyclones and droughts exacerbated by climate change, and resource extraction by multinational corporations (MNCs). Mozambique is an ideal location to conduct research at the intersection of these topics—in just the last five years, the Cabo Delgado province has experienced the onset of a civil conflict, Cyclone Kenneth which was at the time the strongest ever recorded to hit the country, and MNC development of newly discovered natural gas and graphite resources. As such, the region offers important insight for conversations on how the increasingly severe global realities of climate change interact with the longer-standing forces of conflict and globalization. I am extremely grateful for the IBS small grant in making the travel for this research possible.
Hyodong Sohn
Why do Multinational Corporations (MNCs) form voluntary private environmental regulations? How and why does such practice diffuse? While the influence of MNCs on global environmental sustainability is increasing, studying across global firms as political actors becomes important to understand global collective action problem. But this type of studies has been a hard task as setting a pool of comparable companies and getting their comparable attributes are difficult. Thanks to IBS Small Grant, however, it was possible to purchase a list of global companies for a year from Fortune. I am currently undertaking a project to first examine factors leading to the origin of a private environmental regulation. Once this question is answered, the project plans to investigate whether there is any sectoral diffusion or diffusion made by countries’ relevant policies or by globalization pressure.
Skye Niles
I was able to use the IBS small grant to help fund lodging costs for my dissertation research on the impact of prison development on local communities in southern Colorado.
IBS Small Grants Fall 2022
Musabber Ali Chisty
I have used the grant to complete a conference registration and participate in it to present my research work. I presented my work at the General Assembly 2023 of the European Geoscience Union in Vienna, Austria.
Sarah Posner
This past summer I completed an intermediate Swahili language course through MSTCDC (MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation), a renowned Pan-African training center located outside of Arusha, Tanzania. The 5 week course offered an immersive learning experience which allowed me to gain the valuable language skills necessary to conduct human subjects research and, given its regional location, gain cultural skills that I would not be able to attain in a domestic course or an online setting. During my visit, MSTCDC won an award for the institution’s outstanding Swahili teaching program which was awarded on International Kiswahili Day recognized by UNESCO.
The training center was located in a gorgeous tropical rainforest and daily lessons were often interrupted by colobus monkeys and maribou storks screeching and howling from trees overhead. The training center also offered a communal space to practice my Swahili at the dining hall during meal times, when playing soccer at the field, and during field trips to coffee farms and the nearby markets where I did most of my shopping. My host mother and sister spoke primarily in Swahili in the household, where we practiced vocubulary while performing day to day domestic chores. I cannot thank my host family, teacher, and the friends I made along the way enough for their endless kindness and patience with me through the often difficult language learning process. The language skills I have acquired are invaluable to my future dissertation work and have strengthened my ability to connect with others which would not have been possible without the funding of the small grant through IBS. Asante sana!
Awards, 2022 - 2023
Hilary Brumberg
- National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP). This fellowship recognizes and supports early-career graduate students, providing three full years of funding for independent graduate research. Hilary is using this award to evaluate environmental and socioeconomic factors that facilitate forest restoration persistence in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest using geospatial analysis and interviews.
- IBS Summer Graduate Research Assistant, University of Colorado Boulder
- AAAS "Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering" Award, University of Colorado Boulder
- Natural Sciences Dean’s Fellowship, University of Colorado Boulder
- CARTSS Graduate Student Award, University of Colorado Boulder
IBS Small Grants Spring 2022
Charleen Gust
I used my IBS small grant to help cover registration and travel costs associated with a conference I attended over the summer – the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) Symposium on the Cannabinoids, held in Galway, Ireland. My poster presentation focused on findings from a recent research project exploring the acute objective and subjective effects of high potency cannabis flower. In addition to gathering feedback on my own research, I attended many interesting symposia, as well as the NIDA Trainee Lunch and Learn Event, which allowed me to network with other early career scholars doing fascinating cannabis- and cannabinoid-related research. I am very grateful to IBS for helping to fund the conference for me.
Michelle Benedum
I used IBS funds to partly support my travel to Maui, Hawai’i for fieldwork in the Kipahulu community. I participated in ‘opihi surveys alongside The Nature Conservancy and Kipahulu Ohana.
Elizabeth Weltman
I used the grant to partly fund interview incentives and audio recording equipment!
Awards, 2020 - 2021
Bertha Alicia Bermúdez Tapia
- 2021 Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Graduate School, University of Colorado, Boulder. $13,000
This fellowship is intended to provide outstanding Ph.D. candidates with financial support to assist in the process of completing their doctoral dissertations. - 2021 Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant, Graduate School, University of Colorado, Boulder. $1,000
Support the research, scholarship, and creative work of graduate students from all departments. - 2021 Ralph and Barbara Dakin Award. Sociology Department, University of Colorado, Boulder. $1,000
For a graduate student doing “outstanding scholarship that contributes to peace, inter-cultural understanding, resolution of conflict, or amelioration of important social problems.” - 2021 Interdisciplinary Group Outreach Award, A Collaborative Project at the Texas-Tamaulipas Border. Office for Outreach and Engagement, University of Colorado, Boulder. $24,000
The CU Boulder Outreach Awards fund faculty-led outreach and engagement work that connects research, teaching and creative work with public needs and interests.
Kim-Phuong Truong-Vu
- Dissertation Completion Fellowship, The Graduate School, ($13,165) The Graduate School Dissertation Completion Fellowship is intended to provide outstanding Ph.D. candidates with financial support to assist in the process of completing their doctoral dissertations. The
- Ralph and Barbara Dakin Award, Department of Sociology, ($1,000) This cash award was made possible by an endowed gift to the Department by Ralph Dakin (who received his Ph.D. from this Department in 1958) and his spouse. The purpose of the award is to recognize “outstanding scholarship that contributes to peace, inter-cultural understanding, resolution of conflict, or amelioration of important social problems.” The Award is made by the faculty of the Department of Sociology.
- Small Grant Award, Institute of Behavioral Science, ($1,000) Small research grant from the IBS Training Program that priorities (1) creative ideas to continue research progress during the on-going pandemic, and (2) research that furthers IBS mission of increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Race/Ethnic Inequalities Research Award, Department of Sociology, ($2,000) This departmental award supports graduate students of color as well as graduate student research on race/ethnicity.
Jocelyn West
- National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), 2021-2024
This fellowship recognizes and supports early-career graduate students, providing three full years of funding for independent graduate research. Jocelyn is using this award to continue research on the social dimensions of landslide hazards in Puerto Rico to support equitable emergency planning and disaster response. - IBS Summer Research Award 2021
Jocelyn used this research award to conduct a meta review of literature on the practice of reciprocity by researchers in the hazards and disaster field, which is supporting the development of a CONVERGE Training Module on the topic.
Awards, 2019 - 2020
Michelle Benedum
- Student Research Award, 2019, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder
This $300 award allowed Michelle to travel to Bonn, Germany to present a paper at the “Governing and managing forests for multiple ecosystem services across the globe” conference.
Hillary Steinberg
- Presidential Diversity Award, 2019, The United Government of Graduate Students, University of Colorado Boulder
Hillary received honorable mention.
Kim-Phuong Truong-Vu
- CARTSS Graduate Fellowship, 2018 Center to Advance Research and Training in the Social Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
This $1,000 fellowship supported Kim’s dissertation project on the parental health decisions regarding the HPV vaccine. With this funding, Kim was able to travel to California to interview Southeast Asian American parents.
Melissa Villarreal
- CARTSS Graduate Fellowship, 2018 Center to Advance Research and Training in the Social Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
This $1,000 fellowship supported Melissa’s fieldwork on the long-term housing recovery of Mexican-origin immigrants after Hurricane Harvey. - National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF), 2019-2024
This fellowship recognizes and supports early-career graduate students. Melissa is using this fellowship to continue her work in Houston on the housing recovery of Mexican immigrants over the next few years for her dissertation.
