Micro-Grants Awarded for Campus Community-Based Research

The Kendeda Building Advisory Board has awarded five micro research grants ($50 to $500) for sustainability related, small-scale, short term studies to be conducted by members of the Georgia Tech community. The request for proposals encouraged researchers to explore ways in which the Georgia Tech campus can continue to innovate, demonstrate, prove, and promote the adoption of best and next practices in regenerative design and operations. Researchers were also encouraged to use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for research design. All members of the Georgia Tech community were encouraged to apply. The program especially sought proposals from students and staff that had little or no prior research experience. The program has four objectives:

1. to expand scientific thinking and the understanding of the research process amongst those not (yet) directly involved in scientific research;
2. to bolster the use of the campus as a living laboratory;
3. to give voice to people and communities outside of research that have culturally novel perspectives on problems and their possible solutions, and to create new pathways for partnering with them; and
4. to seed novel ideas and nurture nascent investigators.

 The awardees are:

• Athena Verghis and Rishi Pathak – CEE Undergrads
  "Recognizing and Removing Invasive Plant Species Through Computer Vision and Deep Learning"
• Purna Pratiti Saha - ISyE Undergrad
  "Quantifying the Per-capita Single-use Waste Impact from Food and Beverage in GT Campus"
• Akhil Chavan and Lalith Polepeddi - Research Scientists, Global Change Program
  "Monitoring Biodiversity in the EcoCommons"
• Elliot Hodge - CHEM Undergrad
  "Edible Campus: A Model for Georgia Tech"
• Brooke Rothschild-Mancinelli, Rebecca Guth-Metzler, Katherine Nguyen, Aaron Silva Trenkle, and Michelle Wong – IBB Graduate Students
  "BBUGS Pollinator Garden"

All awardees will present their findings at the first micro-grants research conferenceto be held in the Fall 2021 semester.