Research

GRIPex: AI in the Disciplines

2024 awards announced

A total of 21 commendable proposals were submitted, requesting $3.8 million in support. After careful review by faculty peers both within and external to K-State, five proposals were selected to receive funds totaling more than $950,000.

The 2024 GRIPex awardees are:

  • Daniel Rolles, physics: "AI-based Molecular Image Analysis for Ultrafast Laser Experiments," $179,249.
  • Cydney Alexis, English: "Collaborating with AI: A Project to Develop Writing Studies-Informed Applications of Generative AI for Teaching in Higher Education," $100,356.
  • Tianjun Sun, psychological sciences: "Training Artificial Intelligence Conversational Agents to Detect Early Cognitive Decline," $224,438.
  • Ajay Sharda, biological and agricultural engineering: "Mapping Seed-to-Plant Life Cycle to Predict Yields — Integrated Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics Approach," $248,173.
  • Brian Spiesman, entomology: "AI for Pollinators: Developing a Global Hub for Collaboration, Data Sharing, and Pollinator Research," $247,475.

Read the full announcement.

GRIPex is a GRIP initiative for exploratory research that currently seeks to build interest and capacity in the game-changing domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is a follow-up program to the larger Game-Changing Research Initiation Program (GRIP) initiative launched in 2022, which made ten awards in summer 2023.

Given that AI is expected to be game-changing for nearly every research domain and aspect of our lives, the focus of this game-changing research initiation program is on exploratory research in AI in the Disciplines with goals as follows:

  • To build interest, capacity, and excitement for research related to the application of AI across multiple domains and disciplines;
  • To create synergy groups of faculty members having shared interest in AI; and
  • To lay groundwork for competitive proposal development, faculty hiring, and additional investments in AI-related activities at K-State.

A total of $1 million in grant funding is available for this GRIPex: AI in the Disciplines program.

Proposal call:

Proposals are invited for research focused on the application of AI in the disciplines, inclusive of all disciplines at the university. These can be disciplinary, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, or hyper-disciplinary (precursor to defining an entirely new discipline). Proposals are invited from individual faculty members or teams of faculty members. As this is a research-focused initiative, proposals must be led by a tenured/tenure-track faculty member at K-State. Topics could involve, but are not limited to:

  • Developing novel end-use applications for AI in transportation, health, education, cybersecurity, agriculture, manufacturing, AI services, or other industry.
  • Evaluating or applying generative AI technology.
  • Implementing AI to perform tasks or process control in highly stochastic domains.
  • Developing or exploring social science, logics, and ethics perspectives on AI.

Project funding level:

$25,000-$250,000 per project ($1M total funding available)

Timeline:

RFP announced: September 18, 2023

Proposals due: November 1, 2023

Awards announced: January 2024

Project duration: 12-24 months

Format and requirements:

Proposals are due by 5 p.m., November 1, 2023. Submit as a single PDF file to ord@k-state.edu. Use 1” margins and an 11-point font. The proposal (narrative and budget only) is limited to 10 pages.

  1. Cover Page (1 page, NOT included in 10-page limit). Include title, names of principal investigator (PI) and up to 4 co-PIs with departmental affiliations, abstract, total requested funding and project duration.
  2. Narrative (8 pages). Include project description/narrative, timeline, and expected outcomes, and potential future funding sources.
  3. Budget and budget justification (2 pages) — use the GRIPex budget template(xlsx). For budget inquiries, please contact Ashley Annan at aannan@k-state.edu.
  4. Biosketches for all project personnel (3 pages per person; NOT included in 10-page limit), NSF format preferred.
  5. References and citations (no page limit; NOT included in 10-page limit), any standard format is acceptable.

Limit on number of proposals:

Each faculty member may be a part of up to two proposals as lead PI or co-PI. Each may be lead PI on only one of these proposals. Faculty may serve as non-lead, including as senior personnel, on as many proposals as desired.

Questions:

Contact Gina Becker, Office of Research Development, gbecker@k-state.edu or ord@k-state.edu