ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Officers and Directors of the James S. McDonnell Foundation today announced more than $6 million in grants in their ongoing program, the 21st Century Science Initiative. Together with previously announced grants, the Foundation’s total 2020 commitment is more than $18.5M.
In 2020, JSMF inaugurated the Opportunity Awards funding new research studying human behavior across the lifespan using more naturalistic designs and dynamic measures better to reflect our day-to-day behavior.
Other 21st Century Science Initiative grants are listed below. Of note are Collaborative Awards investigating the neurological impacts of COVID-19 and studying how societal collective memories are formed and maintained. “The Foundation continues to fulfill James S. McDonnell’s vision of serving society by supporting the quest for new knowledge and its responsible application,” President Susan M. Fitzpatrick noted. “These new grants are pushing forward the Foundation’s agenda of supporting scientific research contributing solutions to important complex problems.”
JSMF supports research in two program areas: Understanding Human Cognition and Understanding Dynamic & Multi-scale Systems. The foundation also awards Special Initiative grants to projects closely aligned with its programmatic interests but are structured to allow JSMF to pursue unusual opportunities.
The McDonnell Foundation’s 2020 21st Century Science Initiative Awards are:
Opportunity Awards: Understanding Human Cognition
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Expanding the Horizons for Research at the Developmental Interface of Brain, Body, and Behavior,
Project Lead: Peter Marshall, $250,000 over four years
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
Origins of body knowledge
Project Lead: Jeffrey Lockman, $250,000 over four years
Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
Off the Rails: Moral Psychology Beyond Traditional Borders
Project Lead: Santiago Amaya, $250,000 over four years
University of California, Davis, Davis, California
Leveraging Virtual Reality to Unlock Interactions Between Visual Attention and Memory in Children and Adults
Project Lead: Joy Geng, $250,000 over four years
University of California, Davis, Davis, California
Examination of infant learning in naturalistic interactions
Project Lead: Lisa Oakes, $250,000 over four years
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Embracing Complexity in Neurodevelopment
Project Lead: Duncan Astle, $250,000 over four years
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
Personalized Cognition in Context: An Ambulatory Assessment Study of Executive Function Dynamics Across Adulthood and Aging
Project Lead: Adriene Beltz, $250,000 over four years
University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Does social support buffer fatigue? A Social-Developmental Approach
Project Lead: Emma Cohen, $250,000 over four years
Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
Event Cognition in the Wild
Project Lead: Jeffrey Zacks, $250,000 over four years
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Establishing Ground Truth About the Development of Episodic Memory in Infancy
Project Lead: Nicholas Turk-Browne, $250,000 over four years
Collaborative Activity Awards: Understanding Human Cognition
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York City, New York
COVID-19 Consortium for Recovery of Consciousness
Project Lead: Nicholas Schiff, $1,500,000 over three years.
Collaborative Activity Award: Special Initiatives
Ceibal Center for Educational Support of Children and Adolescents, Montevideo, Uruguay
Support for the 2020 Latin American School for Education, Cognitive and Neural Sciences
Project Lead: Alejandro Maiche, $50,460 over one year
Health Research Alliance, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
In Support of Program Planning for the Re-imagining Biomedical Research Ecosystem Initiative
Project Lead: Maryrose Franko, $50,000 over one year
Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri
Collective Memory Collaborative
Project Lead: Henry L. Roediger III, $750,000 over three years
Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards: Understanding Dynamic and Multi-scale Systems
Caitlin Cornell, University of California – Berkeley
Michelle Feng, California Institute of Technology
Artem Kaznatcheev, University of Pennsylvania
Christopher Lynn, The City University of New York
Sandeep Manjanna, University of Pennsylvania
Brandon Schlomann, University of California – Berkeley
Founded in 1950 by the late aerospace pioneer and founder of what would become the McDonnell Douglas Corporation, James S. McDonnell believed that science and technology gives mankind the power to shape knowledge for the future while improving our lives. "Mr. Mac's" vision continues to be realized through the research these grants are supporting. Since the inception of the 21st Century Science Initiative in 2000, more than $350 million in funding has been awarded.
