UF announces third round of strategic funding awardees

University of Florida campus entrance
Bryan Pollard via Shutterstock

On Monday, the UF President’s office announced the awardees of nearly $11 million in the third round of strategic funding.

The projects will include a center for advancing gene and cell therapies, an AI-augmented learning platform for mathematics, enhanced access to cancer screenings and a digital humanities lab.

According to a UF press release, the State Legislature gave the university $130 million in new funding this year and UF President Ben Sasse established that more than half the funds must be used for strategic purposes.

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“These exceptional initiatives will not only elevate UF’s standing as a national research leader but also transform lives here in Florida and around the world,” Sasse said in a press release. “UF continues to put this strategic funding to excellent use. We are facing and solving some of the biggest problems of our generation through the kind of interdisciplinary, collaborative work that will change lives for years to come.”

The first round of 19 proposals received $13.4 million in funding on Oct. 3, and seven proposals were awarded $5.4 million on Nov. 13.

UF received more than 250 submissions, and 36 proposals have been selected so far and announced in three rounds. A final round of proposals will be announced at a future date.

The following 10 third round selections received a total of $10,872,000:

  • College of Medicine (supported by the College of Pharmacy and the College of Veterinary Medicine): Regional Center for Development of Advanced Therapeutics Based on Cell and Gene Therapy, $1.5 million over three years – Funding will support the development of a first-of-its-kind center in the Southeast that will help bring to market novel treatments in advanced cell and gene therapeutics.
  • UF Health Cancer Center (supported by the College of Medicine): Expanding Access to Breast Cancer Screening in North Central Florida, $1.5 million over one year – The Office of Community Outreach and Engagement will enhance access to cancer screenings by bringing a mobile mammography unit to underserved communities, while reducing the cost burden on existing healthcare facilities.
  • College of Education: SALT-Math: Scalable AI-Augmented Learning by Teaching for Math Education, $930,000 over three years – This project aims to revolutionize K-12 mathematics learning in Florida and beyond by implementing a learning-by-teaching framework that uses a large language model to flip students’ roles as teachers to AI agents (resulting in enhanced student outcomes).
  • College of Education: UF Stars: Illuminating Pathways for Undergraduate Research and Innovation, $330,000 over three years – This initiative will pair undergraduates with faculty for research opportunities, increasing the number of University Scholars Program applicants, growing the participation in the College of Education Research Symposium, supporting graduate assistantships, and rewarding excellence in faculty mentorship of undergraduate researchers.
  • College of Public Health & Health Professions: AI Applications to Pediatric Neuromedicine, $480,000 over three years – Funding will expand investment in AI, neuromedicine, and imaging to develop learning-powered assessments that will enhance quality of life for children and adults with neuromuscular diseases.
  • McKnight Brain Institute: Transforming Stroke Care, $1 million over one year – This multidisciplinary, collaborative research project will help UF stroke clinicians, clinical investigators, basic translational scientists, and AI experts create training pathways for UF students to become stroke AI researchers.
  • College of Medicine (supported by UF Health and UF Research): Toward a Health Metaverse, $2 million over one year – The goal is to develop the physical and digital infrastructure for an Intelligent Virtual Hospital – a space in which healthcare providers and patients can virtually gather, learn, train, and create content using extended reality and Web3 applications (such as blockchain and virtual assets).
  • College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: Digital Humanities Lab, $632,000 over four years – This lab will offer coursework, experiential learning, and professional development opportunities to students and faculty, as well as invite a cross-section of Floridians to engage with UF’s research through public-facing content developed across a range of new media.
  • College of Medicine – Jacksonville: Precision Autism Center of Excellence, $500,000 over one year – The creation of this center will expand the clinical capacity for the diagnostic evaluation, management, and treatment of children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, while increasing external research funding and support from pharmaceutical and diagnostic genomics companies.
  • Information Technology: Research Software Engineers to Enhance/Scale Computer Research, $2 million over one year – Funding will help create a team of research software engineers to use existing infrastructures like HiPerGator to carry out technically advanced tasks for funded research projects (such as writing professional-quality scientific software, and helping faculty address increased data management and research reproducibility requirements).

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