Grants

• Spring 2023 - Center of Excellence in Applied Computational Science & Engineering (CEACSE) internal grant ($99,297)  as the Co-PI

Grant awarded on a research grant entitled “Creating a Socially Aware Efficient, Transparent, and Equitable 311 System for Smart Cities”

 Residents use 311 services to report city-related non-emergency issues based on their observations (such as graffiti removal, litter, and illegal dumping, and water pollution) via various communication channels, e.g., phone, email, and mobile applications. After receiving the service requests, the city government assigns the requests to the specific department, which schedules city resources to address the reported issues. Researchers have accumulated extensive knowledge on the bias of submitting service requests resulting from persistent spatial, racial, and economic inequalities in cities. However, there are few existing studies on the service quality provided by city departments for residents with diverse social backgrounds. Moreover, our analysis based on the real-world 311 service requests reveals that the residents in the different communities of a city experience inequitable service quality, i.e., missed or unreported potential issues, and the diverse response time for addressing reported issues. To address such issues, this project develops a data-driven approach to enable efficient and equitable 311 services for diverse communities in a city based on collected multi-source data of a city, e.g., socioeconomic and demographic data, city infrastructure, and historical service requests.

 For this project, as the Co-PI, I collaborated with Dr. Yuan Yukun from the Department of Computer Science and Dr. Guo Feng from the Department of Psychology. With this interdisciplinary team, we initiated the collaboration with the Chattanooga City Department of Public Works and reached out to the Department for Innovation Delivery and Performance for broader collaboration with other departments. We also plan to apply for an NSF grant based on the findings of this project next year. 

•  Fall 2022 - Faculty Development Grant, UTC - Not Awarded

Grant applied for travel to present at the SSWR 27th Annual Conference (January 2023, Phoenix,  AZ ) on a research project with MSW students. The topic of the presentation was "Examining the Predictors of the Burnout Among K-12 Teachers During COVID-19."

• Fall 2021 - NSF Grant as the CO-PI  - Not Awarded

I worked with a faculty from the Department of Computer Science to apply for a grant on a project titled “Engaging Undergraduates in Cybersecurity and Data Science for Smart Cities”. The project was not awarded. 

• Fall 2021 - Faculty Development Grant, UTC ($1,500) - Awarded

Grant awarded for the travel to present at the SSWR 26th Annual conference (January 2022 ) on a research project with BSW students, The topic of the presentation was "How Disability Types and Course Modalities Affect the Accessibility Among College Students with Disabilities during COVID-19."

• Spring 2021 - Faculty Writing Stipend - Not Awarded

The abstract of the manuscript is as below: In 2020, about 53 million Americans provided care to others during the past 12 months (AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, 2020). The prevalence of informal caregiving will continue to grow due to rapid aging and increasing healthcare cost. The psychological, physical, financial, and emotional challenges associated with informal caregiving are well documented (Aneshensel et al., 1995; Brodaty & Donkin, 2009; M. Pinquart & Sörensen, 2004; Sörensen & Conwell, 2011). As the stress processing theory (Pearlin et al., 1990) and previous studies suggested, many factors can influence the stress processing and consequently caregiving outcomes/well-being of caregivers, including demographics, socioeconomic status, caregiving history, family and network composition, and program/service availability (Wang et al., 2020). Some evidence suggests that a lack of engagement in self-care activities might be associated with a higher risk of anxiety, depression, or mental health-related quality of life (Dionne-Odom et al., 2017). However, limited studies focused on how self-care activities (e.g., mindfulness, intensive weekly therapy, journal writing, etc.) influenced the caregivers’ burden and mental health; moreover, whether the type, frequency of self-care activities, and use of technology matters. Thus, I conducted this study to explore more effective self-care interventions to reduce the burden and improve informal caregivers' well-being. The study used a quantitative method, and data were collected from informal caregivers by an online survey. The findings of the study will help social workers, health practitioners, and policymakers who serve older adults and their caregivers to improve caregiver support services, especially provisions related to stress reduction/self-care for caregivers.

• Summer 2020 - Faculty Research Activity Grant, UTC ($1,300) - Awarded 

Grant awarded for the research project entitled "Understanding the Effect of Micro and Macro Factors on Preference of Practice Areas Among Social Work Students". The purpose of the study is to understand the effect of factors at the micro-level (e.g., demographics, socioeconomic status) and at the macro-level (e.g., program focus, economic recession, pandemic) on the preference of practice areas among social work students. 

This study used a mixed-method design. Collaborating with colleagues at the UTC, we collected the quantitative data from both BSW and MSW students in different universities using an online survey via QuestionPro; and collected qualitative data by conducting semi-structured individual interviews via Zoom with social work students who will graduate this year and directors or HR personnel from social service agencies. We also plan to investigate further the impact of social changes on career choices by following up with the students next year. 

The findings of the study will help social work faculty at the UTC and social work educators, in general, to better support a robust and diverse social work workforce, especially during a time of economic and health-related service upheaval. We plan to present the findings of the mixed-method study at next year’s CSWE conference and publish articles in peer-reviewed journals.

• Fall 2019 - Faculty Development Grant, UTC ($1,500) - Awarded

Grant awarded for the travel to present at two professional conferences:

1. Council of Social Work Education (CSWE) annual program meeting in October 2019, in Denver, Colorado. The Topic of the presentation is “Social work student socioeconomic status and employment outcomes."

2. Annual National Conference from the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) in November 2019 in Austin, Texas. The Topic of the presentation is “Factors Associated With Caregiver Reactions to Problem Behaviors of Persons With Alzheimer’s Disease.”