2026-27 Teacher-Scholar Mini Grant Awardees
Cal Poly’s Office of Research awarded 26 projects for the 2026-27 cycle of the Teacher-Scholar Mini Grant (TSMG) program.
The TSMG program has been developed to support Cal Poly's institutional commitment to advancing discovery, integration, application, and engagement in the context of teaching and learning. Supported by the Office of the Provost, the Teacher-Scholar Mini Grant program expands internal funding to support all areas of teacher-scholar activities.
The 2026-27 awarded projects are:
| Name | Project title | College |
|---|---|---|
|
Farah Al-Nakib |
“Mawtini: Building a Community Archive.” | College of Liberal Arts |
|
Nancy Arrington |
“Legal Ambition Gaps among Undergraduate Students: Causes and Mitigation Techniques.” | College of Liberal Arts |
|
Tim Bean Scott Appleby |
“Developing curriculum for statewide biodiversity monitoring and research.” | Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Alexander Bisberg |
“Social Media Use and Algorithmic Perception: Healthy or Habitual?” | College of Engineering |
|
Gregory Domber |
“Building and Analyzing a Dataset on U.S.-Polish Exchange Participants during the Cold War.” | College of Liberal Arts/ Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Natasha Duell |
“The Positive Trajectories Study: Identifying Links between Positive Risk Taking and Adolescent Well-Being.” | College of Liberal Arts |
|
Sarah Gravem |
“Using eDNA to track reintroduced endangered sunflower sea stars and potential accompanying pathogens.” | Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Matthew Hopper |
“Global Passages: Completing and Launching a Public Database of Slaving Voyages across the Indian Ocean and Asia.” | College of Liberal Arts |
|
Min Kim |
“Institutional Demand and Price Discovery in Real Estate Markets.” | Orfalea College of Business |
|
Amy Lammert |
“Redefining Appetite: Insights and Product Innovation for the GLP-1 Generation.” |
College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences
|
|
Christine Lee |
“Reflective AI Use in Learning: A Mixed-Methods Study Using Surveys, Interviews, and Eye Tracking.” | College of Liberal Arts/ College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences |
|
Sean Lema |
“Warming Waters, Failing Reproduction: Generating Data on Reproductive Thermal Acclimation in Fish for an NSF Mid-Career Advancement Proposal.” | Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Aaron Liggett |
“Advancing the PALM Lab: Drone-Aided Design Methods and Book Proposal.” | College of Architecture and Environmental Design |
|
Heather Liwanag |
“RUI: Understanding the factors influencing migration behavior and success in a large marine predator during the transition to independence.” | Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Leily Majidi |
“Multi-Stimuli Responsive Shape Memory Polymer Self-folding Origami.” | College of Engineering |
|
Rodrigo Manjarin Arredondo |
“Evaluating the Safety and Feasibility of Abdominal Vagus Nerve Stimulation in a Large-Animal Model.” |
College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences/ Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Luke Perreault |
“Better Botantical Biomaterials for Bioengineering: Improving Biocompatibility of Plant-Based Tissue Engineering Scaffolds.” | College of Engineering |
|
Cyrus Ramezani |
“Corporate Democracy as an Internal Regulator: Does it Stabilize or Destabilize Banks?” | Orfalea College of Business |
|
Yan Shan |
“Promoting Local Tourism through Storytelling: Examining How Narrative Approaches Shape Tourist Understanding and Attitudes Toward a Sustainable San Luis Obispo Experience.” | College of Liberal Arts/ College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences |
|
Jennifer Shields |
“How We Experience Culture: Measuring Attention and Emotion in Heritage Spaces.” | College of Architecture and Environmental Design/ College of Engineering |
|
Alison Ventura |
“Extending the iBaby Study Through Student-Led Behavioral Coding of Longitudinal Mother-Infant Interactions.” | Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Jesse Vestermark |
“Re-Embodying Discovery for Creative Digital Natives: The Library Browsing Experiences of Gen Z Architecture Students.” | Kennedy Library Academic Services |
|
Lizvette Villafaña |
“Dynamical Modeling of the Broad Line Region: Training Under- graduates in Bayesian Inference and High-Performance Computing through Astrophysics Research.” | Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Mallary Wacker |
“Investigating the production and function of neutrophil extracellular vesicles during bacterial infection.” | Bailey College of Science and Mathematics |
|
Zhiyuan Wei |
“Integrating Risk Modeling and Risk-Informed Optimization for Fire Service System Operations.” | College of Engineering |
|
Marjan Zare Bezgabadi |
“Microfluidic rheometry of complex fluids at high deformation rates.” | College of Engineering |
Congratulations to those awarded grants, and thanks to everyone who submitted proposals. The team also extends a special thank you to the TSMG Review Panel members for their contributions to this important program.
