Research

Rania Zaied, a fourth-year PhD student in George Mason University’s Department of Communication, has won first-place at the annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, an engaging event that showcases the innovative research of doctoral candidates.

Hosted by Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and executive director of the consortium, this podcast focuses on how health professionals, policy makers, advocates, communicators, and activists are working to tackle the different sides of the greatest health crisis facing us today—climate change.

The National Humanities Alliance, in collaboration with the American Council of Learned Societies, and with funding from the National Science Foundation, is conducting a landscape survey of humanities-STEM research collaborations that address ecological challenges. CHSS faculty are encouraged to take a moment to complete this survey, which is estimated to take about 15 to 20 minutes to complete.

The Folger Institute in Washington, D.C., will offer several programs in spring 2026, including Early Modern Numeracy, directed by George Mason professor Jessica Otis. The application deadline for the spring 2026 programs is October 20.

Martin Wiener, associate professor in the Department of Psychology, has received a multi-year award from the National Science Foundation. The project aims to explore how the brain processes time when looking at images, with important implications for understanding memory, learning, and visual perception.

The Office of Sponsored Programs has developed a resource to support faculty with guidance as to how a government shutdown can impact university research.

The MLA will host a free webinar, “Supporting Faculty Research in Difficult Times,” on September 29 from 2 to 3 p.m. The webinar will feature a panel of experts that will answer questions about identifying external and internal funding sources, working with libraries, leveraging institutional support, and more.

The next installment of the Headlines webinar series is September 23 from 2 to 3 p.m. The Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) team will provide updates on recent policy and funding developments impacting the social and behavioral science community, discuss Congress’ plans for averting a government shutdown, and analyze the latest actions taken by the Trump Administration.

The American Psychological Foundation has launched the Direct Action Crisis Funding program to provide up to five grants of up to $20,000 to early career psychological researchers who have lost federal funding. This new initiative aims to support researchers with immediate needs, such as completing data collection or preparing new grant proposals, after their grants were terminated by agencies such as the NSF or NIH.

NIH recently announced the agency’s revised funding priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and says it plans to maintain its support of research across the full spectrum of biomedical research topics.