Research and Scholarship News
Amazing things are happening in Research and Scholarship at Bates! From recently awarded grants to new publications to upcoming opportunities and workshops, there’s always something going on!
Upcoming ORSP Events and Workshops
Enjoy your summer! Check back in Fall for 2026-2027 events.
Feed Your Mind
Thanks for a fantastic 2025-2026 Feed Your Mind series! Check back in the Fall of 2026 for information about the 2026-2027 lineup. If you’d like to be a part of a FYM lunch, please contact Alison Keegan, akeegan@bates.edu.
In AY 25-26, 5 Feed Your Mind lunches were held featuring 7 Bates scholars, drawing a crowd of approximately 212 faculty and staff colleagues. Presentations were given by the following:
Amy Bradfield Douglass, Whitehouse Professor of Psychology: “Nonverbal Cues for Eyewitness Identification Accuracy”
Carrie Cushman, Director, Museum of Art: “Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art”
Francesco Duina, Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology: “The Social Acceptance of Inequality: On the Logics of a More Unequal World”
Marina Filipovic, Visiting Lecturer in Russian: “Neo-Noir after Yugoslavia: The Fourth Man and A Balkan Noir”
Amy Huang, Assistant Professor of Theater: “Spending Time with Afong Moy: Asian American Performance, Histories and Firstness”
Curtis Morrill, Assistant Professor of Economics: “Mandatory Minimum Sentences and Plea Bargaining Outcomes”
Larissa Williams, Professor of Biology: “PFAS: The Chemical That Never Says Goodbye”
Recently Awarded Grants
Congratulations to the following faculty, who were recently awarded funding to support their research and scholarship! For a complete list of all awards received by Bates College organized by Funder please visit the Awards to Bates College page.
- Dylan Freas receives funding from the American Chemical Society
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Dylan Freas has received an Undergraduate New Investigator research grant from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund to support his project entitled “Synthetic Approaches Toward Hydrolytically Degradable Polyethylene Glycol and Poly(2-Oxazoline)s.” Congratulations, Dylan!
This work is supported by the donors of ACS Petroleum Research Fund under Undergraduate New Investigator Grant 70210-UNI7.
- Tristan Koepke receives funding from the Maine Humanities Council
Assistant Professor of Dance
Tristan Koepke has an award from the Maine Humanities Council to support his project “ENIGMA: Open Rehearsal and Public Discussion on Choreography, Archives, and the Humanities.” Congratulations, Tristan!
This program/project is supported in part by a Mini-grant from the Maine Humanities Council.
- Ifrah Shahi receives NIH Maine INBRE Research Award
Assistant Professor of Biology
Ifrah Shahi has received a 2 year research project grant through the Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) for her project “Investigating the Kingella kingae Type IV Pili Response to Host-Derived Stimuli.” Congratulations, Ifrah!
Funded by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (award P20GM103423 via subaward from Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratories). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
- Geneva Laurita receives Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award
Geneva Laurita was awarded the prestigious Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. Congratulations, Geneva! More…
- Carrie Diaz Eaton receives continued funding from Hewlett Foundation
Congratulations to Carrie Diaz Eaton, who has received a $1,000,000 2-year grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to continue the development and work of the RIOS Institute, a virtual synthesis center that provides community support, training, professional development, and open access curricular resources opportunities to STEM educations and institutional leaders.
- Bates Dance Festival receives Funding to Support the 2026 Festival
The Bates Dance Festival has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts ($25,000) and the Maine Arts Commission ($5,000) to support the 2026 Bates Dance Festival and its general operating and programming. If you see BDF Director Shoni Currier on campus, please congratulate her!
- Nick Balascio receives National Science Foundation grant
Associate Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences
Nick Balascio, in collaboration with colleagues at the College of William and Mary, received $22,527 from the National Science Foundation for his project, “Managing Sustainment of Forests and Fisheries.”
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2445367. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
- Bates Dance Festival receives National Arts Relief Fund award
The National Arts Relief Fund from Americans for the Arts has awarded the Bates Dance Festival a grant for $17,500 in support of its general operating and programming. If you see BDF Director Shoni Currier on campus, please congratulate her!
- Asha Tamirisa receives LEF Foundation award
Associate Professor of Music
Congratulations to Asha Tamirisa, Associate Professor of Music, who has received funding from the LEF Foundation Moving Image Fund Early Development Grant program! The funding will support the initial stages of a new project, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which will be a documentary using wildfire smoke as a material, metaphor, and method to explore attitudes towards climate change.
Assoc. Prof. Asha Tamirisa performs for an audience.
Photo by Tim Buggee
This work is support by a grant from the LEF Moving Image Fund.
- Justin Baumann awarded funding from Maine EPSCoR
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
Congratulations to Justin Baumann, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, who has received funding from the University of Maine‘s National Science Foundation EPSCoR eRISE II program to support his project studying mussel populations in the intertidal zones of the Gulf of Maine. This award will fund genetic sequencing of mussels collected by Bates undergrads over the past summer to identify subpopulations of mussels that may be better able to adapt to changing water temperatures. Collection and analysis of the mussels and sequencing data will be part of the honors theses of two seniors in Justin’s lab this year.
Assist. Prof. Justin Baumann This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OIA-2412130 to the University of Maine. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
View All Grants awarded to Bates faculty organized by Funder