Grants

Current Grants

2023-2025: REI Cooperative Action Fund: Nature and Human Health-Alliance; Launching a Nature and Human Health Movement: Creating Cross-Sectoral Pathways for Equitable Nature Access to Enhance Human Health ($200,000)

2023-2025: REI Cooperative Action Fund: Nature and Human Health-Utah : Exploring best practices to extend nature access to groups who may benefit from enhanced engagement with the natural world ($160,000)

2021-2023: National Science Foundation: Opportunities to Promote Understanding through Synthesis Program: OPUS: Forest canopy communities as arenas to advance syntheses and understanding of disturbance ecology ($299, 890).

2021-2024: National Science Foundation: Will climate change lead to system shifts on tropical mountains?: the interplay of epiphyte losses on host tree function, microclimate, and hydrology ($336,821).

2021-2023: Nature and Human Health-Utah (anonymous donor) ($120,000)Nature Access to Enhance Human Health

Previous Grants

2016-2019: National Geographic Society: Creating and testing “Nature toolkits” – nature videos, soundscapes, and educational materials for the incarcerated ($100,100)
2016-2019: National Aeronautics and Atmospheric Administration (NASA): Astrobiology lectures for the incarcerated ($70,000)
2016-2019: National Science Foundation:  NSF Includes: Alliance to Strengthen The STEM Tapestry (ASSisT): Exploratory Research on Identity Shifts that will Weave the STEM-Disenfranchised into Science ($299,767).
2016-2019: Utah State Juvenile Justice Service: Initiative to Bring Science Programs to the Incarcerated – Youth Offender Program ($110,000).
2016-2019: National Science Foundation. Innovations in Development for a Transformative Scientist-Driven Public Engagement Model: The STEM Ambassador Program ($1,255,345).
2016-2019: National Science Foundation (with S. Gotsch & T. Dawson). RUI): Dry in the sky?: Ecophysiological Strategies and Drought Tolerance among Tropical Montane Cloud Forest Canopy Epiphytes ($475,561).
2014-2019: Chevron Corporation. Bringing Science and Scientists to Rural Utah Middle Schools with remote technology for interactive exchange: Pilot Activities ($5000).
2014-2019: Northrup Grumman Corporation: Enhancing the Presence of Minority STEM scientists in Public Engagement of Science: A Pilot Project ($3000).

2010-2015: National Science Foundation, Ecosystems Program, Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research: Transforming public engagement by ecosystem scientists from burden to benefit: The Research Ambassador Program ($249,980).

This proposed project explores a high-risk/potential high- return approach to create a rigorous, creative, sustainable, and transformative program to change public outreach by academic scientists from burden to benefit.

2008-2010: Washington State Department of Corrections, Sustainable Prisons, Sustainable Lives: Green prison reform in four corrections centers ($300,000).
The mission is to bring together nature, science, and prisons is to reduce the cost and environmental impact of prison operations by training prison staff and offenders in science, sustainable practices and skills for the emerging green economy, and to serve as an exemplar for other prisons and enforced residential institutions. We also wish to provide effective avenues for scientists to disseminate research content and processes to the underserved audience of incarcerated men and women.

2008-2009: Toyota/Audubon TogetherGreen Innovation Grant, Dancing for Diversity: Linking modern dance with rainforest conservation ($55,000).
2006-2008: National Science Foundation, Opportunities to Promote Understanding through Synthesis Program: Ecological roles of forest canopy communities in a tropical montane forest: synthesis and dissemination ($103,322).
2004-2007: National Science Foundation, Database Activities Program: Forest Canopy Databases and Database Tools – Branching Out to Ecological Synthesis ($877,456) (with Judy Cushing).
2002-2003: National Science Foundation Informal Science Education Program: The Research Ambassador Program: empowering scientists to communicate research to public audiences ($74,955).
2002-2003: National Science FoundationDatabase Activities Program: Expanding forest canopy databases and database tools – branching out to ecology ($167,784). (with J. Cushing)

2003-2004: National Science Foundation Ecosystem Program (with K. Bawa & W.J. Kress): Travel support for an international conference on tropical ecosystems ($52,310).
2002–04: National Geographic Society Conservation Trust: Ambassadors for conservation: enhancing scientific outreach to non-scientists. National Geographic Society ($19,990).
2001–02: National Geographic Society Conservation Trust: An exploration of new ways to understand and conserve forest canopy biota. National Geographic Society ($29,900).
2000–01: National Science Foundation Ecosystem Program (with K. Bawa & W.J. Kress): Travel support for an international conference on tropical ecosystems ($52,310).
2001–02: National Science Foundation Ecosystem Program (with K. Bawa & W.J. Kress): Workshops to articulate and disseminate research priorities in tropical biology ($24,090).
1999–2003: National Science Foundation Database Activities Program (with J. Cushing): Databases and database tools for canopy science – what trees can teach us about integrating database use into the research process ($721,181).

1999-2003: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (with J. J. Ewel). Temporal changes in functional differences among life forms and their consequences for ecosystem processes in tropical forests. ($184,000).
1999–2003: National Science Foundation Ecology Program: Effects of disturbance and global climate change on tropical cloud forest canopy communities: an experimental approach ($370,117).
1999–2000: National Science Foundation International Program: The articulation and dissemination of collaborative visions for forest canopy research: an international workshop ($29,520). 1997: Murdock Charitable Trust Partners in Science Award: Participation of a high school teacher in study of canopy moss biology in the Pacific Northwest ($7,000).
1996–98: National Science Foundation Database Activities Program (with J. Cushing): Enhancing researcher and site productivity at shared research facilities: database tools for analyzing forest canopy information ($180,000).
1996–98: National Science Foundation Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology: Long-term studies of canopy communities in Monteverde, Costa Rica ($80,000).
1996–97: National Science Foundation Database Activities Program (with J. Cushing): Database support for shared ecological research sites ($168,000).
1993–95: National Science Foundation Database Activities Program (with G. Parker): The analysis of three-dimensional spatial information of tree and forest canopy structure: a planning grant ($132,873).
1992–94: National Geographic Society Research Grant: Investigation of the floristics and distribution of epiphytes in a neotropical cloud forest ($20,450).
1990–93: National Science Foundation Research Grant Ecosystems Program: The role of epiphytes in cloud-forest nutrient cycles: models and mechanisms ($236,000).
1987–89: National Science Foundation Research Grant Ecology Program: The role of canopy organic matter in cloud forest nutrient cycles ($199,200).
1988–89 and 1989–90: National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Grant Supplement: Ecological aspects of canopy organic matter in a neotropical cloud forest ($8,000).
1989–90: Institute of Museum Services Conservation Project: Use of model bar code labeling system for plant specimens at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens ($25,000).
1989–90: California Space Institute (with J. Melack): Incorporation of threedimensional treemapping into forest radar models ($17,500).
1987–91: Whitehall Foundation: Use of computer graphics to portray threedimensional dynamic biological systems ($89,000).
1985, 1986, 1991: National Geographic Society Research Grant: The ecology of epiphytes in cloud forest ecosystems ($35,400).
1983: Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid: Uptake of nutrients by adventitious canopy roots using radioisotopes ($200).
1981–83: Man and the Biosphere Research Grant (with C. Grier): The role of epiphytes in temperate and tropical rainforest nutrient cycling ($50,000).