Shah Lab Announces 4 Seed Grants, 1 Travel Grant

The Shah Family Global Innovation Lab has named its 2020 grant recipients. The awards are made possible through contributions from the Shah Family Endowment, College of Engineering, College of Agriculture, and external partners.

The core of the Shah Lab’s work is to utilize Purdue’s research and development and innovation strength to help create solutions to the bottleneck challenges of social sector organizations. Being true to that vision, the process began with inviting problem statements from non-profit organizations across multiple countries. The lab received 38 statements from 12 organizations relevant to Nepal, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Haiti, Zimbabwe and Laos. In the final stage of the selection process, finalists presented in front of a judges panel that included Purdue faculty and staff from the Colleges of Engineering, Agriculture, and Pharmacy, Discovery Park, Purdue Foundry, Purdue Research Foundation and the Honors College. The judging panel also included external faculty members. Abiding by COVID-19 safety measures, final presentations were given online with more than 50 people in attendance.

2020 Shah Family Global Innovation Lab Seed Grant Winners:

  • GirlEngage Program in Zimbabwe By Jennifer DeBoer, Engineering Education assistant professor, in partnership with Plan USA
  • Desalination of water in arid and semi- arid areas in Kenya By David Warsinger, Mechanical Engineering assistant professor, in partnership with Moi University and World Concern
  • Sensor technologies for real-time monitoring of mosquito populations through heat maps in India By Bryan C. Pijanowski, professor of landscape and soundscape ecology, and Kristen Bellisario, post-doc research associate in forestry and natural resources, both in the College of Agriculture. Their partnership is with the Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH) of the Government of Telangana, India and Marut Drones.
  • Affordable water meter at scale in India By Guillermo Paniagua, Mechanical Engineering professor and Aeronautics and Astronautics professor (by courtesy), in partnership with WaterAid

2020 Travel Grant Award:

  • An intelligent early warning system for crop diseases in rice cropping system in India By Dharmendra Saraswat, Agricultural and Biological Engineering associate professor, in partnership with Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT)/National Rice Research Institute (NRRI)/Odisha Department of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare (ODAFW).