Available IWL Grant Applications

  • Summer IWL Interdisciplinary Grants Program Information
  • IWL Mini-Grants Application Information

Application Process OPEN NOW:
Summer 2025 IWL Interdisciplinary Grant Program

Seeking to foster interdisciplinary research collaborations across the university that further the campus community’s understanding of gender and sex, the IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program is now taking applications for its seventh year.  Applications due by 4:00 PM (Central) on Friday, February 21st, 2025:

The Institute for Women's Leadership is currently accepting applications for research mini-grants of up to $1000. These grants are designed to support research-related activities that advance scholarship or academic knowledge focused on gender or sex. 

Click HERE to apply.

 

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IWL Research Mini-Grant Awards

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, IWL pivoted its budget to offer mini-grants to Marquette Faculty researching gender and/or sex in order to better support researchers doing these kinds of research during during such unprecedented times.  Since the first IWL Mini-Grants were awarded in Fall 2020 and pandemic restrictions subsided, IWL found this program continues to have purpose and align with IWL's mission and vision.  So the IWL Mini-Grant Program continues to offer a rolling application process to help fund research work in small but significant ways. 

Here are past recipients of IWL Research Mini-Grants from 2020-2021, 2021-2022, and the current 2022-2023 Academic Year:

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2023-2024 IWL Mini-Grant Recipients

  • Computer software needed for coding interview data from a study that focuses on rupture and repair in cross-cultural mentorship relationships of about 50 Counselor Education doctoral students of marginalized racial/ethnic and gender identities
    Zori Paul, PhD, Counselor Education & Counseling Psychology

2022-2023 IWL Mini-Grant Recipients

  • Participant incentives for research looking to learn more about the perceptions of immigrants' victimization, including what constitutes a victimization and reporting habits; this information can assist practitioners and non-profit organizations who are often the first point of contact with many Latinx immigrants who arrive to the U.S. With this knowledge, practitioners and non-profit leaders can better explain victimization to incoming immigrants and provide them with resources in their local communities.
    Stephanie A. Dhuman, PhD, Sociology
  • Funding an undergraduate research assistant working on a research project examining the prevalence (infection intensity) of a risk factor for schistosomiasis and its impact on females of different age groups from database of field collected samples from Zambia for multiple years
    Nilanjan Lodh, PhD, Medical Laboratory Science
  • Stipend for a graduate student research assistant working on "How the Added Worker Effect Has Changed Over Time" [working title]
    Nicholas Jolly, PhD, Economics
  • Data collection expenses for a research book project with a partial focus on exploring the experience of West African women who often migrated under several guises to make a life for themselves provides a unique perspective on the phenomenon of female migrants, gender, and female mobility in the colonial period
    Chima Korieh, PhD, History
  • Equipment to aid in collecting date in the field for research to enhance the knowledge of the underpinnings of sexuality and friendship in bonobos and provide a comparative framework for reconsidering these dynamics in humans
    Michelle A. Rodrigues, PhD, Social & Cultural Sciences
  • Pay for a student research assistant on a research project studying the impact of trade on female labor force participation rates
    Grace Wang, PhD, Economics
  • Supporting a research assistant working on a research project to develop an innovative, culturally-relevant intervention to promote healthy behaviors and positive health outcomes for African American women caregivers
    Abiola Keller, PhD, Nursing
  • Funding to pay four research assistants with a research project that centers on four Sicilian women who fought the Mafia in their own island
    Giordana Poggioli-Kaftan, PhD, Italian - Languages, Literature, & Cultures
  • Assistance to attend the first sex education speaker series retreat supported by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (ASSECT) researchers and educators on sexual health
    Alexandra Kriofske Mainella, PhD, Counselor Education & Counseling Psychology
  • Stipend for a student research assistant aiding a study that deploys feminist critical discourse analysis to articulate how popular media and the press constructed understandings of sexual agency, respectability, and pleasure as informed by the transgressive artistic expression of two women of color
    Ayleen Cabas-Mijares, PhD, Journalism & Media Studies

 

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2021–2022 IWL Mini-Grant Recipients

  • "Researching Gender-Based Violence: Embodied and Intersectional Approaches" indexing cost-share; and an undergraduate research assistantship for research, analysis, and writing of a manuscript to submit for peer-reviewed publication on the role of cultural narratives and sexual assault sentencing outcomes
    Heather Hlavka, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Social & Cultural Sciences
  • Research focusing on the work of tele-observers and understanding rhetorical body work in health practitioner training, fields that are both highly gendered and racialized; a line of inquiry that spun off from a previous NSF project
    Lillian Campbell, PhD, Arts & Sciences - English
  • Participant incentives for a study investigating how Latinx immigrants both perceive victimization and reach their decision to report or not
    Stephanie A. Dhuman, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Social & Cultural Sciences
  • Research exploring the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, and living with sickle cell disease (SCD) among young adults (ages 18-25) living with SCD
    Dora Clayton-Jones, PhD, Nursing
  • Multiple student researchers assisting with a study on Resisting the (Sicilian) Mafia's Oppression through Children's Literature and whether female writers deal with the subject in a different way from their male counterparts
    Giordana Poggioli-Kaftan, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Literature, Languages, & Culture
  • Undergraduate student research assisting with research for a biographical project on a medieval historian and helping build an annotated bibliography on American masculinity in the early 20th century
    Lezlie Knox, PhD, Arts & Sciences - History
  • Fieldwork conducting interviews of women from Salvadoran diaspora: Los Angeles and Minneapolis
    Noelle Brigden, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Political Science
  • Graduate research assistant to help with participant observations and interviews of the Community School staff who will participate in an inquiry group focused on transformative student voice, with a particular focus on how schools can create gender equitable spaces for student leadership
    Julissa Ventura, PhD, Educational Policy & Leadership
  • Master's student research assistant for organizing the data collection, spread sheet, overseeing all data collection, data checking and perform the statistical analysis for a project investigating if there a correlation between the numbers of female authors and female participants
    Sandra Hunter, PhD, Health Sciences - Physical Therapy
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Training program in order to offer DBT skills groups to Black and refugee women who are experiencing anxiety or difficulty managing stress, and to investigate the efficacy of DBT with these two groups
    Karisse A. Callender, PhD, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology
  • Interim support for website hosting of a digital database of female philosophers, "The Persephone Project," in preparation to pivot this project to the next phase and help secure additional funding to keep expanding the scope and reach of this project
    Melissa Shew, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Philosophy

 

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2020–2021 IWL Mini-Grant Recipients

    • The Effect of Mindful Prayers on First-Generation Immigrant/Refugee Muslim Women’s Wellness: A Qualitative Study
      LeeZa Ong, PhD, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology
    • A study showing an effect of naturally cycling ovarian hormones on the neural response to threat-related stimuli during fear learning
      Marieke Gilmartin, PhD, Health Sciences - Biomedical Sciences
    • Research examining the returns to spousal schooling & labor earnings in a family
      Nicholas Jolly, PhD, Business Administration - Economics
    • Research focused on recently-emancipated Jewish-Italian painter Vittorio Corcos and his representation of women as portrayed in his painting Sogni (1896)—exploring the intersectionality between the painter’s Jewish diasporic identity and nineteenth-century women's identity as displaced subjects within Italy
      Giordana Poggioli-Kaftan, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Literature, Languages, & Culture
    • Research examining the experiences of working mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic
      Astrida Kaugars, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Psychology
      Debra Oswald, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Psychology
    • Studies investigating how daily clocks function differently in males and females
      Jennifer Evans, PhD, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology
    • For student researcher processing new archival materials (e.g., documents covering women's participation in physical training beginning in 1880, photographs, and participant lists) discovered this year at Turner Hall
      Alison Efford, PhD, Arts & Sciences - History
    • For student research assistant helping with targeted research on feminist pedagogy for a book project called [working title] "Education at the Crossroads: Socratic, Ignatian, Critical, Feminist, and Indigenous Pedagogies in Dialogue"
      Melissa Shew, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Philosophy
    • Participant stipends for a study that supports two research projects: "Exploring the Strong Black Woman Schema & Anxiety;" and "Influence of Instagram on Black Women's body image self-esteem & cosmetic surgery intentions"
      Simon Howard, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Psychology
    • Research examining the online discourses that have been generated in Latin America regarding the fight for abortion rights in Argentina
      Ayleen Cabas-Mijares, PhD, Journalism and Media Studies
    • Training from The Embody Lab: a 12-week, intensive "Embodied Social Justice" Certificate Program
      Heather Hlavka, PhD, Arts & Sciences - Social & Cultural Sciences

 

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IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Awards

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Summer 2024

Recipients Awarded for Summer 2024

The 5th Annual IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program award winners support three research projects:

Gender and First-Year College Students' Use and Attitudes towards AI in Education
PI Team
: Lilly Campbell, PhD, English; Gabriel Velez, PhD, Educational Policy and Leadership; and Jenna Green, PhD, English

Gender Differences in Leadership for Collegiate Varsity Athletes
PI Team: Benjamin Correia-Harker, PhD, Educational Policy and Leadership; Jacob Capin, PT, DPT, PhD, Physical Therapy; and Lindsey M. Mirkes, MS, LAST Lab at Marquette

Black Women Leaders: Navigating the Intersections of Race and Gender at the CRC
Principal Investigator: Angelina C. Sandoval, MA, CURTO
Co-PI: Robert Smith, PhD, History & CURTO

 

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Summer 2023

Recipients Awarded for Summer 2023

The 4th Annual IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program award winners include four research grants:

Exploring Women-Centered Refugee Resettlement
Principal Investigator
: Louise Cainkar, PhD, Social & Cultural Sciences

The Role of Obstetric Racism in Perinatal Mental Health, Birth Outcomes, and Stress Biology in Latinx Mothers
PI Team: Kimberly D'Anna-Hernandez, PhD, Psychology; Lisa M. Edwards, PhD, Counseling Psychology; Kavitha Venkateswaran, PhD, Counseling Psychology; and Karen Robinson, PhD, Nursing

British Law and Literature, 1789-1901: Texts and Contexts
Principal Investigator: Melissa Ganz, PhD, English

Cultural Clothing and Women’s Activism in Palestinian Territories and Diaspora
Principal Investigator: Enaya Othman, PhD, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures

 

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Summer 2022

Recipients Awarded for Summer 2022

The 3rd Annual IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program award winners include five research grants and one project grant:

Es Ley: Online Activism and the Struggle for Abortion Legalization in Argentina
PI Team: Ayleen Cabas-Mijares, PhD, Communications – Journalism; Amber Wichowsky, PhD, Arts & Science – Political Science; Andrea Kupfer Schneider, JD, Law; and Jennica Webster, PhD, Business – Management

Exploring Women-Centered Refugee Resettlement
Principal Investigator
: Louise Cainkar, PhD, Social & Cultural Sciences

Gender, Power, and Culture in the Face of "Getting Old": An Ethnographic Study in a Continuing Care Retirement Community
Principal Investigator: Alexandra Crampton, PhD, Social & Cultural Sciences

Examining the Experiences of American Mothers and Their Families During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Principal Investigator: Astrida Kaugars, PhD, Psychology

Uncovering Sex Differences in Pain and Stress in Hispanic Adult Long-COVID Survivors
PI Team: Linda Piacentine, PhD, Nursing; Paula Papanek, PhD, Exercise Science, Physical Therapy; and Marie Hoeger Bement, PhD, Physical Therapy

Diffraction
PI Team: Kris Holodak, MFA, Digital Media; and Debra Krajec, MFA, Performing Arts

 

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Summer 2021

Recipients Awarded for Summer 2021

The 2nd Annual IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program award winners include four research grants and one project grant:

Restorative Justice in Movement (RJM): Exploring the Embodiment of Healing and Gender Empowerment
PI Team: Dr. Heather Hlavka, Dr. Noelle Brigden, and Dr. Jennifer Ohlendorf, with Dr. Amber Tucker from Cardinal Stritch University

"Restorative Justice in Movement" is a research partnership with the Milwaukee Turners to develop a pilot program to promote gender equity, community empowerment, and collective healing from trauma.

Sex Differences in the Persistent Effects of COVID-19
PI Team
: Dr. Sandra Hunter, Dr. Linda Piacentine, Dr. Marie Hoeger Bement, and Dr. Paula Papanek

The overarching goal of this research is to determine the long-term effects of COVID-19 on physical and psychological function across different population demographics including sex, age, race, and ethnicity. 

Decolonizing the Archives: Ynéz Mexía’s Herbaria Digital Platform
PI Team: Dr. Michelle Medeiros and Dr. Henry Medeiros, with Dr. Denise Coutinho Endringer from Vila Velha University-Brazil

The purpose of "Decolonizing the Archives" is to analyze collecting expeditions to South America by the Mexican American botanist Ynéz Mexía (1870-1938).

An Early Index of Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease in Women: Advanced EEG Analysis of Complex Sensorimotor Functioning
PI Team: Dr. Kristy Nielson, Dr. Leigh Ann Mrotek, Dr. Robert Scheidt, and Dr. Scott Beardsley

The purpose of this research is to characterize sex differences in behavioral performance and in functional frontal-cerebellar activation and connectivity using advanced EEG techniques.  

The Persephone Project: Advocate. Amplify. Adore.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Melissa Shew

The Persephone Project’s mission is grounded in the belief that all young people are “thinkerly” creatures filled with intellectual curiosity about themselves, the world, and each other. Yet, women, girls, and those who identify as gender nonconforming have been widely excluded from the history of intellectual life and are still excluded today. The Persephone Project aims to help remedy that situation.

 

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Summer 2020

Pilot IWL Interdisciplinary Grant Program

The Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL) launched its Pilot Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program in 2020.  This research grant program seeks to foster interdisciplinary research collaborations across the university that further the campus community’s understanding of gender and sex across intersecting disciplines. IWL's pilot grant program funded 6 interdisciplinary research projects aimed at advancing understanding of gender and which had the potential for extramural funding. 

The IWL Pilot Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program supports projects involving collaborators from two or more disciplinary backgrounds or traditions. Projects may be directed toward:

  • The gathering of primary data,
  • The application of innovative approaches and analyses to provide novel insights from existing data, and/or
  • Creative endeavors that stimulate or strengthen competitive extramural grant applications.

Recipients Awarded for Summer 2020

The Inaugural IWL Interdisciplinary Summer Grant Program award winners supported six research projects:

Black Women’s Lives: An Interdisciplinary and Multimethod Exploration of Identity and Strength within Intersectionality
PI Team: Dr. Ed de St. Aubin, Psychology; Dr. Karen Robinson, Nursing & Associate Director of Marquette’s Nurse-Midwifery Program

Headshot of Ed de St. Aubin

Dr. de St. Aubin

Headshot of Dr. Karen Robinson

Dr. Robinson

The Genuine Farmer: The State, Gender and the Dynamics of Agricultural Change in Southeastern Nigeria, 1900-1960
Principal Investigator
: Dr. Chima Korieh, History

Dr. Korieh
 

The Effect of Mindful Prayers on First-Generation Immigrant/Refugee Muslim Women’s Wellness: A Mixed Methods Research
PI Team: Dr. Enaya Othman, Arabic Studies; Dr. Lee Za Ong, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology; Dr. Karisse A. Callender, Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology

Headshot of Dr. Enaya Othman

Headshot of Dr. LeeZa Ong

Headshot of Dr. Karisse A. Callender

   Dr. Othman
  Dr. Ong
Dr. Callender  

The Sexual Education of Catholic Young Women: An Ethnographic Study of the Gender Messages in Catholic Sexual Pedagogy
Principal Investigator
: Dr. Karen Ross, Theology (Visiting Assistant Professor)

Dr. Ross
 

Intimate Partner Violence as Structural Torture: An Integrated Interdisciplinary Analysis
PI TeamDr. Desiree Valentine, Theology; Dr. Jessica Wolfendale, Philosophy

Dr. Desiree Valentine

Dr. Valentine

Dr. Jessica Wolfendale

Dr. Wolfendale

Global Voices from the Woman’s Building Library, Chicago, 1893: A Case Book in Close and Distant Reading
Principal Investigator
: Dr. Sarah Wadsworth, English Studies

Dr. Wadsworth
 

 

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