Faculty research supported by grants

Tue, November 20, 2007 |

A Valparaiso University professor has won a $10,000 grant supporting his research on the Reformation and European conceptions of suffering, and is one of six faculty members to receive grants from the University’s Committee on Creative Work and Research.

Dr. Ronald Rittgers, Markel professor of German Reformation studies, received this year’s Philip and Miriam Kapfer Endowed Faculty Research Award.

The Kapfer Award will support Dr. Rittgers’ research for his book project The Reformation of Suffering: A Study of Pastoral Theology and Lay Piety in Early Modern Germany and Switzerland. He is examining how Protestant reformers attempted to fundamentally change the way early modern Europeans understood and coped with suffering, rejecting their allegedly “superstitious” and unbiblical elements.

One of the world’s leading young scholars of the Reformation, Dr. Rittgers’ book The Reformation of the Keys: Confessions, Conscience and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany, was nominated for the American Society of Church History’s prestigious Philip Schaff Prize in 2005. Dr. Rittgers joined Valparaiso’s faculty in 2006, having previously taught at Yale University.

The Committee on Creative Work and Research awarded grants totaling more than $25,000 to support scholarly work by Valparaiso faculty during the coming year.

Dr. Mark Budnik, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. Scott Duncan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering; and Dr. Angela Vernon, assistant professor of psychology; together received a $7,500 Wheat Ridge Foundation grant. Dr. Michael McCuddy, Morgal professor of Christian business ethics, and Dr. Shirvel Stanislaus, associate professor of physics and astronomy, each was awarded a $4,000 University Research Grant.

Drs. Budnik, Duncan and Vernon are working to develop a point vibration therapy device that is intended to help autistic individuals regulate their sensory processing and reduce disruptive behaviors. The device, if successful, would have the potential to help millions of autistic children transition into regular classrooms.

Dr. Budnik’s research interests include nanoscale technologies and he is the author of Bridging Theory Into Practice: Fundamentals of Power Semiconductors for Automotive Applications. Dr. Duncan, who joined Valparaiso’s engineering faculty in 2006, is a co-inventor for nine U.S. patents whose research interests include high speed machining. Dr. Vernon’s research has focused on learning and animal behavior, and she joined Valparaiso’s faculty in 1998.

The grant awarded to Dr. McCuddy will support his research for a book exploring human freedoms – economic, political, cultural and religious – and public corruption in a global context. Dr. McCuddy will expand upon previous work in the area by exploring the changing relationships between freedoms and corruption over time and the public policy implications of trying to achieve optimal levels of freedom to minimize public corruption.

He is co-author of “Implementing a New Approach to Teaching the Ethics of Emerging Technology,” selected by the American Society for Engineering Education as the best overall paper in 2007. Dr. McCuddy’s interests focus on business ethics, and in 2003, he won the Best Paper Award from the International Academy of Business and Economics for “Freedom and Ethics: The Case of the Former Soviet Republics.”

Dr. Stanislaus will collaborate with Los Alamos National Laboratory in a project to measure the electric dipole moment of the neutron, which will significantly impact scientists’ understanding of electro-weak and strong interactions, two of the three fundamental forces in nature.

He has conducted experimental nuclear and particle physics research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and TRUIMF, Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics. Dr. Stanislaus received Valparaiso’s Caterpillar Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2003.

The Kapfer Research Award, funded with an endowment established by the Kapfer family, gives financial assistance to one faculty member annually in the College of Arts and Sciences for research in the faculty member’s area of expertise. The Wheat Ridge Grant supports faculty work on projects relating to the healing arts and sciences. The University Research Grant program provides financial assistance to faculty members who have a demonstrated ability to conduct original research or produce creative work.