Updated May 13, 2021

Below you will find internally and externally funded projects from UC Santa Barbara faculty related to COVID-19. Add your project to this list by emailing funding@research.ucsb.edu.

Through an intramural research assistance program, the Office of Research is pleased to have been able to provide support to approximately 50 non-tenured, full-time junior faculty researchers whose research progress has been impacted by dependent care responsibilities during the pandemic.

Intramural Funding

A Data-Driven Approach to Modeling the Effects of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions in Disease Progression Dynamics at Varying Geographic Granularities
Somayeh Dodge, Kostas Goulias, Krzysztof Janowicz (Geography), Mengyang Gu (PSTAT), Ambuj Singh (Computer Science)

A Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy, Protocol for Cas13-Based Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Genetic Material
Ken Kosik, Carolina Arias, Diego Acosta-Alvear, Max Wilson (Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology )

Computer Vision Methods for Differentiating COVID-19 from Other Forms of Viral Pneumonia Using Chest CT Scans
B.S. Manjunath (Computer Science)

Design and Assessment of Next Generation Powered Air-Purifying Respirators (PAPR)
Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz (Mechanical Engineering)

Exploring Public Attitudes Amidst Crisis: COVID-19 and Climate Change
Matto Mildenberger (Political Science)

Health Behaviors & Psychosocial Outcomes among Gen Z Youth Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
Erika Felix (Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology)

Implementation of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy via Telehealth during COVID-19
Miya Barnett (Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology)

Investigating the Impact of Chronic Uncertainty on Personal and Relational Health: The Case of Covid-19
Tamara Afifi and Walid Afifi (Communication)

Latina/o/x Undocumented Immigrants Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic
Jennifer Kam (Communication)

Media Prescriptions for Coping with COVID-19 and Motivating Compliance Behaviors
Robin Nabi (Communication)

Resilience and Prevention When Parents are on the Frontlines of a Global Pandemic: Resilience Coaching for Children in Healthcare Families
Maryam Kia-Keating (Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology)

The Exception Afforded Religious Liberty: Sacred Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Kathleen Moore (Religious Studies)

Understanding Indigenous-Centered Approaches to Translating Public Health Risks and Assessing Resilience during a Global Pandemic
Ann-Elise Lewallen (East Asian Studies)

Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 for the Santa Barbara Region
Patricia Holden (Bren School)

Extramural Funding

A1: KnowWhereGraph: Enriching and Linking Cross-Domain Knowledge Graphs using Spatially-Explicit AI Technologies to Address Pressing Challenges at the Human-Environment Nexus
Krzysztof Janowicz (Geography), Mark Schildhauer (NCEAS)

Advanced Technologies for Acquiring Clinical Knowledge of COVID (ATACK-COVID)
William Wang (Computer Science)

EAGER: Collaborative Research: Rapid Production of Geospatial Network Inputs for Spatially Explicit Epidemiologic Modeling of COVID-19 in the USA
Andrew MacDonald (Earth Research Institute)

Early Detection, Containment, and Management of COVID-19 in Dialysis Facilities Using Multi-Modal Data Sources
Yuedong Wang (PSTAT), Mengyang Gu (PSTAT)

Enduring Social Inequalities: Black Communities’ Responses to the ‘COVID-19 Crisis’ in Brazil, Colombia and Kenya
Jaime Alves (Black Studies), Terrance Wooten (Black Studies)

Evidence for Ultraviolet Radiation decreasing COVID-19 Growth Rates: Global Estimates and Seasonal Implications
Kyle Meng (Bren School)

Health Psychology & COVID-19 Interview Series
David Sherman (Psychology)

RAPID: COVIDGeoGraph – A Geographically Integrated Cross-Domain Knowledge Graph for Studying Regional Disruptions
Krzysztof Janowicz (Geography)

RAPID: Informed Decision Making for Pandemic Management
Joao Hespanha (Electrical and Computer Engineering)

RAPID: Interventional COVID-19 Response Forecasting in Local Communities Using Neural Domain Adaptation Models
Xifeng Yan (Computer Science), Yu-Xiang Wang (Computer Science)

RAPID: Neighborhood-level U.S. Internet Accessibility Assessment through Dataset Aggregation and Statistical and Predictive Modeling
Elizabeth Belding (Computer Science)

Smartphone-Based Combination Diagnostic for Influenza and COVID-19
Michael Mahan (Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology), David Low (Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology)

Soft Vine-inspired Robotic Device for Non-expert and Sterile Intubation
Elliot Hawkes (Mechanical Engineering)

Understanding the Factors that Affect the Detection and Variability of SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater
Patricia Holden (Bren School)