Pilot Projects Program
Spring 2024 Pilot Project Announcement and Application
- Application Deadline: June 28, 2024
- Statistical Consultation (Required) Deadline: June 3, 2024
Tips for a successful Pilot Application
Submit a 1-page mini pilot application to Carolina Montes Garcia and hear back from the Executive Committee within two weeks.
The goal of the Pilot Project Program is to provide funding, access to Core facilities and intellectual support to research proposals primarily of junior faculty within and outside the Center that are devoted to the study of environmental components of three human disease categories: Neurotoxicology/Neurodegenerative Diseases, Respiratory Disorders, and Cancer. The broad objective of research in these areas is to improve the health of communities in northern Manhattan and provide educational and outreach services that allow effective prevention strategies to be implemented. This Center Pilot Project Program also addresses issues of concern to the communities of West Harlem, Central Harlem and Washington Heights/Inwood.
Senior Center investigators and members of the Internal Advisory Committee stimulate an interest in and aid in the development of pilot project applications among appropriate colleagues, collaborators, and departments. The Pilot Project Program continues to be advertised by other "democratic" means, e.g., through the Office of Grants and Contracts Monthly Bulletin. In addition, the program is advertised by e-mail and posted throughout Columbia University and LDEO two months in advance of receipt dates.
Application Review
We have recently streamlined the scientific review process for pilot applications in order to expedite funding. The revised process includes a shorter application (3-5 pages) that undergoes a single review by both internal and external reviewers, who evaluate and score the proposal using NIH criteria. The projects are reviewed according to scientific merit and originality, use of core facilities, relevance to the Center's mission and themes, qualifications of the applicant and probability of generating future R01 funding. Based on reviewers’ scores and CEHNM priorities, final funding decisions are made by the Executive Committee within six weeks of investigator submission.
Mini Pilots
We also have a rolling call for mini-pilot projects that requires only a one-page description of the project, for funding requests of up to $10K. Unlike the review process for pilot applications described above, these mini-pilots are reviewed on a rolling basis by the Executive Committee, which will make a funding decision in one week. This mini-pilot mechanism was developed to address time-sensitive research questions, like those raised in R01 critiques for a resubmission. We expect this new funding mechanism to further increase the effectiveness of our program and its impact.
Funded Projects
Descriptions of recently awarded pilot projects follow:
2023
Full Pilots
- Characterizing indoor heat stress in social housing in partnership with Heat Seek in New York City
- Long-term effects of tropical cyclones on community social vulnerability and individual chronic health conditions in the United States: A novel quasi-experimental study
- Residential exposure to radon and PM2.5 and adverse pregnancy outcomes: a pilot study
- Urinary metallothionine as biomarker of effect to uranium exposure and other metals and chronic kidney diseases
- Health Effects of Environmental Noise in a Noise-burdened Community in New York City
- Surveying the perinatal metabolome for exposomic signals in the CCCEH Sibling-Hermanos cohort
Mini Pilots
- Prenatal Exposure to SARS-CoV-2, Disinfectant Use, Changes in the Infant Microbiome and Neurodevelopment: A Pilot Study Protocol
- Prenatal Placental EV OBESO Cohort
- MEASURES: MetAllomics StUdy, Homeostasis, and BReast CancEr RiSk
2022
- Development of mitochondriomic biomarkers for prenatal metals exposure and neurodevelopment in a population of Dominican and African American mother-child pairs
- Association of human selenium metabolism and urinary selenium speciation with health outcomes in participants of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)
- Assessing cultural variation in rice consumption to determine arsenic related health consequences
- Tampons as a source of pesticide and metal exposure: A novel exposure assessment study