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Research & Creative Activity Program
RCA Subcommittee
The Research and Creative Activity Awards Subcommittee, a subcommittee of the Faculty Policies Committee (FPC), administers the Research and Creative Activity Awards program, the University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty, and the University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Senior Faculty.
22/23 Voting Members
- Sadaf Ashtari, College of Business (Chair)
- Nickolas Lazaridis, College of Arts & Letters
- Leslie Banes, College of Education
- Atousa Yazdani, College of Engineering & Computer Science
- Susanna Curry, College of Health & Human Services
- Johannes Bauer, College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics
- June Hee Kwon, College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies
- Samantha McClellan, Library
- Vacant, At-Large Member
- Vacant, Faculty Policies Committee Member
Non-Voting/Ex-Officio Members
- Adam Rechs, Faculty Senate
- Yvonne Harris, Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development
University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty Agenda
RCA Faculty Awards Program
The purpose of the RCA Awards Program is to support faculty research, scholarly, and creative activity, and to encourage faculty contributions to their disciplines. This program is funded in part through the CSU Chancellor's Office and Academic Affairs. It is administered by the RCA Subcommittee with support from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.
In most cases, award recipients will produce a peer-reviewed and/or discipline or field-specific scholarly outcome, such as an article or manuscript submitted for publication, grant proposal, exhibition, performance, prototype, data collection and/or analysis for a grant proposal or publication, etc. Award recipients must also submit a required project report documenting the results of their work at the conclusion of the funding period.
All Unit 3 faculty are eligible and encouraged to apply (including full-time faculty, part-time faculty, temporary faculty, probationary and tenured faculty, lecturers, coaches, librarians, and counselors, as outlined in the Unit 3 Bargaining Agreement).
Call for Proposals for 2023-24 Competition
Submission Deadline: Thursday, December 1, 2022 by 5:00 pm.
Previous Competitions
RCA Awardees for the 2021-2022 Academic Year
RCA Awardees for the 2020-2021 Academic Year
Award for Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity Early-Career Faculty
University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty
This award was established in 1989 and is given each year to recognize a colleague in the first ten years of their faculty appointment who has made significant contributions to his or her discipline through scholarly activity, research and publication, or creative and artistic endeavors. The award includes $2,500 in professional development funds and three units of release time from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.
Faculty who are eligible for the award must be tenured or tenure-track faculty within the first ten years of their appointment (including tenure and tenure-track appointments at other universities), and must have been employed at Sacramento State for the past three academic years.
The 2021/22 Award Winner
Kimberly Mulligan Awardee Poster
Kimberly Mulligan, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Biological Sciences)
Dr. Kimberly Mulligan earned her Ph.D. in developmental biology from Stanford University in 2008. While deep into her research on how cells communicate with one another starting at fertilization to develop into a functional organism composed of millions, billions or even trillions of cells, she was faced with the overwhelming trauma of loss. Dr. Mulligan’s research involves identifying factors that cause or increase the severity of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. For this research, she has developed a research program using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism because flies are relatively simple for new research students to work with, and they also share a surprising amount of homology with mammals. Dr. Mulligan is particularly interested in how brain development is affected by the combined impact of genetic mutations and environmental factors, like exposures to environmental chemicals or changes in the gut microbiome. Dr. Kimberly Mulligan is the recipient of the 2021-2022 University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty. At this event, Dr. Kimberly Mulligan will be giving a lecture entitled "Using fruit flies to identify risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders".
Award for Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity Early-Career Faculty
University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty
This award was established in 1989 and is given each year to recognize a colleague in the first ten years of their faculty appointment who has made significant contributions to his or her discipline through scholarly activity, research and publication, or creative and artistic endeavors. The award includes $2,500 in professional development funds and three units of release time from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.
Faculty who are eligible for the award must be tenured or tenure-track faculty within the first ten years of their appointment (including tenure and tenure-track appointments at other universities), and must have been employed at Sacramento State for the past three academic years.
The 2021/22 Award Winner
Jun Dai, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Computer Sciences)
Dr. Jun Dai is an Associate Professor of Computer Sciences in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. He joined Sacramento State in Fall 2014 after receiving his Ph.D. degree in Information Sciences and Technology (with a research focus in Cybersecurity) from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Dai’s research interests mainly lie in Network and Distributed System Security, Intrusion Detection, Secure Programming and Cybersecurity Education. Dr. Jun Dai will discuss his understanding of a changing world with more and more things becoming connected via Internet, including how that can positively or negatively impact people’s lives, what cybersecurity problems can happen, how they should be addressed, as well as how people’s mindsets should be adapted to face the cyber-physical world, either as a contributor to the cyber infrastructure development or as a consumer of resources and services through various cyber utilities. Dr. Dai is the recipient of the 2021-2022 University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty. At this event, Dr. Dai will be giving a lecture entitled "Facing the Cyber World: What Mindset Should We Have?".