Faculty Grants

Sandy Gibson is funded by the Open Society Foundation as one of many members of a coalition across the state of New Jersey working for decriminalization of personal use of drugs. This coalition meets biweekly to strategize initiatives to promote such policy change, other members of this coalition include the Newark Community Street Team, ACLU New Jersey, Harm Reduction Coalition, National Center for Advocacy and Recovery and the New Jersey Policy Perspective. Sandy is also working to build support among the treatment community to transition from a traditional abstinence-only model towards one that allows for multiple pathways to recovery. New Jersey’s criminal justice approach to people who use drugs, along with the treatment communities requirement for total abstinence is driving our overdose crisis. Since she started receiving funds she has completed close to 100 community presentations to providers across the state on this topic, held a full day symposium on October 25 for treatment providers that included hosting Nuno Capaz from Portugal and Tera Hurst from Oregon, two leaders in the decriminalization space. NJ Spotlight offered coverage of this important event. She also partnered with faculty across 9 different departments at TCNJ to publish an interdisciplinary paper on the benefits of decriminalization of drugs from each perspective. This grant allowed for that article to be published in an open access format to increase accessibility in the community.

In this project, The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) will acquire equipment to significantly upgrade and enhance our Electronic Laboratory for Science and Analysis (ELSA) High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. Over the course of this project, nearly 100 undergraduate student researchers per year will benefit by engaging in faculty-mentored research in labs from all School of Science departments (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and Statistics, and Computer Science) as well as in Civil Engineering. These research experiences are transformative for the students enabling their training in computing as well as facilitating their research in fields that include machine learning, astrophysics, biophysics, mathematical biology, and bioinformatics. Beyond the research laboratory, science faculty incorporate ELSA in their teaching, exposing 800-1000 undergraduates per year to advanced computing. TCNJ is also committed to creating a research-intensive environment for all STEM students by increasing success among underrepresented students and those with high financial need, including those that are transferring to TCNJ from local community colleges.