Southwestern University faculty members have received more than $11,000 in research funding for the upcoming year from the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church.

The money comes in the form of Sam Taylor Fellowship awards that are funded by the board. The fellowships are awarded to full-time faculty members at United Methodist-related colleges in Texas.

Seven Southwestern faculty members received a total of $11,620 for 2010-2011:

Steve Alexander, professor of physics, received $1,500 to continue developing a device that will detect a wide variety of bacteria both quickly and inexpensively. Five students began the project in 2009 with a grant from Southwestern’s King Creativity Fund and another group of students is working on the project this fall.

Nikos Bentenitis, assistant professor of chemistry, received $2,000 to visit the Institute for Computational Physical Chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. Bentenitis hopes the trip will help him improve a new methodology he has developed for the computer simulation of biomolecules.

Romi Burks, associate professor of biology, received $2,000 for a new project in which she will use stable isotopes to gain insight into the diet of the invasive applesnail known as Pomacea insularum. The grant money enable samples prepared at Southwestern to be analyzed by the Stable Isotope Facility at the University of California at Davis.

Martin Gonzalez, associate professor of biology, received $1,870 for a project that will help further define how antibiotic resistance is established in bacteria.

Thom McClendon, professor of history, received $2,000 that will fund a trip to South Africa to collect documents for a book he is co-editing titled The South African Reader.

Davi Johnson Thornton, assistant professor of communication studies, received $1,000 to support a research project on James Meredith and his 1966-1967 solo march across Mississippi.

Elizabeth Stockton, assistant professor of English, received $1,250 to continue her project on the letters of Elizabeth Stoddard. Stockton also received a Sam Taylor Fellowship to support this project last year.