Our own Professor Anita Raja, jointly with her colleagues in the Biology and Chemistry departments at Hunter and Queens College, has been awarded a $20,000 CUNY Research Planning Grant. The CUNY Office of Research's Planning Grant Program catalyzes large, collaborative research projects by "support[ing] multi-college research teams in the preparation and submission of complex, large-scale, center-type proposals to external funding agencies and organizations."

Raja et al.'s proposal aims in particular to address three goals, namely: "[to] (G1) Establish the fundamental mechanisms that determine how phenotypic plasticity contributes to rapidly changing ecosystems across life; (G2) Determine the rules, constraints, and potential for genotypic and phenotypic innovation; and (G3) Educate and train a diverse next generation of researchers and students."

Congratulations to Anita and her colleagues for being awarded the Planning Grant -- a first big step towards these ambitious research goals!