Center pilot grants are a major driver of career development, providing postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty with mentorship and access to the Center’s core facilities. They also promote cross-collaboration across departments to encourage the application of environmental health concepts and methodology to other disciplines. In addition, the pilot project program enables Center Members to rapidly respond to community needs.
Over the past 7 years:
- 78 applicants received pilot funding awards of $20,000 to $70,000 each for a total of $2,288,295
- 51 of 78 pilots were awarded to postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty
- 12 Community-Based Participatory Research pilot grants were awarded
- 21 pilots resulted in successful NIH grant applications (7 K99, 1 R03, 2 R21, 5 R00, 1 R01, and 1 UG3) for a total return on investment of $42,441,086
| Grant Year | Project Title | PI Name | Multi-PI | Co-Investigators | Awarded Amount | Area of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Association between Air Pollution, Stress, and Sleep Efficiency in 6 -7 year old Children living in East Harlem. | Thompson Terry | Maida Galvez, MD, MPH | Robert Wright MD, MPH; Sarah Evans PHD, MPH; Leon Hsu ScD; Ray Lopez BA; Luz Guel BA,BS | $25,000 | Air Pollution |
| 2021 | The Impact of Prenatal Pesticide Exposure on Child Respiratory Outcomes in Mexico City | Alcala Cecilia | Maria Jose Rosa | Syam Andra, Shelley Liu, Robert Wright | $25,000 | Asthma Children’s Health Mixtures/co-exposures Pesticides |
| 2021 | School Ventilation and SARS-CoV-2 Test Positivity: A Community-Based Study | DeFelice Nicholas | Maida Galvez | Rachel Vreeman Alison Lee, Chris Gennings Nicole Bouvier Laura McGuinn Efrain Guerrero | $25,000 | Children’s Health Outreach/Community Engagement |
| 2021 (2) | Air Pollution, Mitochondrial Heteroplasmy (MH), and Vaccine Efficacy in Children | He Mike | Maayan Yitshak-Sade; Elena Colicino | Itai Kloog, Allan Just, Corina Lesseur, Robert Wright | $25,000 | Air Pollution Children’s Health Gene-Environment Interaction |
| 2021 (2) | Prenatal Indoor Air Pollution Exposure and Maternal Asthma Health Among High Risk Obstetric Patients | Bose Sonali | Angela Bianco, MD; Leon Hsu ScD; Rachel Meislin, MD | $50,000 | Air Pollution Asthma Reproductive Health Women’s Health | |
| 2021 (2) | Development of a novel retrospective biomarker of fluoride exposure using spatial mapping of teeth by laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) | Martinez Mauro | Christine Austin PhD | Manish Arora PhD | $25,000 | Biomarkers Exposome Toxicology |
| 2021 | Effect of Electronic Cigarette During Pregnancy on Maternal Urinary Metabolomics and the Neonatal Meconium Microbiome Related to Glucose Metabolism | Kaur Kirtan | Jia Chen (ScD), Lauren Petrick (PhD), Jianzhong Hu (PhD), Laura Stroud (PhD) | $20,000 | Microbiome Mixtures/co-exposures Reproductive Health Smoking and Vaping Women’s Health | |
| 2021 | Use of deciduous teeth to link trimester-specific exposures to PFAS and other chemical mixtures with biological response and neurodevelopment outcomes in children | Austin Christine | Syam Andra | Paul Curtin, Heather Volk | $25,000 | Biomarkers Children’s Health Endocrine Disruptors Exposome Mixtures/co-exposures PFAS — Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances |
| 2021 | Illuminating the “dark matter” of the exposome using a novel analytical workflow | Robuck Anna | Douglas Walker | $25,000 | Exposome | |
| 2021 | Investigating associations of prenatal phthalate exposures and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in Mexican children using non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging | Valvi Damaskini | Andrea Deierlein; Alejandra Cantoral Preciado; Elena Colicino; Martha Maria Tellez-Rojo; Robert O. Wright | $25,000 | Children’s Health Endocrine Disruptors Obesogens | |
| 2021 | Prospective omics study of risk factors associated with thyroid cancer | van Gerwen Maaike | Lauren Petrick | Shyamalee Dassanayake, Seunghee Kim-Schulze, Elena Colicino, Eric Genden | $69,972 | Cancer Endocrine Disruptors PFAS — Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances |
| 2021 | The Extraordinary Child Hero Organization: A Participant Engagement Project for the Environmental impact on Child Health (ECHO) Study | Teitelbaum Susan | Emily Spear | $9,713 | Children’s Health Outreach/Community Engagement | |
| 2021 | Characterizing the heat stress exposome to assess acute kidney injury in NYC runners | DeFelice Nicholas | Homero Harari | Alison P Sanders, Steven G Coca | $25,000 | Air Pollution Biomarkers Climate Change Exposome Mixtures/co-exposures Weather Extremes |
| 2020 | Early-Life Metal Exposure and the Gut Microbiome and Metabolome in Childhood | Eggers Shoshannah | Manish Arora | Chris Gennings, Christine Austin, Jeremiah Faith, Douglas Walker, Robert O. Wright | $70,000 | Children’s Health Exposome Lead Microbiome Mixtures/co-exposures |
| 2020 | A longitudinal exposomic analysis of breastmilk to determine associations between persistent organic pollutants, the microbiome and metabolites | Walker Ryan | Dania Valvi, Doug Walker, Chris Gennings | $25,000 | Children’s Health Exposome Microbiome | |
| 2020 | Community-Led Investigation of Air Quality and Environmental Injustice in Proximity to Two Waste Transfer Stations in Jamaica, Queens | Galvez Maida | Luz Guel, Andrea Scarborough, Dawn Roberts Semple, Ph.D, Rebecca Bratspies, JD | Danielle Dubno-Hammer | $25,000 | Air Pollution |
| 2020 | Characterizing critical windows of developmental metal mixture effects to kidney development and maturation using transgenic zebrafish | Sanders Alison | Weibin Zhou | Chris Gennings, Jaime Chu | $25,000 | Biostatistics Mixtures/co-exposures Toxicology |
| 2020 | Determining exposure to mixtures of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and its association with gestational diabetes in an ethnically diverse U.S. population | Valvi Damaskini | Syam Andra | Rosalind Wright, Elena Colicino | $25,000 | Biomarkers Endocrine Disruptors Mixtures/co-exposures PFAS — Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Women’s Health |
| 2020 | Leveraging new technologies to assess noise exposure and mobility patterns during COVID-19: a pilot study in NYC women | McGuinn Laura | Itai Kloog, Homero Harari | Rosalind Wright, Robert Wright, Nicholas DeFelice | $25,000 | Women’s Health |
| 2020 | Spatial exploration of inter-relationships of Covid-19 infection, metal exposure, transcriptome and immune response in human placentas | Lesseur Corina | Megan Niedzwiecki, Christine Austin, Kristin G Beaumont | Jia Chen, Rachel Brody, Fumiko Dekio | $25,000 | Children’s Health Exposome Mixtures/co-exposures |
| 2020 | Untargeted analysis of personal environmental exposures during the COVID-19 pandemic | Walker Douglas | Robert Wright; Rosalind Wright | $25,000 | Exposome | |
| 2020 | Technology Transfer to Enhance Health Literacy on COVID-19 and Environmental Justice | Claudio Luz | Muhammed Idris, PhD | Maya Korin, PhD | $25,000 | |
| 2020 | A Community-Based Study to Understand the Impact of COVID-19 on Asthma-related Healthcare Utilization in NYC Children | DeFelice Nicholas | Erin Thanik | Drs. Lauren Zajac, Douglas Bush, Elizabeth Garland | $25,000 | Asthma |
| 2019 | Exposure to Perfluoroalkyl Substances, Metabolomic Profiling, and Type 2 Diabetes Risk: A Prospective Investigation in an Ethnically Diverse U.S. Population. | Valvi Damaskini | Ruth Loos, Douglas Walker | $69,988 | Biomarkers Gene-Environment Interaction Obesogens PFAS — Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances | |
| 2019 | Examination of Potential Substances Related to CKD in children (EXPOSURE-CKD Study) | Goodman Smita | Jeffrey Saland | Manish Arora PhD, Jeffrey Saland MD, Chris Gennings PhD | $25,000 | Biomarkers Children’s Health |
| 2019 | Environmental Noise and Preadolescent Mental Health in Mexico City | McGuinn Laura | Itai Kloog | Robert Wright, Avi Reichenberg, Mara Tellez-Rojo, Ivan Gutierrez | $25,000 | Children’s Health |
| 2019 | Identifying the role of early environmental toxicants in newborns with biliary atresia | Chu Jaime | Lauren Petrick | Elena Colicino, Syam Andra, Sanjiv Harpavat | $25,000 | Biomarkers Children’s Health Exposome Flame Retardants Mixtures/co-exposures PFAS — Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Pesticides |
| 2019 | Untargeted analysis of personal environmental exposures and respiratory outcomes in children | Walker Douglas | Maria Rosa | Marcela Tamayo y Ortiz | $20,000 | Exposome Lung Diseases |
| 2019 | The Relationship between Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Stress, Telomere Length, and Neurodevelopment in Preterm Infants | Zhang Xueying | Annemarie Stroustrup | Andrea Baccarelli | $20,000 | Biomarkers Children’s Health Epigenetics |
| 2019 | Phthalates and the developing brain: a multidisciplinary investigation of the effects of prenatal phthalate exposure on early markers of ADHD | Rommel Anna | Avi Reichenberg, PhD | Shanna Swan, PhD; Muhammad Parvaz, PhD | $20,000 | Biomarkers Children’s Health Endocrine Disruptors |
| 2019 (1) | Defining Integrated Environmental Exposure Measures in Adolescents | Levin-Schwartz Yuri | Wright, Robert | Elena Colicino; Donald R. Smith | $25,000 | |
| 2019 | Environmental control of mitochondrial division as a signal to initiate skin cancer | Chipuk Jerry | $25,000 | |||
| 2019 | Exposomics for agricultural workers in Costa Rica affected by chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) | Sanders Alison | Walker, Douglas | Jennifer Crowe; Andres Cardenas; Chris Gennings | $69,608 | |
| 2019 | Using deciduous teeth to assess children’s exposure to tobacco, marijuana, and other environmental toxins | Wilson Karen | Manish Arora; Syam Andra | $70,000 | ||
| 2019 | Innovating Data Visualization Strategies for Tooth-Based Lead Report-Back | Evans Sarah | Arora, Manish; Galvez, Maida | Alison Mears | $20,000 | |
| 2019 | Predicting response to immunotherapy in hepatocellular carcinoma by dissecting the gut microbiome: a pilot study | Lujambio Amaia | Ang, Celina; Faith, Jeremiah | Andrea Branch; Lauren Grinspan; Tomi Jun | $50,000 | |
| 2019 | Using eye-tracking to Identify associations between metal exposure and children’s social cognition: A pilot study in Mexico City | Rechtman Elza | Horton, Megan | Roberto Lucchini; Paul Curtin; Manish Arora; Christine Austin | $25,000 | |
| 2019 | Secondhand smoke in Central and East Harlem: Understating cancer survivors’ and family caregivers’ perceptions of the health consequences of involuntary and voluntary exposure to tobacco smoke | Mohamed Nihal E. | Jandorf, Lina | Karen Wilson | $50,000 |