The Affinito-Stewart Grants Program administered by the President's Council of Cornell Women (PCCW) aims to increase the long-term retention of women on the faculty by supporting the completion of research that is important in the tenure process.

For 2010, seven awards, selected from 16 proposals, were granted for a total of $53,425; their review was based on scholarly merit, research design, feasibility and likely relevance to promotion to tenure.

The awards, all to assistant professors, are:

• Melanie Dreyer-Lude, theatre, film and dance, $5,000 for her production "She," an international theater collaboration between Turkish and American artists;
• Claudia Fischbach-Teschl, biomedical engineering, $12,500 for her research on "Engineered Microenvironmental Niches to Study Brain Tumorigenesis";
• Ying Hua, design and environmental analysis, $7,500 for her work on "The Effect of Nursing Unit Spatial Layout on Nursing Team Communication Patterns, Quality of Care and Patient Safety";
• Hadas Kress-Gazit, mechanical and aerospace engineering, $5,000 for her project "High-level Tasks for Humanoid Robots";
• Marla Lujan, nutritional sciences, $7,943 for her research on "Ultrasound Characterization of Abnormal Follicle Dynamics in Women with Obesity-Related Amenorrhea";
• Joann McDermid, nutritional sciences, $12,482 for a pilot study on the "Incidence and Clinical Features of Early Childhood Tuberculosis in Mwanza, Tanzania"; and
• Emily Owens, policy analysis and management, $3,000 for "Do Crime Victims Respond to Financial Incentives?"

Grants from $1,000 to $12,500 are given by the program each year. More than $749,000 has been awarded to 176 women researchers at Cornell since 1992.