The President's Council of Cornell Women (PCCW), an alumnae group that serves as an advisory council to Cornell University's president, has awarded its 2004 research grants to 11 women faculty members.

Established in 1992 to help advance the careers of women in academia through support of research leading to tenure, PCCW's Affinito-Stewart Grant Program has presented more than $484,000 to 148 women at Cornell. The program is named to honor the group's founders, Lilyan Affinito, a 1953 graduate of Cornell, and Patricia Carry Stewart, a 1950 graduate. Both are Cornell presidential councillors, trustees emeritae and members of the Cornell University Council.

This year the 11 grant recipients will receive a total of $92,030 in funding from PCCW. Grant applications were reviewed by a committee of 44 faculty members, who rated them according to scholarly merit, research design, feasibility and relevance to promotion and tenure. Eight PCCW members, most of whom are academics from other universities, reviewed the faculty-rated proposals and awarded the grants. Nonacademic reviewers focused on how critical a role the project would play in receiving tenure and whether other sources of funding might be available.

Faculty members who received 2004 Affinito-Stewart grant awards are:

• Rachel Davidson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, for "Optimizing Post-Earthquake Restoration for Electric Power and Water Supply Systems."
• Rachel Dunifon, assistant professor of policy analysis and management, for "Local Predictors of Household Food Security."
• Melissa J. Ferguson, assistant professor of psychology, for "Automatic Attitudes and Goal-Pursuit: How Implicit Evaluative Processes Reflect the Goal Relevance of Objects."
• Maria Julia Bevilaqua Felippe Flaminio, assistant professor of clinical sciences, for "The Effect of CpG-ODN on the Antigen Presenting Cells of Foals."
• Sabine Haenni, assistant professor of theatre, film and dance, for "The Immigrant Scene: Movies, Theaters, and the Commercial Formation of Ethnic Public Cultures in New York City, 1880-1920."
• Neema Kudva, assistant professor of city and regional planning, for "Second Cities in a Global World."
• Christiane Linster, assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior, for "Role of Dopaminergic Modulation in Olfactory Processing."
• Simone Pinet, assistant professor of Romance studies, for "Archipelagoes: Insularity and Fiction in Medieval and Early Modern Spain."
• Masha Raskolnikov, assistant professor of English, for "Body and Soul: Middle English Debate and the Gender of Allegory
• Cynthia Robinson, assistant professor of history of art/Near Eastern studies, for "Imag(in)ing Devotions: Texts, Images and Devotional Culture in Late Medieval Iberia (14th-15th Centuries)."
• Christine D. Smart, assistant professor of plant pathology, Geneva Agricultural Experiment Station, for "Gene Expression Profiling of Tomato Plants That Are Under Attack by a Bacterial Pathogen."

PCCW was established in 1990 with the mission of advancing the involvement and leadership of women students, faculty, staff and alumnae within Cornell and throughout its many constituent communities. There are 294 members.