FAU Researchers Receive Health-Advancing Grants

Florida Atlantic University received two distinct grants that will help increase access to patient care and explore new technologically advanced treatment methods. Researchers in the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing were awarded $3.9 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services to launch a nurse-led mobile health unit serving rural and medically underserved regions. Additionally, researchers in the College of Engineering and Computer Science received a four-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a unique bimodal skin sensor that will provide upper limb-absent people with maximum control over the full dexterity of artificial hands.

With each of these innovative endeavors, FAU researchers are working to improve the health and wellbeing in our local communities and beyond. The mobile health unit will help nursing students gain valuable experiences caring for underserved populations while learning to employ technology assisted, culturally aligned and evidence-based health services. For the prosthetics project, researchers will collect at-home data from prosthetics users over the course of one year to understand — and overcome — problems of dexterous controllability using current sensing technology.

I am very proud of our FAU researchers involved in these initiatives. The university is on its way to reaching the highest tier of national research activity, and the pursuit of impactful studies like these allows us to break new ground while giving back to our communities in meaningful ways. I look forward to seeing the many benefits of these projects unfold in the near future.