Expanding a culture of innovation: UNCW's widespread research initiatives earn national recognition and have global significance.

• Position: RESEARCH: NORTH CAROLINA: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

The University of North Carolina Wilmington's efforts to advance research and push the boundaries of innovation have created a thriving campus culture rooted in inquiry, curiosity and imagination. In 2018, researchers secured a 36% increase in new grants over 2017, and the university earned an elevated Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as a "High Research Activity" doctoral institution.

With help from a $400 million investment in capital improvements and $9.3 million in new grant funding, UNCW's community of scholars continues to expand research endeavors and address issues of local, regional and wide-reaching importance.

> Exploring the Land, Air, Seas and Space

UNCW was named a top producer of Fulbright U.S. Scholars for the 2017-18 academic year among master's institutions. The Fulbright Program is a highly competitive, merit-based grant for the international educational exchange of students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists. One of UNCW's award recipients, Narcisa Pricope, associate professor of geography, will research landscape degradation and teach courses in satellite remote sensing and unmanned aerial systems photogrammetry at the University of Namibia. Pricope, an expert in land change science, water resources and climate change, will work with international researchers to address the relationships between land degradation and livelihoods in Namibia and the larger Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.

Assistant Professor Raymond Danner is leading a team studying the wintering habits of two species of sparrows, with an eye on helping the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission enhance conservation efforts. The two-year study will focus on salt marsh and seaside sparrows that winter along the southeastern North Carolina coast. Most of the research will take place on Masonboro Island in the National Estuarine Research Reserve, but the project will also examine other North Carolina habitats.

The research of a UNCW associate professor and lab have been immortalized with the naming of two new sea squirt species in their honor. Sea squirts are a type of marine invertebrate. The species P. lopezlegentilae recognizes biology and marine biology Associate Professor Susanna Lopez-Legentil for her work in ascidian, or sea squirt, b genetics and systematics. The other species, P. imesa, was named in honor of the Integrated Molecular Ecology of Sponges and Ascidians W Lab to...