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Research & Creative Activity Program
RCA Subcommittee
The Research and Creative Activity Awards Subcommittee, a subcommittee of the Faculty Policies Committee (FPC), administers the Research and Creative Activity Awards program, the University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty, and the University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Senior Faculty.
RCA Subcommitte Standing Rules
2024/25 Voting Members
- Nikos Lazaridis, College of Arts & Letters (Chair)
- Mei Shen, College of Education (Vice Chair)
- Sudipta Mukherjee, College of Business
- Rohollah Moghadam, College of Engineering & Computer Science
- Susanna Curry, College of Health & Human Services
- Santosh Kandel, College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics
- June Hee Kwon, College of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Studies
- Samantha McClellan, University Library
- Elaine Xu, At-Large Member
- Vacant, Faculty Policies Committee Member
Non-Voting/Ex-Officio Members
- Carolyn Gibbs, Faculty Senate Chair
- Lisa Hammersley, Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development
RCA Faculty Awards Program
The purpose of the RCA Awards Program is to support faculty research, scholarly, and creative activity, and to encourage faculty contributions to their disciplines. This program is funded in part through the CSU Chancellor's Office and Academic Affairs. It is administered by the RCA Subcommittee with support from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.
In most cases, award recipients will produce a peer-reviewed and/or discipline or field-specific scholarly outcome, such as an article or manuscript submitted for publication, grant proposal, exhibition, performance, prototype, data collection and/or analysis for a grant proposal or publication, etc. Award recipients must also submit a required project report documenting the results of their work at the conclusion of the funding period.
All Unit 3 faculty are eligible and encouraged to apply (including full-time faculty, part-time faculty, temporary faculty, probationary and tenured faculty, lecturers, coaches, librarians, and counselors, as outlined in the Unit 3 Bargaining Agreement).
2025-26 Call for Proposals posted on InfoReady. Submission Deadline: December 6, 2024, by 5:00 pm.
RCA Awardees
Award for Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity for Early Career
University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Early-Career Faculty
This award was established in 1989 and is given each year to recognize a colleague in the first ten years of their faculty appointment who has made significant contributions to his or her discipline through scholarly activity, research and publication, or creative and artistic endeavors. The award includes $2,500 in professional development funds and three units of release time from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.
Faculty who are eligible for the award must be tenured or tenure-track faculty within the first ten years of their appointment (including tenure and tenure-track appointments at other universities), and must have been employed at Sacramento State for the past three academic years.
The 2023/24 Early-Career Award Winner
Julian Fulton, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Environmental Studies)
Dr. Julian Fulton is an Associate Professor in the Environmental Studies Department, where he has been a faculty member since 2016. Dr. Fulton earned his Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley in 2015, following a MSc degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a BA degree in International Development Studies from the same institution. This multidisciplinary education has shaped his unique approach to environmental challenges, blending technical expertise with a deep understanding of social and policy dimensions. Dr. Julian Fulton invites you in this lecture to explore the intersection of community engagement and environmental science through his recent work on trash. Central to Dr. Fulton's current scholarship is the development and implementation of participatory science methodologies. These approaches empower community members, students, and local organizations to actively contribute to scientific research as well as environmental monitoring and governance.
Award for Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity for Senior Faculty
University Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity for Senior Faculty
This award was established in 1989 and is given each year to recognize a colleague who has made significant contributions to their discipline over many years during their career at Sacramento State, as evidenced by research, scholarly activity, or creative and artistic endeavors. The award includes $2,500 in professional development funds and three units of release time from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development.
Faculty who are eligible for the award must have held a tenured or tenure-track position at Sacramento State for at least ten academic years.
The 2023/24 Award Winner
Ronald Coleman, Ph.D. (Professor of Biological Sciences)
Dr. Coleman's field of study can be broadly defined as evolutionary ecology, i.e., why organisms do the things that they do. There are tentacles that reach out from the core of evolutionary ecology into diverse related fields. At the center of Dr. Coleman's research is understanding the evolution of parental investment in fishes. Why do some parents provide care for their offspring, while others do not? How much investment should a parent provide, whether that be in the form of allocating resources to the eggs, or providing subsequent parental care such as guarding or feeding the offspring? To understand these questions, Dr. Coleman delves deeply into exactly how evolution by natural selection works. His research involves theoretical modeling of parental investment, using life-history, game theory and computer simulation, as well as manipulative experiments in both the field and laboratory, predominantly using cichlid fishes.