Purdue College of Liberal Arts Announces Winners of the Renewed EXCEL Research Grant Competition

The College of Liberal Arts is proud to announce the recipients of the inaugural EXCEL Research Grant, marking the launch of a new funding initiative designed to accelerate high-impact, interdisciplinary scholarship across the liberal arts.

Continuing the tradition of incentive competitions in CLA, the EXCEL Grant program was created by Interim Dean Joel Ebarb and Associate Dean of Research Sorin Adam Matei to support early-stage, exploratory, or boundary-pushing research that positions faculty for future external funding and national visibility. The 2025 competition drew strong proposals from across the college, demonstrating both the need for this new mechanism and the extraordinary creativity of CLA researchers.

Below are the winners selected in this inaugural year, representing four departments and an exciting range of scholarly approaches.

Genell Wells Ebbini & Barbara Young

Assistant Professors, Department of Design, Art, and Performance
Project: Developing and Piloting a Novel Instrument to Examine How Built Environments Shape Intergenerational Engagement in University-Based Retirement Communities (UBRC-ENGAGE)

Sue Lim

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
Project: CoachingGPT: Toward Effective AI-Powered Life Coaches in Mixed Reality

Likun Cao

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Project: The Anthropomorphic Appearance of AI, Stereotypes, and Population-Level Social Implications

Silvia Z. Mitchell

Associate Professor, Department of History
Project: The Spanish Habsburgs (1500–1700): The Men and the Women who Transformed European Geopolitics, Built a Global Empire, and Developed the Foundation of Spain’s Cultural Patrimony

Andrew H. Bellisari

Assistant Professor, Department of History
Project: Advancing Interdisciplinary Research through the Missing-In-Action Accounting and Recovery Coalition (MARC) at Purdue

We wish the recipients good luck in their research journey.