Two Faculty Members Named SEED Grant Round 1 Awardees

Woo Shik (Austin) Shin, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the Florham Campus, and Muhammad Umer, assistant professor of electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology at the Metropolitan Campus, have been named SEED Grant Round 1 awardees through the SEED Grant Funding Opportunity.

As part of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s National Science Foundation (NSF) Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity (EPIIC) grant (Award #2433183), this seed grant program supports small, partnership-driven projects that broaden participation in regional innovation and research ecosystems.

Shin and Umer serve as principal investigators on their respective projects, which will both run from February 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027.

Woo Shik (Austin) Shin

Professional headshot of Dr. Woo Shik Shin, a man with short dark hair, wearing a dark navy suit with a light blue dress shirt and dark patterned tie, photographed against a neutral beige background with soft, professional studio lighting. He has a warm, approachable expression and is looking directly at the camera.

Woo Shik (Austin) Shin

Shin’s research will focus on the “Development of a Novel Non-β-Lactam Covalent Allosteric Inhibitor Targeting Multidrug-Resistant MRSA (multidrug-resistant staphylococcus aureus)”

His research investigates a distinct strategy that targets a regulatory (allosteric) site on penicillin-binding protein 2a (PBP2a) rather than the traditional active site used by most antibiotics. By stabilizing the enzyme in an inactive form, this approach aims to disrupt bacterial survival while bypassing common resistance mechanisms.

According to Shin, this project strengthens FDU’s research capacity in antimicrobrial drug discovery while generating foundational data for future external funding. “It enhances laboratory readiness and supports continued development of structure-guided medicinal chemistry research,” he said. “[More] importantly, the award expands hands-on research opportunities for FDU undergraduate and graduate students, fostering student engagement in antimicrobial research and contributing to workforce development in biomedical sciences.”

To read more go to Dr. Woo Shik Shin.

Muhammad Umer

Professional headshot of Dr. Muhammad Umer, a man with short dark hair and a full beard, wearing a light gray patterned button-up shirt, photographed in a softly lit indoor hallway with a blurred background. He is looking directly at the camera with a friendly, approachable expression.

Muhammad Umer

Umer’s project, Explainable and Trustworthy Continual Learning, explores how artificial intelligence (AI) systems can learn continuously over time while remaining transparent, stable and trustworthy. In real-world settings, such as healthcare, autonomous vehicles or evolving online environments, data changes rapidly — and AI models must adapt without losing what they previously learned.

The project focuses on continual learning. “Unlike traditional machine learning, continual learning enables AI models to accumulate knowledge across tasks,” Umer said. “Yet most machine learning models cannot learn sequentially without overwriting prior information—a problem known as catastrophic forgetting. This limits the long-term reliability of AI systems and poses serious risks for industries that require stable performance.” This project will benefit researchers and engineers developing adaptive AI systems by providing access to new methodologies that improve knowledge retention and transparency.

To read more go to Dr. Muhammad Umer.

SEED Grant Round 2

Round 2 of the SEED Grant Funding Opportunity is now open. Faculty are invited to submit proposals for competitive review, with awards of up to $5,000 for one-year projects, up to two awards anticipated, and notifications expected in May 2026.

For more information , including application components, please visit Round 2 — 2026. For questions, please contact Jeiselyn Morales-Blasucci, project coordinator, grants/sponsored projects (Metro), at j.moralesblasucci@fdu.edu.

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