Peter Schultz has always been smitten with things that go thud. That explains his latest endeavor: Helping NASA design the LCROSS mission, which involves hurtling a rocket to a crash landing on the moon. Schultz and other scientists hope the impact will lead to evidence of water ice in permanently shadowed areas of the moon.

Brown University researchers won 52 of 91 National Institute of Health medical research grants announced recently in Rhode Island. The overall awards for Rhode Island totaled $22 million, given through money included in the national economic stimulus law passed earlier this year.

Stephen McGarvey, a professor of community health and anthropology, will lead efforts to conduct detailed genotyping of Samoan adults. The project will document genetic variation and see whether it has any association with propensities toward obsesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Rajiv Kumar, the Brown University medical student who co-founded the team-based wellness program Shape Up Rhode Island, has been named one of 10 recipients of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Health Leaders Award for 2009, the organization announced Thursday.

The Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk, a joint effort between Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital (at WIH), has launched a new training program for clinicians working with infants. The post-baccalaureate certificate program focuses on infant and child mental health.