Success Stories

NSF has awarded researchers at the University of New Mexico and the University of Delaware an EPSCoR Track 2 grant for $4 million to advance quantum photonic technology research and to establish a quantum science and engineering graduate program at UNM.

The award, Laying the Foundation for Scalable Quantum Photonic Technologies is led by principal investigator Ganesh Balakrishnan, director of NM EPSCoR and professor of electrical and computer engineering at UNM, in collaboration with UNM investigators Tara Drake, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, Terefe Habteyes, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology, and Marek Osinski, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, alongside faculty at UD. The research will be based in the Center for High Technology Materials (CHTM) at UNM.

NSF has awarded researchers at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico NM EPSCoR, and partner institutions from five states in the western half of the US (Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) $10 million to address the under-representation of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students in the STEM disciplines and workforce.

The Cultivating Indigenous Research Communities for Leadership in Education (CIRCLES) Alliance ultimately aims to inform educational institutions and the NSF in AI/AN cultural understanding and humility while shifting approaches towards AI/AN education.

Bellarmine University has received a five-year $1.45 million grant from NSF’s Robert Noyce program to “recruit and prepare highly qualified science and mathematics teachers” for Kentucky middle and high schools, according to a news release from the school.

The grant aims to help alleviate a teacher shortage in STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and math. It will support at least 25 students in Bellarmine’s Annsley Frazier Thornton School of Education who intend to teach physics, chemistry, biology and math. Noyce Knight Scholars may be undergraduate and or graduate students.

Savio Poovathingal, University of Kentucky, received a three-year $600,000 award from the Department of Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DEPSCoR) for his project titled, “Fragmentation and melting of ice particles subjected to hypersonic aerothermodynamic environments.” Poovathingal’s team is working to create predictive modeling about how ice particles respond when a hypersonic vehicle passes through them.

University of Arkansas researchers are studying whether raw vegetables contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the help of a $1 million grant from the USDA. Regulatory authorities inspect for antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals killed for meat and dairy but not in vegetables, which are often eaten uncooked.

While food safety regulations require inspectors to monitor antibiotic-resistant bacteria in retail meat and food production animals, there is no such mandated oversight for vegetables. The lack of oversight could potentially lead to people eating produce laced with dangerous germs. Considering vegetables are often eaten raw, there is a chance that drug-resistant bacteria on the produce could cause hard-to-treat infections in consumers.

Microbiologist and immunologist Amitinder Kaur of the Tulane National Primate Research Center was awarded a $3.5 million grant to study how specialized immune cells could be used to block a common virus that, in some cases, causes developmental disabilities when transmitted during pregnancy. The grant, awarded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will examine whether cells that naturally kill cytomegalovirus can be introduced in pregnancy to prevent transmission of CMV, which usually has no effect on children but in rare cases can cause cerebral palsy, microcephaly and other conditions.

University of Arkansas professor Karthik Nayani was awarded a nearly $300,000 grant by the USDA to create a method for detecting heat stress in poultry using an approach that could be applied to other animals raised for meat. Nayani's research will create detailed images of the animals' red blood cells, which can then be analyzed with neural networks to find molecular details associated with heat stress.

One of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's top-funded research projects involves building a diverse health database of over a million people through the All of Us program.

All of Us is a research program run by the National Institutes of Health, and UAB is part of the Southern All of Us Network. The program is funded by UAB's second largest active grant at $12 million per year for five years. It also received a one-time grant of $7 million to develop a retention program.

Tick-borne infections can lead to serious illnesses – and even death – in people and pets. To create effective treatments for these diseases, scientists first must figure out the basic infection biology of the ticks they study. Meghan Hermance, an assistant professor at the University of South Alabama, recently received a $2.59 million five-year NIH grant to study the infection dynamics of a tick-borne bunyavirus called severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus or SFTSV.

University of Arkansas researchers will team up with Google software engineers and NIGMS in an effort to create learning modules on artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in biomedical research.

The university secured a $140,135 grant to help address the computational requirements of AI-focused studies with the use of cloud computing technology.