Success Stories

KEARNEY – Two University of Nebraska at Kearney employees were among Kearney’s first Inspire Award winners recognizing outstanding women in business, education, health care and community service. Dr. Julie Shaffer, UNK senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, received the Excellence in Education award. Renae Zimmer, UNK director of Student Engagement and Leadership, earned the Community Partner award.

Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine has been awarded a 5-year, $12 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a center of excellence and multidisciplinary research program for implementation science—an emerging discipline in biomedical research that focuses on effectively moving scientific evidence into healthcare policy and practice.

A quantum research project led by The University of New Mexico in collaboration with national labs and universities around the country was awarded a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the National Quantum Virtual Laboratory (NQVL) program to continue research into the design and future development of a photonic quantum computer.

A $20 million cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation has allowed the University of Guam to conduct research to restore Guam’s coral reef ecosystems and establish coral nurseries to replenish corals damaged by rising sea temperatures, sedimentation and pollution. The funding, known as EPSCoR—the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research—began in 2020.

Dong Zhang, an assistant professor at the Gallogly College of Engineering, has been awarded a highly prestigious CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation (NSF), an early-career recognition that comes with a five-year, $556,000 grant to study next-generation batteries.

A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Mathematics faculty member has received a $211,262 grant from the National Science Foundation to study a specialized area of mathematics with wide-ranging applications.

Louisiana Tech’s College of Engineering and Science has received a two-year, $149,132 National Science Foundation planning grant for the project “Multi-Department Culture Change through Common Sophomore Series.” The grant, one of only a dozen awarded nationally, will fund planning and early changes to the second-year engineering curriculum to tie lessons to real-world industry applications and strengthen connections across all engineering programs.

Mississippi State University has named Christian Wolf as the new head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, bringing more than two decades of teaching, research and leadership experience to the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.

The National Institutes of Health has renewed a five-year grant for $5.75 million for the Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, one of only eight such centers in the nation.

Montana Technological University has secured a $7.5 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish the Center for Energy Technologies (CET), a new research hub focused on energy systems. Funding for the project, which begins September 1, 2025, was secured through a highly competitive NSF grant. The five-year award is part of the EPSCoR Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Phase I program.