Success Stories

Drone Amplified, a Nebraska-based startup, is using unmanned aerial technology to improve one of the oldest and most-effective methods of preventing wildfires: prescribed burns. This technique refers to the controlled application of fire by a team of experts to reduce hazardous fuel in areas prone to wildfires. The drones carry so-called “dragon eggs,” or fireballs that ignite when they land on the ground. The company was started by two University of Nebraska-Lincoln engineering professors and was awarded a grant totaling $1 million for R&D from the NSF and Nebraska Department of Economic Development.

Martin Egan, a plant pathologist and microbiologist at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, won a $943,941 grant from NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development Program to support research on a pathogenic rice plant fungus. The fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, which causes rice blast disease and crop failure, has also attacked wheat crops and may be growing resistant to fungicides.

NSF has awarded a three-year, $973,923 research grant to Delaware State University in support of a neuroscience research project. The grant will support a research project that focuses on the brain chemical acetylcholine. Hakeem Lawal, a Delaware INBRE Pilot Project investigator, is the Principal Investigator of the grant, Jianli Sun, Director of the Cell Electrophysiology Core in the University’s Delaware Institute of Science and Technology, is the Co-PI.

Alaska NSF EPSCoR Fire & Ice researcher Chris Waigl, has received a $620,000 NSF Navigating the New Arctic Award for her project, “Foundations for Improving Resilience in the Energy Sector against Wildfires on Alaskan Lands (FIREWALL).”

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address convergence scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. This Arctic research is needed to inform the economy, security and resilience of the Nation, the larger region and the globe. NNA empowers new research partnerships from local to international scales, diversifies the next generation of Arctic researchers, enhances efforts in formal and informal education, and integrates the co-production of knowledge where appropriate. This award fulfills part of that aim by addressing interactions among social systems, natural environment, and built environment in the following NNA focus areas: Arctic Residents, Data and Observation, Forecasting, and Resilient Infrastructure.

In the US, roughly one-sixth of all K-12 students attend rural school districts. These students face many challenges and are often hampered by both a lack of funding and resources. Two South Dakota State University researchers have begun working to help “fill in the gaps” that rural students might be missing in their education. Amber Letcher and Kristine Ramsay-Seaner were awarded a five-year, $1.2 million USDA NIFA grant from the Children, Youth and Families at Risk program.

Black Hills State University is planning to use a $1.5 million NSF grant to help low-income science and math students graduate. The grant will give 24 students a $10,000 annual scholarship. In addition to scholarships, the grant will also create research positions for low-income students who normally wouldn’t qualify due to low GPAs. The grant will also pay for extra tutoring services and training for faculty.

Vaishali Sharda, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering at Kansas State University, has received a USDA grant to develop water and nutrient management strategies to aid in managing climate risks and preserving resources in the eastern Kansas River Basin.

Sharda is the K-State lead for the four-year, $750,000 project, “Irrigation at the new 100th Meridian: Adaptation to manage climate risks and preserve water resources in the Eastern Kansas River Basin."

The project aims to help the region adapt to current and future changes in climate as the 100th meridian, which separates the arid western United States from the humid eastern half of the country, shifts eastward. The hydroclimatic conditions characterizing the 100th meridian are expected to continue to migrate eastward throughout the 21st century.

Martha Grady’s, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kentucky, most recent project, “Mechanical Mechanisms of Biofilm Survival on Implant Surfaces,” Grady is the recipient of NSF’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. The program will provide Grady with $600,000 over five years to conduct research surrounding biofilm formation on medical device surfaces.

Grady is hoping to learn more about how these biofilms form on surfaces to help create strategies to decrease antibiotic resistance and combat medical device infections.

The University of South Dakota (USD) recently received $999,976 in funding from the NSF for the project titled Grounding Science Education in Indigenous Knowledges, Food Systems, and Sustainability (Grounding Science). Through Grounding Science, the university seeks to formalize more paths for students from tribal colleges to continue their education at USD, currently the only school in the region to offer sustainability degrees at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels.

Clemson University is one of a team of institutions who have received one of 14 new projects in technology and workforce development awarded by the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL). NIIMBL awarded a total of approximately $15.8 million in planned project activities through the Institute’s Project Call 5.2 that will help to address key opportunities for innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry.

NIIMBL is a public-private partnership whose mission is to accelerate biopharmaceutical innovation, support the development of standards that enable more efficient and rapid manufacturing capabilities, and educate and train a world-leading biopharmaceutical manufacturing workforce, fundamentally advancing US competitiveness in this industry. NIIMBL is part of Manufacturing USA®, a diverse network of federally-sponsored manufacturing innovation institutes, and is funded through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US Department of Commerce with significant additional support from its members.