Success Stories

UAH researcher wins $299K EPSCoR fellowship to advance composite materials for breakthrough ground, air, space applications

Dr. Nathan Spulak, an assistant professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), has been awarded a $299,000 National Science Foundation EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement fellowship to enhance safety for earth, air and space vehicles and habitation structures by examining the characteristics of composite materials.

Regina Toolin, PhD, Associate Professor of STEM Education at the University of Vermont (UVM) and member of the SOCKS Education and Workforce Development Team, was named a recipient of the 2025 Joseph A. Abruscato Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship, recognizing her as an exemplar who achieves the ideals of the teacher-scholar recognition as a researcher and educator from UVM's College of Education and Social Services (CESS).

Northern Kentucky University Assistant Professor Dr. Brittany Smith, former KY INBRE Start-Up Award recipient, has received an R00 in the amount of $249,000 from the NIH National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) for her project entitled, “Executive function in opioid-exposed offspring and subsequent molecular signatures.”

Dr. Venkataramana Gadhamshetty, South Dakota Mines professor of civil and environmental engineering, was recently appointed as editor-in-chief of Environmental Engineering Science, a premier peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the advancements in environmental engineering and science.

The Rhode Island IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (RI-INBRE) program will continue training the next generation of leaders in the region’s biomedical and biotechnology industries for the next three years after receiving a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Gary O. Rankin, Ph.D., vice dean for basic sciences, professor and chair of biomedical sciences at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, was one of 10 individuals named to the WV Executive magazine 2025 Health Care Hall of Fame.

Eleven undergraduate students and student teams statewide traveled to Pierre, S.D., to showcase research projects at the 28th annual South Dakota Student Research Poster Session at the Capitol Rotunda on Friday, February 21, 2025.

Starting in 2021, a team of three members of Western Kentucky University’s Department of Physics & Astronomy faculty, including Dr. Gordon Emslie, Dr. Ali Er, and Dr. Ivan Novikov, have been working on a NASA KY EPSCoR Research Award of $900,000 entitled “Solar Activity and Space Weather.”

NH BioMade researcher Rebecca Thomson launched her own company, NovaGyn LLC, to focus on creating better biomaterials for pelvic reconstruction surgery and has received $292,752 from NIH in initial funding. NH BioMade faculty members Douglas Van Citters and Katherine Hixon serve on the NovaGyn Scientific Advisory Board.

“This frosting of the [sunflower] seeds had an effect upon them that we rather esteemed. We made a kind of oily meal from sunflower seed, by pounding them in a corn mortar; but meal made from seed that had been frosted, seemed more oily than that from seed gathered before frost fell. The freezing of the seeds seemed to bring the oil out of the crushed kernels. This was well known to us. Sometimes we took the threshed seed out of doors and let it get frosted, so as to bring out this oiliness.” Maxi'diwiac (Buffalo Bird Woman), Hidatsa farmer

Whether it’s agriculture, astronomy, or medicine, Indigenous peoples are natural scientists and have long practiced science before the term “science” existed. Indigenous cultural traditions and ways of life are at the core of these practices.

As the North Dakota Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR) program celebrates the 25th anniversary of its NATURE initiative — a program aimed at promoting STEM among tribal youth in North Dakota — it's a moment not only to commemorate past achievements but also to chart the course for the program's future.

What is the NATURE program?

NATURE, which stands for Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education, embodies a vision rooted in Indigenous culture and practices with respect for the natural environment while sparking curiosity and interest in future generations for STEM pathways by blending two worlds.

In one world, Indigenous people live as one with Unci Maka (Grandmother Earth) and thrive on the ancestral knowledge of various sciences passed on throughout centuries through oral and hands-on teachings. The other world advances research and STEM pathways with today’s knowledge, technologies, and needs. Through an Indigenous lens, these worlds are one in the same.