Success Stories

The Commonwealth of Kentucky will receive $20 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation through the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This program aims to support U.S. states and territories, also known as EPSCoR jurisdictions, that have historically received less funding for research and development.

Through the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program Track-1, Kentucky has been awarded five years of funding to study how climate change affects local communities. The project will allow researchers to find new ways to deal with these challenges, educate the community and create programs to teach future researchers.

Kentucky faces mounting threats from environmental change, including extreme weather events, floods, droughts and landslides. The Climate Resilience through Multidisciplinary Big Data Learning, Prediction & Building Response Systems (CLIMBS) project will advance the fields of climate science, geohazards engineering and disaster management to improve sustainability and resilience to climate change. Research and educational programs will benefit underserved communities in eastern Kentucky. 

"We are proud to invest in Kentucky's future through the CLIMBS project, which aims to enhance climate resilience and sustainability across industries," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "By focusing on science-driven solutions, Kentucky can address climate challenges, protect communities and bolster economic growth for communities across the commonwealth and throughout the region."

Led by the University of Kentucky, scientists from eight universities will use Big Data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to model the impact of different climate scenarios. CLIMBS will help build climate resilience and sustainability in Kentucky's key industries of manufacturing, data analytics, energy transition and engineering and help train a science and engineering workforce that will enable the growth of smaller industries, such as food and beverage and agriculture. 

CLIMBS is responsive to Kentucky's Vision 2030: Science & Technology Plan, which includes a major focus on climate and resiliency and is motivated by the flood and weather events in 2021 and 2022 that impacted the area, including impoverished mountain and rural communities. Along with improving education and outreach in Appalachia, CLIMBS will promote the development of university-industry partnerships and enhanced abilities to compete for center-level funding and commercialization.  

LAWRENCE — The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the University of Kansas $26 million to establish a new Gen-4 Engineering Research Center (ERC) — Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH) — that will create a sustainable and circular refrigerant economy.

NSF’s Engineering Research Centers bring universities and businesses together to strengthen the competitive position of American industry in the global marketplace.

“NSF's Engineering Research Centers ask big questions in order to catalyze solutions with far-reaching impacts,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said. “NSF Engineering Research Centers are powerhouses of discovery and innovation, bringing America's great engineering minds to bear on our toughest challenges. By collaborating with industry and training the workforce of the future, ERCs create an innovation ecosystem that can accelerate engineering innovations, producing tremendous economic and societal benefits for the nation.”

KU’s ERC EARTH was selected from among hundreds of proposed centers.

“Working closely with industry partners, EARTH will have the resources and expertise to solve the technical, environmental and economic challenges required to create a sustainable refrigerant lifecycle that will benefit Kansans, the nation and the world. In doing this work, the center is a prime example of how the University of Kansas is driving economic development in Kansas," said Douglas A. Girod, University of Kansas chancellor.

KU is well positioned to lead this effort.

In March 2024, the University of Idaho received (award number P20GM152304) a $11 million, five-year grant to establish a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program focused on nutrition and women’s health. This grant is funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a component of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH’s Office of Women’s Health and Office of Nutrition Research are also partners.

The NIH’s overarching goal with this and all COBRE grants is to “support the establishment and development of innovative, state-of-the-art biomedical and behavioral research centers at institutions in Institutional Development Award (IDeA)-eligible states through awards for three sequential five-year phases.” IDeA-eligible states are those with the least NIH funding, and Idaho ranks nearly at the bottom of all states in this regard.

The first five years (phase 1) of this award will focus on building capacity in the area of nutrition and women’s health at the University of Idaho, including (1) attracting, mentoring and supporting a critical mass of both emerging and established world-class investigators who are able to compete effectively for independent, federal research funding and (2) improving infrastructure in the area of nutrition and women’s health at the University of Idaho.

Research will be broad, interdisciplinary, collaborative and innovative in the areas of nutrition and women’s health. It will span the entire lifespan and be inclusive of all nutrients and food bioactives important for health. Both undernutrition and obesity will be considered, as will a broad range of health outcomes, such as fertility, eating disorders, nutrient deficiencies, chronic disease and mental health.

Leading the COBRE are Shelley McGuire (COBRE principal investigator/project director, professor of nutrition and director of the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences), Mark McGuire (COBRE associate director, university distinguished professor) and Janet Williams (COBRE director of the Nutrition Analytics Core Laboratory, senior research scientist).

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded an estimated $21.4 million five-year grant to the University of Alabama at Birmingham for an Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

People born in the Deep South have a 20 percent to 30 percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. In 2020, UAB became an exploratory ADRC to advance research in dementia disparities in the region. The new grant allows the team to extend its research efforts.

“We hope to use the data collected through the ADRC to translate research findings into advances in the care, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia,” said Erik Roberson, M.D., Ph.D., Rebecca Gale-Heersink endowed chair in the UAB Department of Neurology and the center director.

Diabetes affects 10% of Hawaiʻi‘s population, with another 37% living with pre-diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. To address this significant health issue, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) secured a $11.7 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) five-year grant renewal for its Diabetes Research Center, originally funded with $11.3 million in 2017.

“Living in Hawaiʻi, many of us have diabetes or know someone who has it, so it is our obligation as researchers in Hawaiʻi to investigate problems that affect the people of this state,” said Mariana Gerschenson, JABSOM associate dean for research and director of the Diabetes Research Center. “The renewal of this grant allows us to continue to do this critical research, and we are excited about starting Phase 2 of this research, which will explore the impact diabetes has on other parts of the body.”

Originally, the NIH-funded Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant enabled JABSOM to study the mechanisms behind diabetes and pre-diabetes using cell and animal models. This initiative also facilitated the training of five young investigators across UH Mānoa to continue to contribute to local research and education.

“This is a very exciting time for us to have the opportunity to give young people in Hawaiʻi an opportunity to study this abundant disease and its complications here at home,” said Majorie Mau, the center’s deputy director and professor in the Department of Native Hawaiian Health.

An ideal thickness for studying certain rocks and minerals underneath a microscope is 0.03 mm, or roughly one one-thousandth of an inch (also known as one thou). Put another way, it takes 1,000 thous to make one inch.

Dr. John Webster, a Geosciences researcher and professor at Minot State University, received almost $33,000 from ND EPSCoR's STEM Research and Education program in 2022 to purchase a new precision thin-section machine that cuts stones thin enough for him and his students to discern mineral and chemical composition. ND EPSCoR's STEM Research and Education program is funded through appropriated funds from the ND state legislature to support STEM across North Dakota.

The Buehler PetroThin, as it’s called, is a thin section machine with a PetroBond thin section fixture that ensures parallelism of cutting and grinding procedures. The technology that creates thin sections isn’t new, but it’s essential to the work Webster performs as both a researcher and a lecturer. Thin-section study using a petrographic microscope is the standard technique for detailed study of rocks and minerals. It helps researchers describe rocks in great detail, including their mineral composition to better understand how they formed.

“It allows us to characterize rocks in new ways and interpret how rocks were formed,” Webster said. “It really is a fundamental, really important approach to studying geological materials. Even if we have good hand lenses (magnifiers), it’s difficult to identify minerals and see the textures. With thin slices like this, it really is how we characterize rocks and understand what they're made of in terms of minerals.”

From touch recognition and sensing that allows us to type messages on smartphones to carbon nanotube-based sensors that can track changes in our movement, the University of Delaware produces world-class ideas as one of the country’s top universities for research activity.

But it takes more than a great idea to make an impact — researchers also need institutional infrastructure, support staff and entrepreneurial skills in order to find the most effective way to bring their great ideas and technologies to life.

Now, UD will be empowered to increase the speed and scale of its translational research as a member of the inaugural cohort of 18 institutions supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program.

"NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "The Accelerating Research Translation program in NSF’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate identifies, and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice."

This effort will be led by PI Jill Higginson, George W. Laird Professor of Mechanical Engineering in UD’s College of Engineering and director of UD’s Institute of Engineering Driven Health (IEDH). Co-PIs include Julius Korley, associate vice president of UD’s Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships (OEIP) and co-director of the NSF I-Corps Hub: Northeast Region, Tracy Shickel, associate vice president of corporate engagement, and Dan Freeman, associate professor of marketing in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics and director of Horn Entrepreneurship.

The University of Guam launched its first Bioblitz, an international collaboration to catalog the diversity of marine organisms found along the coasts of Guam from Feb. 2 to 22, 2024.

In a ceremony held Thursday, Feb. 1, at the UOG cliffside, eight visiting marine scientists were welcomed by UOG staff, faculty and some of the island’s elected officials.

“I look forward to what your research says and your recommendations and outcomes so that we can continue our own food sustainability and preservation for our future,” said Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero.

A Bioblitz, also known as a biological inventory, is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area within a short time. Due to climate change, many species around the world are at risk of extinction and Bioblitzes provide an opportunity to inform future conservation efforts of at-risk species.

“We have the most diverse coral reefs in the U.S. We have more species of corals and more species of fishes, and we have a lot of stuff that we don’t even know we’ve got yet. That’s up to the people who have come to participate in this Bioblitz to find out what those things are,” said Guam NSF EPSCoR Principal Investigator, Dr. Terry Donaldson.

The Bioblitz is supported by the university’s National Science Foundation EPSCoR grant, which aims to employ cutting-edge methods to determine solutions that address the challenges imposed by climate change on coral reefs and associated ecosystems.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded Alaska with $20 million through the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program, which is designed to build research and development capacity, competitiveness and education in U.S. states and territories that have not received the levels of investment seen in other parts of the country.   

The five-year Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-1 award will help Alaska assess the impact of climate change on local communities, develop methods to respond to challenges and create programs to educate future generations of researchers. 

"Science, technology, and innovation-based solutions for mitigation, adaptation, and resilience to climate events are increasingly important to our nation's communities," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "This important EPSCoR award will help build resiliency to climate risks unique to Alaska, educate their citizens, protect infrastructure and safeguard the state's economic future."

The Distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (dREU) program lets selected North Dakota undergraduates fast-track their research skills by giving them an opportunity to work under the supervision and guidance of faculty researchers from the New Discoveries in the Advanced Interface of Computation, Engineering, and Science (ND-ACES) Center for Cellular Biointerfaces in Science and Engineering (CCBSE). The program is designed to strengthen North Dakota's STEM ecosystem by catalyzing bioscience research and career development opportunities for undergraduates.

Participating students get a salary for the time they spend doing research, professional development, and associated tasks. In addition, dREU students are required to participate in virtual professional development seminars which enhance their career readiness by teaching them skills like writing a resume, applying to graduate school, and preparing and delivering presentations.

Some dREU students participate at their home institutions, while others spend time at research institutions. For students from primarily undergraduate institutions, “a dREU experience at a research-intensive university such as UND and NDSU is a great opportunity because it broadens their horizons and gives students the opportunity to meet and work alongside graduate students, broaden their scientific network, work with equipment that is not typically available to them, and learn new technologies they can bring back to their home institutions,” says Dr. Hilde van Gijssel, Professor of Science at Valley City State University (VCSU). “An additional benefit is that it strengthens and fosters collaborations between the faculty at the students’ home institutions and the research universities.”

We talked to this year’s group of dREU students to find out why they joined the program, what they learned, and where they will take their new skills next.