Indiana University

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-06

This research examines the genetic changes and environmental conditions responsible for natural variation in an ecologically and economically important trait: fruit color. Ripe fruit color can vary dramatically within and between species, including in fruit crop species such as tomato. The factors thought to influence this color variation are important natural biochemicals and provitamins that have antioxidant and other known health benefits. However, the specific molecular changes that underlie variation in pigmentation and ripe fruit color are rarely known, making it difficult to identify good targets for increasing the health benefits of this variation. This research uses natural variation in fruit color across the plant group Solanum—that includes tomato, eggplant, and potato, and more than 1200 other wild species relatives—to identify the specific changes that underlie dozens of evolutionary origins of ripe fruit color variation. In addition to understanding different origins of the same fruit pigments and the environmental contexts that favor color variation, the research may speed the discovery of potential nature-based solutions for manipulating and enhancing the nutritional content of fruits in an important agricultural group. Products of the research will also be used to generate K-12 STEM outreach materials focused on natural color and vision, using fruit color and animal visual perception as an accessible educational vehicle. The project integrates comparative genomic, transcriptomic, and macroecological data to examine molecular variation in two important plant pigment biosynthetic pathways (carotenoids and anthocyanins), and to associate this variation with independent fruit color transitions and the ecological context of global geographic fruit color variation. First, to identify variation in constraint among members of each pigment biosynthetic pathway, it will quantify patterns of molecular genetic variation across >70 pathway-associated loci in at least 60 Solanum species with whole genome sequence data. Second, to examine whether fruit color convergence repeatedly draws upon the same or similar molecular mechanisms, it will investigate correlated and convergent evolution of fruit color transitions and pigment biosynthesis loci, using >80 independent fruit color transitions among 300+ Solanum species. Third, to identify the joint contribution of ecological and molecular processes to shaping fruit color variation across Solanum, it will identify macroecological features associated with the global distribution of fruit color variation in this group, and with variation in underlying molecular pigmentation mechanisms. This research leverages existing and growing resources, including: a) high quality reference genomes from crop species in Solanum; b) knowledge of fruit color mechanisms from model systems; c) ongoing advances in comparative genomics and phylogenetic comparative methods; d) living and preserved biological collections from hundreds of wild species; and e) organismal and phylogenetic knowledge of a diverse, global, economically important plant genus. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-06

This award supports the 2025 edition of the Seminar on Stochastic Processes (SSP), which will be held March 19—22 at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. The SSP is a major research conference series in the fields of probability and statistics, bringing together accomplished and early-career researchers across a range of areas. It has been held at over 20 different institutions over the last 40 years. The SSP provides mathematicians and statisticians across a range of career stages a unique opportunity to interact, develop new collaborations, and discuss recent advances in their fields. Five invited speakers will deliver plenary lectures and tutorial lectures, including two distinguished plenary lectures, the SSP Founders lecture and the IMS Medallion lecture. There will be poster sessions with brief introductory talks, open problem discussion sessions, and a panel session on career development. This conference provides all participants an opportunity to interact and discuss recent advances in probability theory and stochastic processes and their applications. As such, the conference represents an important networking opportunity for the dozens of early-career researchers in attendance and it will enhance the careers of the next generation of researchers in stochastic processes. Probability is the mathematical theory that formalizes reasoning with incomplete information, and stochastic processes are probabilistic structures important both within mathematics and for modeling across a range of scientific fields. The scientific committee has chosen invited speakers whose work represents a wide breadth of research areas in probability and stochastic processes, including applications in complex networks, theoretical biology, and statistical physics. Recent research work by other participants will be presented at poster sessions. The open problem sessions provide opportunities for discussions about emerging and challenging topics in probability and stochastic processes and the formation of future collaborations. Further information on the SSP can be found on the conference website: https://ssp.stat.indiana.edu. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-05

Understanding how speech evolves over time and across different regions is crucial for understanding human communication. This project advances knowledge by developing the first digital resource that charts the phonological structures of an extensively used yet underexplored form of spoken language. By examining linguistic patterns from various communities, the project offers insights into how mobility, geography, and societal change influences language. This research not only broadens our grasp of linguistic variation but also provides practical applications, such as refining speech processing technologies and guiding language-based initiatives in education, healthcare, and the judicial system. Furthermore, the project fosters public interest in linguistic studies through community engagement efforts, educational materials, and digital platforms, while also supporting mentorship initiatives. This study explores phonological structures by conducting linguistic interviews with 160 participants across different regions. Utilizing phonetic analysis techniques and spatial mapping tools, the project investigates sound-based phenomena, including phonemic transitions and vowel system alterations, to gain deeper insights into linguistic shifts and regional speech distinctions. The study contributes to the disciplines of phonology, language variation, and dialectology by supplying new empirical evidence and theoretical insights. The educational aspects of the project incorporate research findings into undergraduate curricula and public engagement activities, such as a cross-disciplinary academic program and interactive digital content. Publicly available materials include an auditory archive, geolocated linguistic maps, and instructional resources aimed at enhancing linguistic knowledge. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-05

Rivers occasionally experience a process called avulsion when they jump out of their banks and carve a new path across the landscape. The resulting floods are more extreme than typical floods caused by rainfall; avulsions can devastate entire communities. River avulsions occur infrequently, so we have very few observations of them. As a result, the scientific understanding of this important natural hazard lags behind other comparable hazards like earthquakes. For example, the number of people in the United States living in the potential path of river avulsions is not known because we do not even know for sure what conditions prime rivers to avulse. In this project, the team will develop a new unified theory for the processes that prime river avulsion, and test the theory using experiments and observations from satellite images. Two main conditions are thought to destabilize rivers and set them up to avulse. The first is called superelevation (β), where sediment accumulates on the levees and the riverbed, lifting the river above the surrounding floodplain. The second is called gradient advantage (γ), where a steeper alternative path is available to the river. These two conditions have long been considered either mutually exclusive or unrelated. Recent observations have revealed that avulsions occur when the combined values of superelevation and gradient advantage reach a joint threshold; specifically, where β • γ ≈ 2. Based on this, the team will test three hypotheses: 1) the joint threshold for river avulsion arises because alluvial ridge superelevation grows faster on fans and gradient advantage grows faster on deltas; 2) avulsions occur in isolated river reaches where β • γ is locally elevated, and do not occur elsewhere; and 3) the threshold of β • γ for avulsion will decrease with increasing trigger size. To build on this discovery, the project team will develop a new theory for river avulsion setup into a physics-based modeling framework that seeks to model how β and γ evolve over time on a given river. That model will be tested against new remote-sensing observations of how β and γ vary along river reaches, and new lab experiments aimed at testing the controls on the threshold value of β • γ. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-05

Philip Shushkov of Indiana University is supported by an award from the Chemical Theory, Models and Computational Methods program in the Division of Chemistry to develop theoretical methods to simulate the dynamics of ensembles of molecular spin qubits. The new methods will be used to characterize the range of quantum dynamical behaviors of molecular qubit ensembles with different dimensionality, disorder, and environmental noise and different temperature regimes and driving conditions will be explored. The interactions with the nuclear spins and the molecular vibrations that destroy the quantum correlations in the spin states will be characterized, defining states that are resilient to decoherence, and how quantum states with non-classical correlations that have broad application in quantum sensing and computation can be created in realistic molecular environments. The new methods will facilitate the application of molecular qubit ensembles in quantum information sciences, the interpretation of experimental observations, and the interfacing of molecular spin ensembles with other quantum platforms. As part of this work, open-source software packages will be developed for model derivation and simulation of molecular spin ensembles, provide training opportunities, and a new research immersion class and an interactive quantum exhibit will be developed. Molecular spin-coherent systems feature unmatched synthetic reproducibility and chemical tunability, offering unprecedented opportunities for the design of the next-generation systems for quantum information processing. This project will leverage the PI's density-matrix coupled-cluster method and dynamic spin Hamiltonian approach, and will advance systematically improvable ab initio theoretical methods to simulate the non-equilibrium many-body dynamics of molecular spin systems and will apply them to characterize the spin dynamics of molecular qubit ensembles. First, a density-matrix coupled-cluster method for quantum dynamics of spin ensembles at finite temperature will be developed, and they will apply it to characterize the spin decoherence dynamics of interacting spin ensembles with different dimensionality and disorder and the quantum states of periodically driven spin ensembles. Second, an ab initio model for the spin-spin and spin-vibrational interactions in molecular qubit ensembles will also be developed, and they will apply the model to characterize the decoherence, spin transport, and cross-relaxation in molecular spin ensembles. Third, a spin-vibrational coupled-cluster method to simulate the non-equilibrium dynamics of noisy molecular qubit ensembles will be developed, and they will apply it to characterize the spin-vibrational dynamics of driven molecular qubit ensembles and the stability of entangled quantum states in dissipative molecular environments. As part of the integrated educational and outreach aims, they will engage college students in the study of quantum sciences in chemistry through a research immersion course, provide free and accessible tools to college and K-12 chemistry educators, and engage the public in quantum inquiry through an interactive exhibit. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-05

This award is funded by NSF Global Centers program, an innovative program that supports use-inspired research addressing global challenges through the bioeconomy. It supports U.S.-based researchers developing global international partnerships and building multi-stakeholder engagement to advance use-inspired research, in the aim to develop their project toward a large-scale international effort. Earth's limited resources, notably freshwater, arable land, and the atmosphere, must be safeguarded. Yet, as the human population increases so does global protein demand. This project, INsects for a Sustainable Environment and Circular bioeconomy (INSECt), aims at developing sustainable solutions for feed and food rooted in biomanufacturing practices. Insect farming is scalable, requires minimal land and water, and produces low carbon emissions. Its byproducts can be used as feedstocks. This scalability allows building an economy based on the diverse life-histories of insects. Here, the team focuses on food security and climate responsiveness. They develop innovative approaches in collaboration with global academic and industrial partners. Leveraging the infrastructure developed by NSF IUCRC Center for Environmental Sustainability through Insect Farming (CEIF), they develop value-added products from insects harnessing. These products include novel small molecules to combat resistant bacteria, micronutrients for resilient plant growth, and methods for rehabilitating nutrient-poor and contaminated soils. The interdisciplinary approach brings together biologists, earth scientists, social scientists, economists, and humanists. Their overarching goal is to shift traditional agriculture towards a bio-based model including insect. This three-year proof-of-concept grant unites US-based investigators and international collaborators. Together, they explore extreme climate stressors and One Health challenges, and assess insects’ potential to produce valuable materials from waste. Another focus is on the ethical and sociocultural dimensions of the human-insect nexus in agriculture. The project also provides support and training to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as outreach to K-12 students and the public. Here, the researchers investigate the knowledge gaps in insects as efficient bio-converters. These gaps include: (1) insects’ capability of transforming diverse organic substrates into valuable biomass and biochemical compounds; (2) their effectiveness in reducing the ecological impact of food waste while generating valuable bioeconomic resources; (3) whether insects can be utilized to mitigate environmental contaminants - and concentrate certain ones such as heavy metals - into economic products. Through interdisciplinary research and partnerships, the project advances scientific knowledge as well as the ethical, practical, and culturally aware implementation of insect-based bioeconomic models. The researchers investigate the fundamental principles of insect physiology, behavior, welfare, and ecology. They generate ethical and evidence-based approaches for incorporating insects into sustainable agriculture. They develop novel insect-derived products and processes. The project also supports the development of a diverse workforce in a global international and multidisciplinary framework, with the aim to cultivate culturally and contextually aware STEM students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Enzymes promote reactions by binding the substrate, catalyzing the reaction, and releasing the product. Each of these activities depends on the three-dimensional shape of the enzyme. Efforts to enhance the overall productivity of an enzyme usually focus on increasing the rate of the reaction in the active site. However, altering the shape to improve one aspect of its activity can change the shape in other parts of the enzyme. This often leads to situations where a single change improves the rate of reaction but decreases the rate of binding of reactants or release of products. There could be no net improvement or even a decrease in overall productivity. The challenge is even greater when the goal of the enzyme engineering is to have it catalyze a related but new reaction, with different reactants. Traditionally, this is attempted by presenting the enzyme with a single representative novel substrate and attempting to modify the enzyme to bind it and catalyze a new reaction. The central concept of the project is that simultaneously evolving both the enzyme and the substrate might be a more effective means to achieve improved performance. Enzymes will be exposed to a variety of nitrogen-containing substrates to develop an enzyme that will convert carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bonds directly into carbon-nitrogen (C-N) bonds. To encourage the development of the biomanufacturing workforce, workshops and online courses on enzyme engineering will be developed. These will be offered through both Indiana University and through the Centre for Continuing Education at IIT Hyderabad, India. An engineered Fe(II)- and α-ketoglutarate dependent enzyme termed SadX can catalyze site-selective C-H azidation and carbamoylation. Directed evolution improved SadX azidase activity via mutations throughout its structure. It is unclear how these mutations affected activity. The resulting variants exhibited limited substrate scope. The project will attempt to provide fundamental insight into non-native reactivity and selectivity of SadX variants and expand the scope of enzymatic C-H functionalization to incorporate nitrogen-containing functionality. The Eerappa group will study enzymes in the azidase lineage using solution biophysical methods, X-ray crystallography, computational modeling, and density functional theory (DFT)-based quantum mechanical analysis to gain insight into how mutations in the evolved variants lead to changes in active site structure and substrate binding. The Lewis group will then use computational modeling to design substrates that contain features found to be essential for effective C-H functionalization while modifying non-essential features to gradually expand substrate scope. At the same time, structure- and MD simulation-guided mutagenesis will be used to further evolve variants with improved activity on modified substrates. Simultaneous evolution of both substrate and enzyme structure might enable more efficient expansion of substrate scope than protein engineering aimed at forcing the enzyme to adapt to a particular substrate. The proposed research will provide insight into how engineered Fe(II)- and α-ketoglutarate dependent enzymes can accommodate diverse anionic ligands to enable non-native C-H functionalization reactions. It is anticipated that the proposed studies will greatly improve the ability to further engineer non-native catalysis. Validating the efficacy of the proposed approach to simultaneous substrate modification and enzyme evolution for expanding enzyme scope could also be used to improve the generality of other enzymes for biocatalysis. This project involves a collaboration between researchers from the United State and India. It is jointly supported by the US National Science Foundation and the Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India (NSF-DBT). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Cybersecurity is imperative for protecting the nation’s sixteen critical infrastructure sectors, from the electric grid to water utilities. Cybersecurity protects supply chains and safeguards and privacy of personal data on the Internet. Economic growth in the United States is also increasingly tied to the effective management of cyber risks. Insurance is one key method of managing such risks. Focused on the private insurance sector, the Cybersecurity, Insurance, and Resilience Center for Understanding and Innovation in Technology (CIRCUIT) is an intellectual and practical hub for empirical research on cybersecurity modeling and its applications in managing critical infrastructure, mitigating catastrophic risks, and understanding evolving threats. By improving how organizations anticipate, prevent, and recover from cyber incidents, CIRCUIT reduces the financial burden on taxpayers, who often bear the cost of cyber disasters and infrastructure recovery efforts. Through research, education, and outreach, the center develops tools and strategies that protect both public and private interests, ensuring that critical services remain operational and secure. The U.S. economy relies on value creation through entrepreneurship, innovation, and the knowledge economy. Consider that more than 85% of the value of leading companies is tied up in intangible assets, also known as the knowledge economy. These assets require robust intellectual property and data protections, making cybersecurity both an industry need and a policy imperative. Using this planning grant from the Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) program, CIRCUIT identifies and addresses critical industry needs such as the development of uniform and precise policy language; the selection of performant contracted service providers to buttress policies; the creation of new data on the effectiveness of security controls to support underwriting; the identification of better exclusion strategies; and the automation of cyber risk underwriting with efficient auditing and claim management processes including empirically vetted security controls. These strategies, in turn, reduce the likelihood of costly recoveries after cyber attacks, strengthen national security, and foster economic stability by ensuring that businesses and essential services can recover quickly from cyber threats. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

This research directly observes participants in civil society organizations as they attempt to make decisions to answer questions about how they make decisions about what actions to take. Civil society organizations—things like chambers of commerce, hobby clubs, neighborhood associations, and congregations—make decisions that can affect local citizens and communities. They can directly affect the health and well-being of their participants, and they often contribute funds, services, and support to other local people and organizations. Despite the importance of these organizations for communities, little is known about how their participants make decisions, such as how often they consider a wide array of options, make a clear choice, deal effectively with dissenting opinions, and develop a plan for implementation. Understanding how civil society organizations currently make decisions will lead to useful guidance on how such organizations can make better decisions in the future. This project uses a new application of systematic social observation—a rigorous, quantitative approach to observational research. Trained research assistants attend roughly 1,000 meetings, events, and activities held by more than 50 civil society organizations. Research assistants carefully and unobtrusively observe what goes on at each meeting and complete a more-than 100-item form about what they see—including an extensive set of items about opportunities that arise for participants to make decisions. Researchers analyze the combined data to describe how often key decision outcomes occur and to explain what kinds of organizations and meetings lead to better outcomes. In addition to helping scientists better understand how organizations work and helping civil society organization leaders and members make better decisions, this project also provides hands-on research experiences for many students. . This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Geohazards pose large risks at geologically active continental margins. These geohazards are interconnected and thus difficult to study in isolation. The goal of this project is to bring together experts to develop plans for an integrated array of instruments to observe these hazards. The array will be designed using Chile as a case study. This is a unique location where frequent events and existing networks provide a global understanding of interacting hazards. Teams of experts in computer modeling and technical planning will design sub-arrays for earthquake, volcanic, and landslide observations. Teams will also compile new catalogs of earthquakes and landslide susceptibility in the study area. The teams will meet in a 3-day workshop to synthesize results. Broad input from the scientific community will be solicited through a series of webinars. New models and catalogs will be shared openly through the SZ4D website and data repositories to benefit communities exposed to subduction-related hazards in the U.S. and internationally. Subduction of ocean lithosphere results in the largest earthquakes, volcanic activity, and landscapes highly prone to destructive landslides. For decades research related to subduction and related geohazards has proceeded piecemeal. This research will provide the basis for an overarching framework for integrated studies that can directly address the linkages between earthquake, volcano, tsunami, and landslide geohazards. This award will support a series of modeling studies and technical planning that will be used to design three overlapping arrays of instrumentation at the Chile Subduction Zone. Chile is unique in combining a high level of geological activity and good logistical access. The instrument array will be designed to observe a broad range of earthquake, volcanic, and landslide processes. The work is organized into ten work packages. Five will assess and plan various aspects of the seismic detection and geodetic network. Two will address sediment and hydrologic transport for landslides. Two will address using seismicity to forecast volcanic processes. The final work package will bring together the others with a three-day workshop and with scientific community input via a series of webinars. The connection between this research and the SZ4D initiative makes very clear the connection of this planning activity to benefit people who live with subduction-related geohazards in the U.S. and globally. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-02

This project will study effective practices for building strong, successful research teams. Researchers will study a group of field geoscientists working together on the Subduction Zones in Four Dimensions (SZ4D) initiative, which consists of a group of scientists who are working to better understand and forecast natural disasters, including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis that occur where Earth’s tectonic plates meet. This project will analyze surveys, observations, and group interviews to learn how coordination, mentoring, communication, and shared leadership help everyone, from beginners to experts, work and learn together successfully. It is expected that this work will be applicable to a broad community of field scientists, who will be able to incorporate the findings from this study into their work to make future field projects and other team-based science projects stronger and more impactful. Large-scale, interdisciplinary field geoscience research is necessary to understand the complex mechanisms that lead to subduction zone geohazards and how best to reduce their impacts. However, prior geoscience field research initiatives to accomplish similar goals are usually an amalgamation of single PI-led research projects, which have so far achieved neither the envisioned scale nor holistic integration of field-based geologic data into community projects proposed by the Subduction Zones in Four Dimensions (SZ4D) initiative. This team proposes to use the community of practice (CoP) framework where groups of people that share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting in an ongoing basis, to study collaboration and learning during a field data collection activity as part of an 8-day field deployment involving many scientists representing different sub-disciplines and levels of expertise. The extant literature on field learning and research suggests that fieldwork is an important component for building effective CoPs, promotes the application of theoretical knowledge, and helps novice learners build community identity. However, employing the CoP framework to empirically identify best-practices and necessary skills to ensure effective participation to promote success among interdisciplinary teams to achieve common research goals has not been attempted before. Addressing this broad question is beyond the scope of a single research project. Therefore, researchers will begin by collecting empirical baseline data to demonstrate how interdisciplinary field-based CoPs develop during fieldwork and document the effectiveness of the CoP framework in promoting successful interdisciplinary research goals. The proposed work will use mixed-methods involving a combination of observations, focus group interviews, and surveys (pre-and-post) to evaluate how fieldwork fosters the development of CoPs, and how four elements of the CoP framework including coordination (hierarchical vs whole group), communication (visual, written, verbal, online, in person), mentoring, and shared leadership (differences between novice and expert decision making) influence the effectiveness of interdisciplinary learning environments across the novice to expert spectrum. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-02

The project will contribute to a new and rapidly developing area of applied mathematics rich with applications for modeling and challenges for rigorous mathematical analysis. This research will yield important new methods for modeling chemical mixing, biologically active fluids, and geophysical systems. Improving methods for these domain settings will provide more effective tools to address important problems such as the spread of pathogens or pollutants or to quantify the degree and type of climate hazards. The investigators will develop new methodologies for calibrating and designing effective measurement strategies of these various fluid systems, which simultaneously resolve degrees of the inherent uncertainty in these measurements. This project involves the training and active participation of a number of graduate students and other earlier career scientists. The cross institutional and cross disciplinary nature of this project will provide unique opportunities for the participants. Recent advances in computational infrastructure combined with novel mathematical formulations and newly discovered algorithms have allowed the extension of the Bayesian approach to new classes of physics-constrained inverse problems. Solutions typically take many times the computational power of a single solve of a nonlinear forward map based on a partial differential equations (PDEs) where the estimation concerns a function rather than a finite collection of numerical values, namely where we are interested in estimating an infinite-dimensional unknown parameter. The investigators will undertake a research program at the intersection of stochastic and functional analysis, high-performance computing, nonlinear PDEs, and fluid dynamics. Specifically, the investigators will (1) consider a series of physically motivated PDE inverse problems with infinite-dimensional unknowns; (2) develop novel algorithms adapted to efficiently sample from infinite-dimensional measures; (3) develop the ergodic theory for certain classes of infinite-dimensional Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms to rigorously assess rates of convergence in sampling target posterior measures; and (4) analyze consistency in the large data observation limit for infinite dimensional models. The project contributes effective frameworks for the measurement of turbulent fluid flows from sparse, irregular data while developing sampling methods of broader interest across computational statistics and data science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-02

This project is a multidisciplinary collaboration to explore the mechanical properties of a potent adhesive biopolymer produced by bacteria and to determine how these properties are genetically and biochemically specified and modulated. The adhesive biological polymer plays an important role in bacteria biofilm formation, an early step in both beneficial and harmful bacterial interactions with other organisms and materials. In addition, these types of biopolymers hold significant promise for development of biocompatible and water-tolerant adhesives. The proposed studies will provide a detailed mechanistic understanding of how these types of materials impart strong adhesion. The project combines expertise from microbiology, molecular genetics, biomechanics, chemistry, physics and mathematical modeling to address these questions. The investigators will provide cross-disciplinary training and experience for participating graduate students in biology, chemistry and physics. In addition, the project includes a significant outreach component to local Bloomington grade schools and a local children’s science museum named the Wonderlab to develop activities that allow young students to independently experiment with and learn about adhesives at macro- and micro-scales. The adhesive material under study is part of a growing family of polysaccharide-based products that concentrate at the poles of rod-shaped bacterial cells in the large and diverse Alphaproteobacteria class and often impart interactions with surfaces. This polar adhesion process is the first step in forming multicellular biofilms, and for host-associated bacteria is often an early step in symbiosis or pathogenesis. With this project the investigators will use the plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens as an experimental platform to determine the genetic and biochemical processes which result in the adhesive properties of the material, by performing a battery of complimentary biomechanical analyses on a collection of mutants and regulated derivatives that affect adhesive production. Mathematical modeling using the experimental data generated will define the adhesion process, and an iterative cycle of experimentation and modeling will ensure development of a general mechanistic understanding for adhesion. With the advances in understanding of adhesive synthesis and deposition, the investigators will identify key determinants that can be manipulated, with the long-term goal of engineering a customizable bioadhesive platform(s) for generating materials with different strengths and durability. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Intensifying heatwaves and rising temperatures pose unprecedented challenges – globally and throughout the United States – generating an urgent need to understand how at least some animals cope well with heat. Behavior is often key to resilience during environmental change, and yet the capacity of behavior to resolve the problem of heat is not understood. To address this fundamental question, this research tests a ‘behavior-centric’ framework to generate critical data on behavioral responses to increased temperatures. The project will challenge free-living birds with increased temperatures, focusing on a species whose numbers are increasing in the hot and humid southeastern United States. This research has high potential to open new areas of inquiry. The researchers will provide the basic research needed to inform future applied work, such as predictive models and conservation decisions. By focusing on behavior, they will build and test a framework that can be applied across species or across multiple anthropogenic insults that assail the natural world – wildfire smoke, endocrine disrupting chemicals, urban noise, and more. By coupling this research with outreach and training, they will build educational infrastructure on the problem of heat, improve STEM training, and broaden participation for groups under-represented in STEM. Outreach products will include new infographics, installations, and virtual reality/gaming experiences that build understanding on the role of behavior in a changing world. Altogether, results will give much-needed insight into how behavior does (or does not) buffer animals from the consequences of heat. Biologists have long considered behavior to be the first line of defense against environmental change, and yet key behavioral parameters for predicting who persists or succumbs to the growing challenge of heat is lacking. Small endotherms are particularly vulnerable and their early life conditions set the stage for lifetime fitness, yet not much is known about how heat affects their relatively helpless young, who have limited options for coping. To identify how behavior may buffer the effects of inescapable heat, this research will: (1) use cross-fostering to identify causes and consequences of among-individual variation in behavioral responses to heat, (2) determine how behavioral acclimation affects responses to subsequent heat, and (3) determine how populations vary in their behavioral capacity to mitigate heat. The study species is a cavity-nesting bird (Tachycineta bicolor), which is thriving in some warming environments. The experimental challenge uses air-activated heat-packs in their enclosed nest cavity. The working hypotheses are that: individuals and populations vary in the degree to which behavior is effective at mitigating heat; and, recent experience and evolutionary history will shape whether behavioral responses are sufficient for coping with heat. Together with analyses of the fitness-related consequence of heat, these experiments will identify the relevance of behavioral variation within an individual, among individuals, and among populations. In doing so, this research provides a cohesive test of the hypothesis that behavior is on the front line of solving the global challenge of heat. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

This CAREER project supports an integrated research and education approach to address the fundamental and applied challenges in solid-state nanopore-based single molecule counting platform towards the fully integrated point-of-care nucleic acid testing. This project is motivated by a growing demand for decentralized nucleic acid testing for applications ranging from infectious disease, food safety to homeland security. In recognition of using nanopore as simple as a single molecule counter and the fact that target nucleic acids can be sensitively and specifically replicated in numbers during the amplification reaction, this project seeks to develop a solid-state nanopore-based point of care nucleic acid testing device in which sample preparation is fully integrated. The proposed research activities will be synergistically integrated with educational activities to provide hands-on based education to inspire and train future STEM leaders and to increase public awareness of biosensing devices and their societal impacts. The overall research objective of this proposal is to explore a highly sensitive nanopore digital counting paradigm for point-of-care nucleic acid testing. Due to its potential for minimization and integration, solid-state nanopore sensing is a rapidly evolving field. Considerable effort has been made for developing various applications. However, translating solid-state nanopore sensors to practical settings has seen limited progress as compared to their biological counterparts adopted in the DNA sequencing, mainly due to the challenges in reproducible size control, introducing specificity, prolonged sensing time at low analyte concentrations, and the lack of integrated sample preparation. The proposed work aims to address these issues and explore a fully integrated solid-state nanopore digital counting paradigm towards nucleic acid testing at the point of need. The research activity will address four research aims regarding the sensing kinetics, nanopore fabrication, cartridge and system integration, and validation. This research is multidisciplinary in nature and spans the range from fundamental to applied research, with low- and high-risk components. Together, they constitute a complete research program to advance and translating the solid-state nanopore sensors. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Online communities are increasingly important for social interaction and social support. However, the many but subtle ways community members provide care and support to one another are often unnoticed and poorly supported by the design of existing online community software platforms. This project's goal is to enhance the ability of online communities to provide implicit care, such as subtle acts of inclusion and support, by studying these interactions on common online community platforms. By identifying and documenting implicit care practices, designing interventions to facilitate them, and developing strategies for platform designers to consider implicit care, the project seeks to improve the social health and cohesion of online communities. The findings will benefit society by promoting healthier and more supportive online interactions, contributing to national well-being, as well as directly benefiting students and communities involved in the research. Through this project, the project team will identify, document, and analyze implicit care practices in online communities through digital ethnography, diary studies, interviews, and co-design workshops. Using the insights from those studies, the team will design, deploy, and iterate lightweight interventions, such as community bots and browser add-ons, to facilitate these practices. The research team will also develop and refine a framework of critical theoretical lenses and design strategies to support implicit care, culminating in a publicly available repository of findings and tools. By focusing on parent groups and gaming communities on platforms like Facebook, Reddit, and Discord, the research team aims to map the technical characteristics that enable or hinder implicit care and to provide actionable insights for researchers, designers, and community managers to foster supportive online environments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Tektites are a type of glass formed by meteorite impacts. This project will study how elements behave in tektites and volcanic glass from the Moon. Researchers will study how elements are lost or depleted in these natural glasses (quenched silicate melts). Using silicate melts makes this research more accurate than previous work that uses data from simple compounds. This research could improve methods for studying Earth’s resources, which supports the national interest in science and technology. Another major benefit of this project is its emphasis on education and inclusion. The project will help train students who are from underrepresented groups in science for future careers in the Geosciences. The research team will also create an educational module on how chemical elements behave in nature. This resource will become publicly available to students and teachers everywhere. Researchers will also update the tektite display in the UCLA Meteorite Museum, where every year tens of thousands of visitors will learn about the latest research findings. The goal of the project is to investigate how certain moderately volatile elements, such as alkali metals (e.g. potassium, rubidium), transition metals (e.g. copper, zinc), and sulfur-loving elements (e.g. lead, gallium, germanium), behave when silicate melts (melted rock) evaporate. We will use a special laser-heating technique with an aerodynamic levitation setup to conduct these evaporation experiments. The project has two main objectives: (1) Volatility Scale of Elements: To create a ranking of how easily different trace elements evaporate; and (2) Activity Coefficients in Silicate Melts: To determine how the activity (or reactivity) of these elements changes based on temperature, the type of melt, and gas composition around it. The project’s findings will help improve models that predict the volatility of these trace elements, which is key to understanding how volatile elements behave and change on Earth and other rocky planets. Earth, for instance, has lost a significant portion of these elements during its formation. Understanding when and how this happened will shed light on Earth’s water sources, the formation of its atmosphere and oceans, and possibly even the origins of life. The project will train students at UCLA, especially women and students from other underrepresented groups in science, preparing them for future careers in geochemistry and related fields. In addition, the team will create a new educational module on the history and current understanding of how chemical elements behave in nature, making this resource publicly available to students and teachers everywhere. The proposal also includes an update to the tektite display in the UCLA Meteorite Museum, where tens of thousands of visitors will learn about the latest research findings every year. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-12

Plants maximize resource capture by sensing their environment and carefully adjusting their morphology during growth. Unlike animal cells, plants construct their form through the manufacture of semirigid cell walls, layers of crosslinked cellulose polymers with special material properties. Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on the planet, critical for food supply, fuel, and as renewable construction materials. By carefully templating how these cell wall fibers are deposited during growth, the plant cell can expand into shapes as simple as a cube or as complicated as stars or puzzle pieces. This project examines the primary mechanisms that plants use for templating cellulose fibers into different pattern types to ultimately determine their morphology. Using a simple and genetically tractable plant system, the project investigates how microtubule polymers on the inside surface of the cell form patterns that determine how cellulose is deposited on the outside surface of the cell. The work uses advanced imaging methods and computational approaches to map the temporal and spatial changes in microtubule patterning in living cells through time. The molecular and genetic mechanisms will be pursued through the investigation of newly discovered mutations that impair pattern formation. The imaging data and genetic analysis are coupled to computational models with the goal of relating microtubule patterning to cell expansion and its relation to plant morphology. The Broader Impacts of the work include its intrinsic merit as the data produced will be applicable to all plants. In addition, computational and imaging tools will be made available for use by the plant research community. The experiments for this project, including molecular genetic analyses and live-cell imaging, will be performed by undergraduate students in a class setting, bringing students into the world of real scientific discovery as a broader impact of this work. Additionally, the PI participates in a local summer research program for High School students. Flowering plants organize microtubule arrays at the cell cortex to template the deposition of cellulose microfibrils, creating the material properties required for correct cell expansion. This project examines the proposal that acentriolar plant cells control where, and in what orientation, microtubules are nucleated to affect array patterns. Focusing on axially growing hypocotyl cells, the work will test the hypothesis that AUGMIN8 proteins regulate microtubule nucleation from the side of existing microtubules as a specific nucleation type with a major role in setting array pattern. The working model posits that cortical microtubule arrays oriented along the plant growth axis depend upon continuous anti-parallel microtubule-dependent microtubule nucleation where transversely aligned arrays use parallel microtubule-dependent microtubule nucleation. Investigation of the larger AUGMIN8 gene family will ask if different members determine different types of microtubule-dependent microtubule nucleation for different array patterns. The model will be further evaluated genetically in a series of new Arabidopsis mutants that appear blocked for a signaling step that would normally turn off anti-parallel microtubule nucleation, preventing the formation of correct transverse co-aligned patterns. The outcomes of this work will contribute directly to our understanding of the rules of life with impacts on plant cell and developmental biology. Hypocotyl elongation through soils is a critical trait for crop development with impacts on plant breeding, crop engineering and food supply. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-12

As the speed gap between processor and storage keeps widening, moving computation closer to data is a promising direction for high-speed data processing. However, multiple challenging issues, such as the limited resources on device hardware, stringent cost and power constraints, difficulties in software development, and the lack of systematic solutions, are unfortunately hindering a widespread adoption of computational storage in reality. This project addresses these critical issues by using a cohesive approach to turn computational storage into a cooperative component in the whole system. This project also aims to make a broader impact by training students at different levels with research activities, enriching curriculum and classroom teaching with new research results, and contributing to educational and outreach activities. This project makes an effort to address the challenging research issues, aiming to provide a new direction to fulfill the promise of computational storage. By using a holistic and system-oriented methodology, the project investigates critical research issues across multiple layers in the system hierarchy and develops effective solutions. Specifically, the project studies multiple important aspects in order to systematically integrate computational storage into existing computing ecosystems, such as designing a service-oriented abstraction for applications, optimizing system-level resource utilization, leveraging proximity and mitigating memory resource contention in device hardware, adapting core data structures and algorithms of applications to fully exploit heterogeneous computing resources, etc. A set of representative application cases is also studied for effectively leveraging computational storage. The success of this project will make broad and significant contributions to enable computational storage to address critical challenges in increasingly more data-centric applications. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-12

Modern data-center applications are becoming increasingly memory-intensive and severely constrained by the limitations of the traditional von Neumann architecture. The emerging hardware ecosystem of Compute Express Link (CXL) opens an unprecedented opportunity to enable a radically new in-memory computing paradigm that can effectively mitigate the von Neumann bottleneck for future memory-centric applications. However, to fully unlock the potential of this emerging technology, several fundamental research challenges must be adequately addressed. This research project takes a holistic and cohesive approach to develop solutions that tackle the challenges head-on, paving the way for the future of in-memory computing infrastructure and fundamentally impacting memory-centric applications. Furthermore, the academic activities in this project extend their impact by providing training opportunities to students, enriching curriculum and classroom teaching, and contributing to educational and outreach initiatives. This project spearheads the fundamental research aimed at overcoming three pivotal challenges that hinder the realization of in-memory computing: fragmented memory resources, insufficient architectural support for memory sharing, and inefficient separation between hardware and software models. Leveraging the emerging CXL technology, this project adopts a systematic design methodology to address these intricate issues. It involves comprehensive efforts spanning multiple layers within the system stack, featuring the development of advanced hardware functionalities, the optimization of memory resource utilization in the system, and the integration of hardware support into general programming platforms to expedite applications. The research undertaken in this project lays the groundwork for fundamental studies that cater to the pressing demands of data-intensive applications in the realm of future memory-centric computing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-11

The P2 experiment at the Mainz MESA accelerator in Germany is an extremely precise parity violating electron scattering (PVES) experiment searching for new physics beyond the Standard Model using electron-proton scattering. The research program supported by this award is essential to achieving the high precision beam polarization measurements and parity quality beam for P2 to meet its stringent systematic uncertainty goals. The program includes designing a detector package for a novel atomic hydrogen polarimeter never before used in a parity experiment and would mark a significant technical development in the field of high precision beam polarization measurements. Additionally, the PI is committed to supporting the education of future scientists and creating and sustaining a positive and professional research and training environment. This research program will train graduate students and postdocs to become world experts in polarized beam control. The main thrust of this research program is electron beam control and measurement for the upcoming P2 experiment, a high-impact experiment which will play a vital role in the MESA program. These research efforts will be geared towards two complimentary goals: (1) ensuring the achievement of parity quality beam for P2 to meet the stringent systematic uncertainty goals arising from beam asymmetries and (2) designing a detector package for a novel atomic hydrogen polarimeter never before used in a parity experiment for measuring the beam polarization to high precision. This effort will involve beam studies at MESA, polarized source development, designing a detector package for the planned Hydro-Moller polarimeter, participation in pre-P2 pilot experiments, and management of beam asymmetries during P2. The polarized source development will involve building a Pockels cell specific to the MESA source needs and testing them with beam studies in the MESA injector. Participation in the installation and implementation of this new cell for pilot experiments at MESA will be critical to the preparations for P2, training students and testing these new technologies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-11

The circadian system provides internal temporal order for an animal’s physiology and behavior. Circadian disruption has significant implications for health, and a growing body of evidence indicates the existence of sex differences in the circadian systems of many species. Drosophila is a powerful model system to study the neuronal basis of sexual dimorphism in timekeeping due to its well-characterized circadian clock neuron network and the highly conserved molecular circadian clock. The main goal of this project is to understand how differences in the underlying architecture of the circadian system in the Drosophila brain underlie sex differences in sleep/wake cycles and robustness in timekeeping. Understanding the mechanistic basis of sexual dimorphism in the circadian system will inform our understanding of how males and females may be differentially affected by the challenges of complex modern environments. The education plan of the project consists of a summer research program for undergraduate students to conduct research involving connectomics, neurogenetics, and behavior that will allow students to gain research experience in the interface of biology, bioinformatics, and engineering. In addition, community outreach efforts will be conducted in partnership with the Columbia Zuckerman Institute’s public outreach programs office. They will involve participation in an event for families, Brain Clocks, in the context of the Saturday Science program, and a public event focused on conversations with New York City-based musicians in the context of the Breakout Science program, a series of interdisciplinary events that aims to create public engagement in science through the arts. The circadian system provides internal temporal order for multiple aspects of physiology and behavior, allowing the anticipation of environmental changes. As in mammals, most of the work on Drosophila circadian rhythms has focused on males. The overarching hypothesis of this proposal is that sex differences in sleep/wake cycles are mediated by differences in the network properties of the brain’s timekeeping center. In Aim 1, the research team will test the hypothesis that the sexually dimorphic phenotypes of the Pigment Dispensing Factor (PDF) / PDF receptor (PDFR) pathway mutations are due to differential effects of PDF signaling in the clock neuron network. The team will use time-course immunohistochemistry to compare expression rhythms of clock proteins and CRISPR-Cas9 to knockout PDFRs in subsets of clock neurons. In addition, the team will determine if the PDFR-immunopositive neurons in females are less responsive to PDF-mediated Morning cell output using the ATP/P2X2 functional connectivity approach. In Aim 2, the team will test the hypothesis that the Morning oscillator has more influence over the male timekeeping neuronal network by changing the speed of the molecular clock in specific cell types and disrupting molecular oscillations in specific clock classes in males and females. In Aim 3, the team will characterize sex differences in structural and functional connectivity patterns between the Dorsal Neurons 1 posterior (DN1p’s) and the Morning oscillator. The team will compare the strength of the DN1p connections to Morning and Evening cells and test the hypothesis that glutamatergic inhibition of the lateral clock neurons by DN1p’s is more pronounced in males than females analyzing physiological responses to bath-applied glutamate. Collectively, the studies will advance our understanding of the mechanistic basis of differences in sleep/wake cycles between females and males. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-10

In today's global world, cultural competence is essential in communication. Translators adapt their translations to match the culture of the target audience. Companies localize their product ads to boost sales. In line with this, the project aims to study how well a machine grasps cultural nuances for communication. In particular, it will focus on language tools' potential to seek common ground across cultures. The new idea is to make these tools not just about words but also about the culture behind them. This paradigm shift will open the door to endow language tools (e.g., a chatbot) with cultural competence. This, in return, will benefit the users of these tools to enhance mutual understanding and break the cultural gaps. The technical aims of the project are divided into two thrusts. The first part is to design a new knowledge base to bridge cultures by learning from human experiences. The project will collect raw data from crowdsourcing platforms (e.g., Wikipedia). It will then bridge cultures via human-in-the-loop design. Building on top of this knowledge base, the second part will develop new tools to diagnose large language models (LLMs). The project will focus on capturing the rationale behind LLMs' success and failures in connecting to cultures. Next, the project will design and develop novel interpretation techniques. Based on the findings from this project, the project team will provide proposed guidelines for LLM improvements. The established new resources and tools will be shared with researchers and developers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-10

Philanthropic foundations distribute over 100 billion USD in grants each year, and they have the capacity to significantly address social needs. However, evidence suggests a mismatch between the distribution of funds and community needs. By analyzing data on community needs and charitable giving, the research team is identifying “philanthropy deserts,” that is, communities with great needs receiving little philanthropic funding. To address this mismatch, the project includes a targeted giving initiative, whereby foundations are distributing significant grants to nonprofit organizations in philanthropy desert communities that the project is identifying and mapping nationally. By examining the distribution of funding relative to community needs and assessing the impact of targeted giving, this research serves both local and national interests by promoting more equitable and effective charitable giving. This project advances the fields of philanthropy, community development, and social policy, while also supporting efforts to reduce inequalities and improve community well-being across the country. Findings from this study are providing valuable insights for funders, community leaders, and policymakers, and transforming how foundations allocate resources to address community needs. This project identifies philanthropy deserts by analyzing county-level data on community needs and the distribution of millions of grants awarded by foundations. It also assesses targeted giving as a strategy to address these deserts by evaluating an initiative whereby foundations distribute multiple grants to nonprofit organizations identified as civic hubs in under-resourced communities. By engaging with foundations and community leaders, the research team is examining the effectiveness and feasibility of this approach to distribute funds to under-resourced areas nationwide. By identifying philanthropy deserts and developing a scalable model to distribute funds to these areas, this project is providing evidence-based guidance for reducing funding disparities and creating a strategic framework for effective philanthropy. This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program’s Track B. Bridging the gap between essential resources and services & community needs and is a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-10

Both national security and citizens’ health and well-being can be effected by climate-related disruptions to supply chains, production, and infrastructure. The need to advance climate science is urgent and escalating. Improving public action on, public support of, and decision making based on climate science improves if and how we respond to climate challenges. This research explores how to create enduring change in public behavior to support effective action to address climate impacts on society. Despite four decades of climate science communication, we continue to seek adequate public and decision maker action and decision maker support to substantively address climate challenges. This research focuses on positive self-efficacy frames (when a person feels empowered to take action and make an impact) that have been shown to generate engagement and support for climate science yet have been largely absent from mainstream dialogue. Specifically, it focuses on moral, ethical, and spiritual concerns, which though underrepresented have proven to have powerful sway over individual attitudes and behaviors. The findings of the three studies comprising this project and their outreach components (multimedia content, white papers, videos, a website) can empower decision makers, business leaders, and other relevant leaders and stakeholders to make more informed decisions through targeted interventions. This project has three studies that extend over three years. Each study focuses on a different area that has shown promise for generating enduring change in environmental behavior. The first study, entitled “Promoting Self-Reflection,” covers deep engagement. Past research shows that if a person engages in active thinking on an issue, they are more likely to develop enduring attitudinal change. This research follows 90 participants based on three different moral, ethical, or spiritual interventions to support active thinking while applying periodic surveys to measure progress. The second study, “Retelling the Story,” looks at mental models. Mental models are our internal schema that influence how we respond to new situations. This study includes 150 participants’ responses to different environmental multimedia interventions based on moral, ethical, or spiritual narratives using surveys and a digital mental modeling tool. The third study, “Building Infectious Behaviors,” addresses social norms, which are powerful cycles of collective behavior. This study includes 120 participants and their practice of environmental self-generative norms informed by moral, ethical or spiritual positions and includes surveys, written reflections and regular logging. This research is supported by the Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact program and the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences Office of the Assistant Director. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.