University of Miami

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-07

Many critical online decision systems, including clinical support, financial risk management, and autonomous technologies, must look beyond average performance to avoid rare but catastrophic "tail events." Traditional reinforcement learning often summarizes future outcomes as a single expected value, which masks significant risks and uncertainty. This research addresses this limitation by developing distributional reinforcement learning methods that learn the full range of possible outcomes to support safer, risk-aware, and privacy-preserving decision-making. By improving the trustworthiness of systems in health, finance, and operations, this work strengthens the intersection of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and statistics while promoting the responsible use of sensitive individual data. Additionally, the project supports education by training students at the intersection of statistics, machine learning, optimization, and responsible artificial intelligence. The research focuses on quantile temporal difference learning, a scalable model-free method for estimating return quantiles from observed transitions. First, the project will establish finite-time guarantees for quantile temporal difference learning in both synchronous settings and asynchronous settings with Markovian data, including bounds for quantile estimation error and for the accuracy of the estimated return distribution. Second, the project will develop statistical inference methods for distributional reinforcement learning, including online bootstrap procedures for confidence intervals for return quantiles and offline methods for return quantiles and conditional value at risk when either the number of trajectories or the number of time points is large. Third, the project will develop trustworthy distributional reinforcement learning methods for constrained decision making and privacy protection. The research will provide theory, algorithms, numerical studies, and software for inference-ready and privacy-aware distributional reinforcement learning, with anticipated applications in personalized healthcare, risk-sensitive financial decisions, and robust resource allocation. 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 2026 · 2026-05

This project provides funding for the Radioisotope Monitoring Program (SWAB) for the United States Academic Research Fleet (ARF). The ARF, operated by academic institutions within the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), supports critical scientific research in the oceans, Great Lakes, and polar regions. The SWAB program at the University of Miami provides standardized tools and protocols that enable scientists to collect clean, uncontaminated ocean samples during research cruises. By ensuring consistency and quality across studies, SWAB strengthens the reliability of oceanographic research and allows scientists to better understand marine ecosystems, climate change, and ocean health. The program also preserves samples for future use, extending their value to new research questions and technologies. The SWAB Program at University of Miami provides standardized, high-quality sample collection kits and contamination control protocols for oceanographic research cruises across the ARF. It enables consistent acquisition of uncontaminated seawater and microbial samples, supporting reproducibility and comparability across studies. SWAB also serves as a centralized archive and distribution system, extending the scientific value of collected samples for future research. 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 2026 · 2026-04

Current communication systems, that aims to accurately reconstruct a transmitter (TX)’s message at the receiver (RX) without considering message meaning, has served us well for decades. However, their limitations start to become apparent when faced with the challenge of reliably transmitting massive data or meeting extremely stringent transmission requirements of intent-based systems, within which the message intent and its system impact must be considered. Under this knowledge- and reasoning-driven semantic communication (SC) paradigm, TXs and RXs can exploit their common knowledge to proactively anticipate and correct errors, generate content, operate more effectively under intermittent channels, and reduce communication overhead. While SCs was first proposed in 1949, it remained largely unexplored for decades due to a lack of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) techniques (e.g., deep learning), computing resources, and compelling applications. The objective of this project is to design a novel wireless SC framework via developing novel adaptive, generalizable, and reasonable semantic information models in a structured format with data entities and their relationships, as well as jointly optimizing semantic information generation and transmission over resource-constrained wireless networks while considering knowledge of both TX and RX. The project's broader significance and importance are contributing towards transforming a communication problem from a reconstruction problem where the RX is a passive node and the TX takes full control of the transmission and manipulation of the message, into a symmetric system in which the RX can regenerate the original content with instilled capability of reasoning and processing multi-modal data. The project develops a comprehensive educational plan that includes new AI native communication system course materials, and hands-on activities using the designed software tools and testbeds. This research project establishes the fundamental theoretical and practical scientific foundations of SC networks via (i) designing novel semantic information model and generation methods to precisely represent source data, (ii) developing robust and efficient wireless SC systems by jointly optimizing semantic information generation and transmission over a noisy, wireless resource constrained link, and (iii) introducing a novel learning framework for semantic information generation, resource management, and user association. The developed models and methods are tested through an integrative experimental implementation over software simulations, prototype evaluations, and real-world wireless testbeds, coupled with an advanced SC application on mixed reality. 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 2026 · 2026-04

Non-Technical description: Molecular electronics seeks to harness atomically precise molecular structures to enable next-generation miniaturized electronic and quantum technologies, offering novel properties and functions unattainable with conventional materials. However, a central, long-standing challenge remains: how to design molecular materials that can support efficient charge transport across long distances? This project will tackle this challenge through a new approach that leverages rational design to deliberately shape the structure of molecules to dictate the way electrons move and interact. This research will explore quantum transport in neutral, open-shell molecular systems at the single-molecule level. By investigating molecules with tailored patterns of how electrons occupy and move between different regions within a molecule, both experimentally and theoretically, the research team will uncover how key physical, chemical, and environmental factors govern the generation of spin topological states in one-dimensional organic systems. This effort will lead to the development of general design guidelines for realizing robust, long-range quantum transport in molecular materials. This project also includes an educational component designed to inspire and prepare the next generation of STEM workforce that is both scientifically literate and passionate about quantum frontiers of molecular sciences. Centered on peer-engaged, interactive, and collaborative learning, the education plan will provide tailored learning and training experiences to students in the Greater Miami Metro Area. By integrating museum outreach and on-campus lab tour for K-12 students with collaborative research projects for undergraduate and graduate students, the educational activities will train students in the fields of molecular quantum sciences and nanotechnology, fostering a pipeline of quantum-inspired STEM workforce. Technical description: Molecular electronics aims to create novel electronic properties and functions from atomically precise molecular building blocks, offering pathways to miniaturize electronic devices beyond silicon and enable breakthroughs in electronics, photonics, spintronics, and quantum information sciences. The central long-standing challenge targeted by this project is to design molecules capable of facilitating efficient charge transport across long distances. This project will tackle this challenge through a new approach that harnesses rational design of molecular orbital topology. The principal investigator will investigate an emerging class of neutral, open-shell molecular framework that can give rise to spin topological states under ambient conditions. Through an integrated approach combining innovative molecular design, single-molecule transport measurements, and first-principles theoretical modeling, this project will address the following fundamental questions: Which molecular design supports and stabilizes spin topological edge states in organic systems? What structural factors determine charge and spin coherent length and how they impact the resulting transport behaviors of molecules? How can topological state-mediated transport be actively manipulated? This effort will unravel the design guidelines, mechanisms, and limits for realizing robust, long-range quantum transport in molecular materials, laying the groundwork for future advances in molecular electronics, photonics, spintronics, and quantum information 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 2026 · 2026-03

The University of Miami is partnering with Florida LambdaRail (FLR - Florida’s Research and Education Network) and collaborating with three additional educational institutions -- Florida Memorial University (FMU) and Saint Thomas University (STU) in Miami Gardens, FL, and Bethune-Cookman University (B-CU) in Daytona Beach, FL. The goal is to create sustainable approaches to providing and maintaining advanced networking capabilities across the region, to support research and workforce development. This project focuses on three interconnected goals. First, the project establishes 10-gigabit network connectivity to FMU and STU and upgrades legacy networking infrastructure at B-CU. All three campuses are deploying campus science DMZs; each DMZ is a perimeter network segment that isolates public-facing servers from the internal network, adding a crucial layer of security against external threats. These DMZs will be linked to FLR’s regional science DMZ through regionally managed Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs). This infrastructure enhancement significantly increases each institution’s capacity to participate in data-intensive research and multi-institution collaborations. The second goal is to establish a community support and engagement environment that strengthens faculty engagement in data-driven research and skilled workforce development. The third goal is to assist campus IT teams in navigating advanced networking resources, develop local expertise, and improve campus cyberinfrastructure for research and education. By strengthening technical capacity and faculty readiness, the project enables new capabilities and opportunities and creates sustainable approaches to maintain advanced networking capabilities beyond the award duration. An External Advisory Committee composed of successful regional campus networking leaders will guide impactful workshops, training events, and outreach activities. Additional partnerships with national and regional cyberinfrastructure organizations, including the Sunshine State Education and Research Computing Alliance (SSERCA), the Quilt, and Internet2, amplify the reach and impact of the project’s activities across the broader research community. 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 2026 · 2026-03

An integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system design is important for delivering the quality-of-service needs of emerging wireless services (e.g., digital twins) over 5G and beyond cellular systems. Although ISAC system design provides a variety of benefits (e.g., spectrum efficiency, and reduced hardware complexity), it introduces several unique privacy and security challenges due to their dual-purpose nature (i.e., using one signal for both sensing and data transmission) and shared resources (e.g., frequency and hardware). First, ISAC signals used for both sensing and communication can be intercepted to extract sensitive information, such as environmental data or user location. Second, attackers can tamper with sensing signals to deliver false data or manipulate the communication link, disrupting system operations. To address these challenges, this project develops privacy-preserving and secure ISAC system. The project's broader significance and importance are transforming wireless systems into multi-functional networks and improving the security and privacy ISAC systems. The project integrates research insights into new networking courses and hosts outreach activities. The US-Germany collaboration will foster an international transfer of expertise across the aforementioned areas, thus ensuring broad societal and technological impacts. The joint US-Germany project develops a holistic zero trust ISAC framework that utilizes radio frequency based communication and sensing functions for confidentiality preservation, transmitter and receiver secure authentication, and data communication privacy protection via 1) designing a novel secure authentication framework to ensure the integrity of wireless ISAC devices in zero trust environments; 2) creating a suite of effective tools to achieve the confidential wireless channel to conceal sensitive information, even when an eavesdropper knows the keying information for encoding; 3) developing novel information bottleneck and neural network based data transmission system for both sensing and communication data privacy protection; 4) building an open-source software platform and hardware testbed to validate the zero trust wireless ISAC solutions. This project provides a rich environment and platform that facilitates educating and training students at multiple levels. 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 2026 · 2026-02

Urban water and wastewater networks are essential to public health, environmental protection, and economic stability, yet the information used to manage these systems is often fragmented, incomplete, or difficult to retrieve and interpret. Aging infrastructure, fragmented geographic information system records, and large volumes of unstructured inspection data make it challenging for operators to detect leaks, blockages, or structural weaknesses before they cause service disruptions or environmental harm. This project addresses these challenges by developing new artificial intelligence (AI) methods to organize and interpret complex water and wastewater network data. By transforming scattered information into a coherent integrated network representation, the project aims to make water infrastructure management more efficient and reliable. The tools developed will help reduce the need for manual data review and support informed decision-making. This in turn will result in protecting community health and local environments through early detection of anomalies in water networks before they turn into costly emergencies. By making water management smarter and faster, these tools ensure more reliable service and help stabilize utility costs. Improvements to water and wastewater network data will be facilitated by a new computational framework that combines machine learning, graph-based modeling, and multimodal data integration to analyze urban water networks. The research advances methods for completing and repairing directed network representations using physics-informed flow models and attention-based neural networks, enabling the identification of missing or inconsistent connections in network data. The approach incorporates interpretable, multiresolution uncertainty quantification to assess confidence in inferred network structures and detected anomalies. In addition, the project develops multimodal learning techniques that integrate network data with video, imagery, audio, and text from inspection reports and maintenance records. The developed computational infrastructure will allow automated extraction of actionable information from traditionally unstructured sources. This enables cities to allocate resources more efficiently to ensure long-term water security and infrastructure sustainability. The methods will be trained, validated, and tested using independent wastewater network data sets from France and the United States, enabling robust evaluation and generalization across different data modalities, networks, geographic information, cities, and countries. The project also supports workforce development and transferability of skills through the training of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in data science and AI, network modeling, and infrastructure analytics. 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 2026 · 2026-01

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award supports research that attempts to elucidate how nanoscale pores govern expansive chemical reactions that cause cracking and damage in concrete, compromising the safety of roads, bridges, and other structures while driving up repair costs and public risks. By integrating advanced computational methods to study these complex processes with educational initiatives designed to fill the longstanding gap in materials science fundamentals within civil engineering, this project looks to empower future engineers to devise transformative mitigation strategies for concrete durability. The resulting insights will enable physics-based solutions for more durable concrete, thereby advancing the national interest in reliable infrastructure. Molecular simulations enhanced by well-tempered metadynamics and graph neural network autoencoders look to yield unique mechanistic insights into the crystallization of sulfate salts, the formation of silica-based swelling gels, and the precipitation of rust within nanopores. Additionally, a hierarchical multiscale framework combining a kinetic Monte Carlo algorithm with a machine learning regression model trained on ab initio data seeks to enable simulating steel corrosion at experimentally relevant timescales while accounting for the mesoscale structural heterogeneity of real steel. This project also looks to establish a first principles foundation for mitigating concrete deterioration, enabling the design of safer, longer lasting infrastructure, and reducing maintenance costs. Educational initiatives, including video series, workshops, curriculum development, and undergraduate research, seek to train a new generation of civil engineers fully prepared to tackle the multiscale, cross-disciplinary challenges revolving around modern infrastructure materials. By challenging or corroborating long-standing assumptions rooted in phenomenology and bulk thermodynamics, this effort seeks to deepen the understanding of concrete durability as well as inform other fields where nanoconfinement is pivotal, such as energy storage, biomineralization, and geomorphology. 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 · 2025-09

This I-Corps project focuses on a novel method to extract lithium from low-grade liquid sources, including geothermal and oilfield brines. Existing extraction methods are expensive, inefficient, and environmentally destructive, often involving high water use, long processing times, and hazardous chemicals. As the global demand for lithium accelerates due to the world-wide electrification of transport systems, conventional lithium extraction practices remain insufficient to unlock domestic reserves. This solution offers a more economical and sustainable alternative by eliminating chemical inputs, reducing freshwater usage, and cutting production costs. By enabling lithium production from previously untapped sources, the technology supports national goals of strengthening the domestic mineral supply chain, reducing environmental harm, and advancing economic and energy security. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of the technology. This solution is based on the development of an electrochemical process that directly extracts lithium by selectively capturing ions from complex liquid sources. The system integrates advanced materials and reactor architecture to enable rapid, chemical-free extraction with high efficiency and low cost. In contrast to membrane or ion-exchange approaches, this method requires no acid regeneration and operates with minimal water and energy inputs. By engaging with stakeholders across the mineral recovery value chain, the project identifies technical requirements, application-specific use cases, and supply chain considerations essential for scaling. This effort supports broader national objectives by unlocking American resources, reinforcing the domestic supply chain, and accelerating progress toward critical mineral independence and long-term energy security. 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 · 2025-09

Coastal regions house over 50% of the U.S. population, contribute more than 55% to the national GDP, and are expanding in population and economic importance. However, coastal regions also face escalating challenges such as increased rainfall, saltwater intrusion, erosion, flooding, and extreme weather events like hurricanes. These threats pose significant risks to the safety of coastal populations, infrastructure, properties, and economic stability. Addressing these issues demands an interdisciplinary approach that combines engineering, natural and marine sciences, data sciences, and social sciences. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship award to the University of Miami will address these issues by training graduate students in the interdisciplinary field of coastal resilience. The project anticipates providing a unique and comprehensive training opportunity for 120 master’s and doctoral students, including 20 funded trainees. Trainees will gain interdisciplinary technical expertise and professional skills in coastal resilience, team science, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Through this project, NRT trainees will participate in internships, identify and research community-specific challenges, and design and implement viable solutions. This NRT will prepare forward-thinking STEM professionals with the breadth of expertise and interdisciplinary training needed to make long-lasting positive contributions that enhance coastal safety and resilience. Trainees will conduct research across a range of themes to test specific hypotheses. For example, to reduce the contribution of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, projects will focus on: genetic engineering of self-healing concrete; processing-structure-property relationships for novel cement-based materials; and nanomaterial synthesis using aerosol routes and nanomaterial characterization. Other projects will focus on: development of green and sustainable corrosion inhibitors for resilient coastal infrastructure, and coral interactions with sustainable concrete materials to inform artificial coral reefs for shoreline protection. This project takes a novel and convergent approach to graduate education, with an emphasis on experiential training, innovative new course development, and research rotations. The curriculum will leverage faculty expertise in the interdisciplinary areas of infrastructure engineering; marine, atmospheric, and earth science; materials science; coastal systems resilience; computational science; and psychology. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs. 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 · 2025-09

The eyewall in mature hurricanes contains small vortices, which have been seen in satellite and weather radar data. While the presence of these vortices is well-known, their impact on the hurricane structure and intensity is still uncertain. In this award, the research team will use a recently derived mathematical framework to analyze hurricane vortices with a goal of better explaining how the small-scale vortices relate to the large-scale hurricane structure. The primary societal benefit of this project would be through the potential for improved forecasting of hurricanes. A graduate student and postdoctoral researcher would be involved in the project, allowing for the training of the next generation of scientists. Liutex is a recent methodological advancement in the field of mathematics and fluid dynamics that intends to better represent vortices in fluids, like the atmosphere. Liutex is a vector whose direction is aligned with the rotational axis and whose magnitude is twice the angular speed. It separates the pure rigid rotation from shear. Small-scale vortices within hurricanes provide a strong test case for Liutex. The research team plans to apply Liutex to observations and numerical modeling of three-dimensional winds in hurricanes to quantify the relationship between vortex structure and storm intensity and to identify mechanisms of vortex formation and mergers. The overarching goal of the project is to gain a deeper understanding both theoretically and numerically of how the eye-eyewall meso- and miso- vortices form and provide a sound method to identify them and quantify their structures. 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 · 2025-09

The oceans cover most of our planet and are home to an incredible variety of life. Scientists have worked hard to describe and understand the many species of marine life, especially large animals that are easier to see and study. However, small or hidden creatures, known as "cryptofauna", often get overlooked. Among these are parasites, which are one of the most common and important types of organisms on Earth, yet they are often left out of research because they are small and difficult to find. Our research will study parasites in coral reefs, which are some of the most diverse and threatened ecosystems in the world. Specifically, we are studying a group of tiny parasites called apicomplexans, which live in the blood of coral reef fishes. These parasites are related to others that infect land animals, like malaria. The goals of our project are to: 1) find out how many species of these parasites live in reef fish and where they are found; 2) use DNA tools to help identify and organize them; and 3) teach students how to study these small but important animals. Parasitic organisms are a key part of cryptofauna biodiversity. Parasitism is the most common animal lifestyle, and most common biological interaction, evolving multiple times and in nearly every animal taxon. Because of their effects on host population dynamics, parasites have additional direct and indirect influence on the biodiversity of ecological communities in general. The goal this project is to understand the biodiversity and ecology of apicomplexan blood parasites of coral reef fishes. Through systematic sampling of ocean regions characterized as evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered, this project will characterize diversity and biogeography of blood-borne apicomplexans in coral reef fishes. The research team will then use a combination of single-cell whole genome sequencing and DNA barcoding for as many species as possible to construct a molecular-based, family-level phylogeny. This will provide information on biogeography and genetic diversity of fish-parasitic apicomplexans, enable major advances in our understanding of their phylogenetic relationships, identify patterns of host exploitation, and link parasite life history stages, ultimately answering some fundamental questions regarding ecological function of parasitic apicomplexans. This project will also provide student training in taxonomy and systematics of marine fish apicomplexans. This project is co-funded by the Systematics & Biodiversity Science and Biological Oceanography programs. 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 · 2025-09

Wildland fires create risks to public health, the environment, and the economy. The Southeast U.S. wetlands have a high frequency of fires due to excessive growth of biomass. The emissions from these fires and their impacts are not fully understood. This project will use advanced tools and controlled laboratory experiments to study wetland biomass burning emissions and their environmental impacts. The project will examine the physical and chemical properties of aerosols generated from combustion. Toxicity measurements will further elucidate the health effects of wetland biomass burning aerosols. The results from the project will improve the ability to manage wetland fires and predict their influence on air quality, environment, and human health. The results will also include new educational activities and museum demonstrations to help students and society better understand and manage wildland fires. Wildland fires, encompassing prescribed fires and wildfires, are essential to many ecosystems that shape landscapes, control pests, and promote biodiversity. Biomass burning during wildland fires contributes significantly to aerosols in the global atmosphere as a leading source of black carbon and primary organic aerosol emissions. However, substantial uncertainties persist regarding the amounts and properties of the primary and secondary biomass burning aerosols since there is a scarcity of experiments with well controlled burning and photochemical aging conditions. Moreover, most biomass burning research has focused on woody biomass or biomass representative of West U.S., with limited attention to biomass representative of Southeast U.S. wetland systems, despite their high fire frequency and fire magnitude. The knowledge gaps caused by this lack of data hinder the ability to accurately predict the impact of Southeast U.S. wetland biomass burning on air quality and public health. To address these issues, this CAREER project will examine the physiochemical and toxicological properties of wetland BB aerosols. The drop-tube furnace, recognized for its precise control over flow and temperature during solid fuel combustion, will be used. The measurement of secondary aerosols under varying burning and photochemical aging conditions can be used to reconcile differences between laboratory and field observations. Further investigations on aerosol hygroscopic growth and in vitro toxicity will shed light on respiratory deposition and potential health effects of wetland biomass burning aerosols. The results of the project can provide guidance for prescribed burns and firefighting strategies, helping minimize health risks associated with fire management. Given the proximity of our primary biomass sampling location, Everglades National Park, to the populated Miami Dade County, the characteristics of biomass burning aerosols can be used to evaluate the risks and impacts of fires at similar wildland and urban interfaces. The proposed project integrates research and education, where the research will be showcased and will be integrated into new academic activities and outreach programs. The academic activities, including developing new course contents and advising graduate and undergraduate students, will enrich the learning experiences of students in environmental engineering and related disciplines. The outreach programs enabled through the partnership with a local science museum will further benefit academic and regional communities in addressing issues associated with wildland fires. 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 · 2025-08

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a key component of the ocean’s carbon system. DOC plays an important role in the cycling of organic matter and the functioning of marine ecosystems. It is essential that DOC measurements be accurate and comparable across labs to understand how carbon is produced, transformed, and transported through the ocean. The consensus reference material (CRM) program has provided the international research community with calibration standards since 1998. These materials improve the reliability of DOC data across laboratories and regions. This project will support the DOC CRM Program for three more years. The Program will produce and distribute reference waters collected from surface, mid-depth, and deep layers of the Florida Strait to over 300 laboratories in more than 50 countries. These reference materials provide consistency to the measurements that contribute to global DOC datasets being used to examine spatial and temporal variability in the ocean. To further build analytical capacity across the community, the project also distributes DOC-TN Determination Kits. These kits include all necessary calibration and reference materials, along with guidelines for measuring DOC and total nitrogen (TN). These efforts enable high-quality data collection, support open and reproducible science, and promote the advancement of ocean observation on a global scale. The project also provides training for the next generation of DOC analysts. The project involves the annual collection of seawater from three depths in the Florida Strait, which is filtered, sealed in vials, and distributed internationally. A low-carbon reference water is also prepared to support calibrations across a range of concentrations. On average, 11,000 vials are distributed each year. These reference materials provide a stable benchmark for DOC analysis, enabling inter-laboratory consistency and improving the accuracy and reproducibility of data collected across platforms and time periods. Without access to standardized materials, researchers face challenges in verifying results and maintaining compatibility with existing datasets. The continuation of this program ensures that new DOC measurements remain aligned with long-term records, preserving the integrity of multi-year and multi-institutional studies. The DOC-TN Determination Kits, developed in a previous award cycle, will continue to be distributed as part of this effort. Each kit contains four calibration standards for carbon and nitrogen, four reference materials (surface, mid, deep, and low-carbon), and an Excel-based template that guides users through a structured analysis. Aligned with published community guidelines, these kits are especially useful for laboratories developing or refining their analytical capabilities. By ensuring access to high-quality reference materials and standardized procedures, the project continues to support the generation of globally comparable DOC and TN data and strengthens the foundation for collaborative ocean biogeochemistry research. 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

Processes governing the coupling of the atmosphere and ocean occur on a range of time and space scales and modulate weather and climate variability, as well as the ocean uptake of excess heat and carbon. This project is focused on advancing understanding of atmosphere-ocean coupling on mesoscales (100-1000 km) over the Southern Ocean and its impact on the long-term, large-scale climate variability of the region. This addresses a significant gap in the current understanding of mesoscale atmosphere-ocean coupling regarding its role in decadal to multi-decadal climate variability. The Southern Ocean has some of the most continuous and significant mesoscale ocean variability on the planet, motivating the choice to focus on this region. The investigators hypothesize that mesoscale air–sea interaction related sea surface temperature anomalies lead to large-scale reorganization of the mid-latitude jet stream over the Southern Ocean, which in turn feeds back onto the large-scale currents and mesoscale ocean variability in the region. To explore this idea, the investigators will use a hierarchy of coupled climate models of different resolutions and complexities, allowing them to isolate and explore regional-scale processes, as well as examine these processes in conjunction with larger-scale influences. The project’s focus on advancing understanding of climate variability on decadal time scales has strong societal implications. The project also includes the mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students and an early career scientist, as well as an outreach effort with local high school science educators, addressing NSF’s priority to educate the next generation of scientists and the public on important science issues. The team will take a hierarchical modeling approach, using both the Community Climate System Model v4 (CCSM4), and the intermediate complexity, moist quasi-geostrophic coupled model (MQ-GCM). CCSM4 coupled simulations to be examined by this study include a low-resolution and high-resolution ocean component and an interactive atmospheric ensemble approach established by the team in earlier work. This unique approach to coupled modeling allows the atmospheric noise to be filtered out of the model simulations, which for this study represents the atmospheric feedback from the mesoscale oceanic eddies. Thus, comparing the control simulations with the filtered simulations will help test the team’s hypothesis that feedback from the ocean to the atmosphere on mesoscales affects longer term conditions in both the atmosphere and ocean in the Southern Ocean region. Additional fully coupled and reduced coupled simulations will also be carried out under a doubling of atmospheric CO2 to understand the sensitivity of the multi-scale coupling processes to different background states. By exploring the importance of mesoscale interactions on the climate system, the project addresses a current gap in understanding and creates avenues for model improvement of decadal to multi-decadal climate variability. 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 I-Corps project is based on the development of a wearable health monitoring system for continuous cardiovascular health tracking. Currently, cardiovascular diseases are a leading cause of mortality globally, with hypertension affecting over 1.13 billion people per year. Monitoring blood pressure during daily activities is important for early detection and management of cardiovascular disease, yet current methods for monitoring are either invasive or cumbersome, limiting their widespread adoption. These challenges are addressed by a cuffless blood pressure monitoring technology integrated into smart shoes, providing a seamless solution for continuous blood pressure monitoring. By embedding the sensor in footwear, the technology may non-invasively monitor vascular conditions and estimate blood pressure, aiding in the early detection and prevention of peripheral arterial disease. This technology has the potential to impact public health by enabling early detection of conditions such as hypertension and peripheral arterial disease, especially in aging populations. In addition, this technology may benefit healthcare providers in remote patient monitoring and contribute to the broader goals of reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes on a global scale. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of a machine learning-enhanced, wearable sensing system for vascular health monitoring. The technology is based on research that demonstrated multimodal pressure sensors could be used for continuous monitoring of full pulse waveforms. Traditional cuff-based systems are often unsuitable for continuous monitoring, while current cuffless solutions have limited accuracy and consistency. This monitoring technology addresses these challenges by integrating advanced pressure sensors within smart shoes to capture pulse waveforms from the foot. The system leverages the external cyclic pressure exerted during walking, enabling the continuous acquisition of pulse data without the need for an external setup. Machine learning algorithms are used to extrapolate the external pressure at which the pulse waveform shape flattens, corresponding to vein occlusion, thereby estimating blood pressure with high accuracy. This technology not only eliminates the need for bulky cuffs but also offers a scalable and user-friendly solution for continuous blood pressure monitoring. The integration of this technology into everyday footwear may provide an advancement in wearable health devices, with broad implications for cardiovascular health management and disease prevention. 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 · 2025-03

The University of Miami (UM) proposes to support oceanographic technical services on R/V F.G. Walton Smith operated as part of the U.S. Academic Research Fleet (ARF), which is scheduled by the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS). As part of their basic operations, UM will provide shipboard technicians on each seagoing research project to support basic services. Technicians will maintain, calibrate and provide for qualified users, items from their pool of shared-use research instrumentation. Research vessels in the ARF provide support for researchers from a variety of federal and state agencies, as well as some private sponsors. All users (or the appropriate funding agencies) share support costs for basic technical services on the vessel equally, via a day-rate, with each paying a share of the costs based on fractional usage of the vessel. The principal impact of the present proposal is under Merit Review Criterion 2 of the Proposal Guidelines (NSF 23-525). It provides infrastructure support for scientists to use the vessel and its shared-use instrumentation in support of their NSF-funded oceanographic research projects (which individually undergo separate review by the relevant research program of NSF). The acquisition, maintenance and operation of shared-use instrumentation allows NSF-funded researchers from any US university or lab access to working, calibrated instruments for their research, reducing the cost of that research, and expanding the base of potential researchers. 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 · 2025-03

The formation and sinking of organic particles into the deep ocean are important processes in global element cycles. These particles (also called ‘particulate organic matter’ or POM) carry carbon into the deep ocean where it is stored for hundreds of years. The storage of carbon in the deep ocean contributes to the drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide as well as loss of nutrients from the surface ocean. Understanding the mechanisms and processes that govern the fluxes of POM is thus directly relevant to the global carbon cycle, marine ecology, and fisheries. This project uses new tools to measure the isotopes of three different elements (hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen). The approach shows promise for addressing a long-standing question: to what extent do bacteria replace the organic matter from algae (the original source of the POM) as particles sink. Results from this study will be important for predicting the amount and dietary quality of POM in a rapidly changing ocean. The project will support Ph.D. students at both Caltech and University of Miami and educational activities for K-12 and college students. The project takes advantage of a recent analytical development, the measurement of hydrogen isotopes in amino acids as a new tracer. Preliminary measurements suggest that there is a large (up to 20%) shift in the hydrogen isotope ratio of amino acids within POM over the upper 300 m of the ocean, consistent with the depth at which POM degradation is most intense. The investigators hypothesize that the shift in hydrogen isotopes reflects the replacement of phytoplankton biomass with bacterial biomass. The project will test this hypothesis through 1) the analysis of archived POM samples from four different localities in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 2) measurements of diverse phytoplankton grown in culture, and 3) degradation experiments in which algal biomass is fed to bacteria and zooplankton. In addition to cutting-edge hydrogen isotope measurements, the investigators will employ a suite of additional measurements to characterize the microbial communities and POM being studied. Collectively, this work aims to develop hydrogen isotopes in amino acids as a novel proxy for the turnover of organic matter within marine particles, which could be applied to studies of marine POM throughout the world’s oceans. The project will also develop outreach activities to introduce K-12 and collegiate students to marine science. These will be implemented through the GO-Outdoors program in Pasadena, the Exploring Marine Science Day in Miami, and undergraduate student cruises in Miami. 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 · 2025-03

By combining expertise from climate science and adaptation research, this study will advance the foundational understanding of chronic heat hazards, how these hazards translate into different types of risks depending on where people live and work, and how different adaptive responses reduce risks and inform legal, regulatory and policy approaches. Prolonged periods of extreme heat are becoming increasingly common worldwide, especially affecting regions near the tropics and subtropics such as Florida. These areas experience chronic heat hazards, where extreme temperatures and high humidity can persist for months on end. Researchers have overlooked chronic humid heat hazards assuming people stay safe in climate-controlled spaces. However, prolonged exposure to hot, humid conditions poses significant health risks. By developing new methods to measure and manage chronic heat hazards, research findings will inform planning and implementation of responses. Results will help inform existing heat-relevant programs led by project partners and a range of government agencies. Transdisciplinary partnerships and immersive training experiences will help develop a workforce prepared to help mitigate climate change challenges in Florida and in other geographical areas currently or soon-to-be experiencing chronic heat regimes. Extreme heat is intensifying across the globe, and wide swaths of the world do not experience heat as traditionally defined heat waves. Tropical and subtropical regions experience dangerous levels of heat for months on end, and humidity drives up risks. This project will develop decision-relevant metrics of chronic humid heat hazards and their uncertainties at present and under future climate and land-use scenarios. Researchers will calculate chronic humid heat exposures for heat-burdened households and workers, which emerge from cumulative factors and roles. The team will evaluate strategies and measures to reduce chronic humid heat exposures for people at risk. Through an Earth-system-science approach, this project will develop a framework to measure, model and manage chronic humid heat hazards and risks. Building on long-standing collaborative partnerships, the work will inform established practices and potential policies and programs. By training students in transdisciplinary partnerships and research, this work will build research and workforce capacity in Florida and other similar at-risk geographies. 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 · 2025-03

This project will explore the dynamics and meridional heat transport of the Agulhas Return Current (ARC), the extension of the Agulhas Current that carries warm subtropical waters eastward along the northern flank of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The research will examine mesoscale eddies and meanders, interannual-to-decadal variability, and climate change using a combination of observational data, climate model simulations, and numerical sensitivity experiments to obtain a comprehensive understanding of these processes. The research will be guided by the following questions: How does the ARC vary and what mechanisms dominate? How does differential warming in the Indian and Southern Oceans affect the ARC and its poleward eddy heat flux? How does the ARC respond to opposing wind curl changes over the subtropical and subpolar latitudes and what is the effect on poleward heat flux? This research will advance understanding of the Agulhas Return Current and its variability. The ARC, its eddies and meanders, hold the key to how heat is moved into the Southern Ocean and the system is undergoing rapid change. Regional trends in eddy kinetic energy are complex and their effect on poleward heat flux uncertain. Any change in poleward heat flux involves a competition between large-scale advection, eddy-driven frontogenesis and eddy-induced mixing, requiring a deep dive into ARC eddy dynamics. The work will lead to better understanding of how oceanic heat transport into the Southern Ocean is changing. 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 · 2025-03

The project seeks to enable and broaden participation in the field of financial cryptography by funding about 10 students to attend the Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2025 conference. The conference was founded to study digital cash and other forms of electronic finance, as well as privacy and cryptography in general; over the years it has had major impacts around the knowledge of cryptography, blockchain, economics of security, and related topics. The conference has also brought together security and cryptography researchers and practitioners, economists, bankers, implementers and policy-makers. This travel award will expand the vibrancy of financial cryptography research and allied fields by connecting promising young students to the research community that has formed around this conference. The expansion of this knowledge through including new participants with new perspectives is a principal goal of this project. The project encourages new entrants into the vital field of security and cryptography research. The dialog between these new entrants and the established research community will result in insight into current problems and fresh ideas for the future. Students will be chosen based on their financial need and their ability to benefit from the conference, with an eye toward institutional, topical, and demographic diversity. Broadening the pool of participants will be benefit society both from the field's better responsiveness to real social needs and preferences, and through growing the talent pool of people with research training around cryptography and cybersecurity. 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

Extended reality (XR) offers users immersive experience in virtual worlds, and enables a broad range of applications (i.e., training, gaming, and medical imaging). There has been an increasing interest on the study of the deployment of XR services over next era of wireless networks (nextE), so as to provide seamless wireless connectivity for XR users to eliminate the wired connection constraints thus enabling future wireless devices to use VR services. However, the few prior studies have two major limitations: 1) They are mainly focused on network optimization for XR data transmission and are lacking in novel user behavior sensing methods, 2) Their XR sensing methods mostly rely on statically installed sensors or cameras, which also restrict the operation range of users and suffer from user movement and blockage, 3) they are restricted to either a single XR system, or multiple XR systems where each XR system consists of only one user and hence cannot be applied for multi-user XR systems. To address the aforementioned challenges, a holistic wireless XR framework is developed, which utilizes mmWave for joint XR user movement detection and XR data transmission while satisfying the joint communication, computing, sensing, and XR service requirements. If successful, this project will enable highly efficient and robust wireless enabled XR networks and applications, with significantly enhanced accuracy, resilience, and user experience. The project integrates the research insights into new modules for communication and network related courses and hosts outreach activities with the vision of advancing the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields. The untethered XR project presents a cutting-edge solution for eliminating XR wired connections and limitations of XR user activity space by utilizing mmWave, machine learning, edge computing, and joint sensing and communications technologies to truly unleashing the high potential of XR via: 1) developing novel mmWave-based sensing methods which exploit complex valued channel state information and radio map information to detect the full-body movements of multiple XR users; 2) designing a novel collaborative reinforcement learning (RL) framework to produce a low-complexity and reliable collaborative learning process that enables distributed XR access points (APs) to jointly optimize XR sensing and data transmission in order to improve the quality-of-experience of XR users; 3) building an open-source software platform and hardware testbed to validate the wireless XR solutions. This project provides a rich environment and virtualized platform that facilitate educating and training students at multiple levels. 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

Viruses play a crucial role in ecosystem dynamics by infecting bacteria, with nearly half of all bacteria being infected at any given time. Despite the importance of viruses, most microbial ecology studies overlook their impact. A major challenge is disentangling the interaction of viruses and bacteria in the environment because most of these microbes cannot be grown in laboratory conditions. The project addresses this gap by introducing a new data science and mathematics approach to model the complex dynamics of virus and bacteria and testing it in lakes that resemble ancient oceans. These lakes are an ideal controlled environment because they have stable, oxygen-free layers that are dominated by photosynthetic bacteria and viruses but lack complex life forms. The research will identify the key viruses influencing the dynamics of the bacterial communities. Characterizing the dynamic role of these viruses will help reinterpret the geological records from these lakes, which provide insights into early microbial life on Earth. Additionally, the project will create a user-friendly software for others to apply the technology to investigate the impact of viruses in different ecosystems. This project will train new interdisciplinary scientists and share their findings to the public in international journals and museum exhibits to highlight the complex role that viruses play. Viruses infecting bacteria display two main infection modes: lytic and lysogenic. In the lytic mode, the virus uses cell machinery to produce viral particles, imposing predation pressure on microbial communities. During lysogeny, the virus remains latent, often providing new cell functions, including protection against new infections. Currently, no technology can identify the dynamics of the most impactful (keystone) lytic and lysogenic viruses in complex microbiomes. This project will fill this gap integrating viral and microbial omics data with an innovative transient dynamics method, leveraging the long-term collaboration between PI Luque and co-PI Silveira in viral ecology. The research will model the dynamics of viruses and bacteria in the chemocline of meromictic lakes, which serve as analogs for ancient oceans. Their stability and lack of complex organisms are ideal to study the impact of viruses on microbial communities and biogeochemistry. The project will use bioinformatics to predict the life traits of bacteria and viruses from microbial abundances, infection networks, metagenomics, and transcriptomics. It will also develop and calibrate an adaptive Boolean transient dynamic method using mesocosm experiments. The calibrated model will simulate year-long natural microbiome dynamics to identify keystone viruses and their infection strategies. The impact of these viruses will be projected to reinterpret biogeochemical profiles in the lakes. The developed mathematical technology will be released as an accessible software package, available via GitHub, Colab, and Python repositories. The findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, international conferences, public exhibits, and online platforms. 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 project provides funding for the Research Vessel Walton Smith to conduct oceanographic research missions supported by the National Science Foundation. The oceanographic research vessels of the Academic Research Fleet (ARF), operated by the academic institutions within the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) framework are multi-use facilities used to expand knowledge of the ocean environment. The surface work of these ships is complemented by human-occupied, remotely operated, and autonomous undersea vehicles and sensors that provide vital tools to understand the oceans and their resources. These seagoing research and educational facilities enable scientists and students to study natural phenomena and train future scientists while on board state-of-the-art oceanographic research vessels utilizing high-quality instrumentation. The ship operators will also conduct learning activities for students and the general public including hands-on demonstrations of marine science research guided by faculty, students and ship crew members. 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 NSF award provides travel and organization support for the Center for Aerosol Science and Technology (CAST) Workshop held at the University of Miami in 2025. The hybrid workshop will gather researchers and students to address indoor air quality issues resulting from wildland fire emissions. The research will have a particular focus on the Southeast U.S., which experiences more wildland fires than any other region of the U.S. The workshop will feature keynote speeches and panel discussions by national experts, as well as tutorials, hands-on instrument demonstrations, and student competitions to facilitate knowledge transfer and develop communication skills. Results will be disseminated through a publication summarizing the current state of knowledge and potential solutions. Society will benefit from this workshop through the advancement of knowledge on wildland fire emissions. Such information can be used to develop new systems to address indoor air pollution and associated human health impacts caused by these fires. The University of Miami Center for Aerosol Science and Technology (CAST) workshop focuses on advanced indoor air quality control and impacts of wildland fire emissions in the Southeast U.S. Wildland fires are a growing global concern, particularly in the Southeast U.S., which experiences the largest number of wildland fires, comparable to the rest of the U.S. combined. Significant gaps in our understanding exist on how pollutants from wildland fires impact both climate and the infiltration of air pollutants to indoor environments. Such infiltration exacerbates human health risks due to poor ventilation and filtration. To address these challenges, the CAST workshop will present new research findings on Southeast U.S. biomass burning emissions, advanced air quality sensor design, risk assessment methods, and building controls to mitigate health risks associated with indoor air pollution. Hands-on instrumentation and tutorial sessions will demonstrate state-of-the-art technology for monitoring and controlling air pollutants, equipping attendees with the skills needed to tackle these research problems. The involvement of non-profit organizations, such as Healthy Little Havana, will enhance community engagement on these issues. Additionally, student participation will foster career development and contribute to a skilled future STEM workforce. Results will be disseminated through a published manuscript that summarizes our current understanding and potential solutions to issues associated with wildland fire emissions and indoor air quality control. Additional benefits to society result from supporting the inclusion of attendees from diverse backgrounds to broaden participation in the fields of air quality and environmental engineering and 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.