Arkansas State University Main Campus

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-07

Anaerobic digestion uses microbes to turn organic waste into clean energy, such as methane gas, in the absence of oxygen. Sewage sludge can be converted anaerobically to methane gas, which is used to generate heat and electricity. However, sewage sludge contains a high amount of sulfur. During anaerobic digestion, this sulfur turns into volatile gases making the energy-producing process less efficient. Sulfur gas also corrodes metal pipes and equipment. This project develops a new strategy to fix the issues caused by sulfur in organic waste such as human sewage. The project tests a treatment that uses heat and lime to stop the sulfur gases from forming in the first place. This method helps recover more clean energy in the form of methane gas from organic waste while protecting the environment and people’s health. The results give cities and companies a more reliable way to create green energy from waste. This project also helps the next generation of scientists and engineers by training students in engineering and technology. The team works closely with local wastewater treatment plants to convert the research outcomes to real-world technology. This project investigates how calcium-oxide-assisted (CaO-assisted) alkaline thermal pretreatment modifies sulfur transformation pathways and microbial activity during anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge as well as other types of organic waste with a relatively high content of sulfur. Controlled batch and semi-continuous reactor experiments quantify biomethane production, volatile sulfur compound formation, sulfur speciation, enzyme activities, and microbial community responses under multiple operating conditions. Integrated chemical analyses, molecular biotechnology tools, kinetic modeling, and statistical analysis are used to identify mechanisms responsible for suppressing sulfate reduction and transformation, stabilizing sulfides through mineral interactions, inhibiting organic sulfur biotransformation, and promoting microbial sulfide oxidation. The research generates predictive relationships linking pretreatment conditions with biomethane yield and sulfur emissions. The work also establishes a mechanistic framework for optimizing pretreatment-digestion coupling in advanced anaerobic bioreactor systems. The results advance fundamental understanding of sulfur cycling in anaerobic environments and support the design of more efficient and resilient waste-to-energy technologies applicable to municipal sludge and other organic residuals. 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

An award is made to Arkansas State University (A-State) to support advanced research in ecotoxicology and analytical chemistry through the acquisition of a liquid chromatograph-tandem quadrupole mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS) and desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) imaging system. Undergraduate and graduate students at A-State across disciplines including biology, chemistry, environmental sciences, engineering, nursing and health sciences, veterinary science, and agriculture will gain hands-on experience in trace environmental sample analysis and mass spectrometry imaging through innovative experiential learning opportunities enabled by this instrumentation. Workshops and a formal certificate program will expand access to the instrument and its resulting research, engaging participants from across the United States. The project aims to strengthen STEM education and educator development in the northeast Arkansas region while also enhancing public science literacy. Outreach efforts will include an Earth Day collaboration with area K-12 schools and A-State undergraduate education majors. In addition, faculty and undergraduate researchers from a partner campus will conduct summer research residencies at A-State, contributing to broader regional science engagement. Overall, this project will promote environmental protection, human health, freshwater conservation, pollinator health and agricultural crop yields, and elevate scientific literacy of the public through outreach activities. Major research initiatives supported by this project include: (1) toxicant mixture effects on fish and a freshwater food chain, (2) the distribution of promising anticancer agents within plants, (3) the efficiency of different water treatment methods to eliminate contaminants from water discharged into the environment from wastewater treatment plants, (4) the effectiveness of remediation mixture efforts to stop harmful algal blooms and their impacts on aquatic wildlife, and (5) the distribution of pesticides within native bee species at various time points after exposure. 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

Arkansas State University seeks to modernize its cyberinfrastructure (CI) capabilities in three potential areas: 1) Access to large-scale computing resources for both research and teaching; 2) improved networking access to regional high-speed research networks; and 3) availability of large-scale digital storage to support research and archival needs. This CC* Strategy grant supports a comprehensive CI planning initiative to address the growing demands of computationally intensive research, broaden research participation and collaboration among faculty, and improve student outcomes as an institution with a large online student population. This planning project is crucial for keeping the institution at the forefront of scientific innovation and education as the only research institution in Arkansas serving the Arkansas Delta Region. The CI planning initiative entails the development of a master Campus Cyberinfrastructure Plan to prioritize future infrastructure investments and acquisitions based on campus impact, long-term sustainability, and the ability to contribute to state-level and regional cyberinfrastructure networks. These planning activities position the institution to compete for future funding opportunities in campus CI that modernize A-State's cyberinfrastructure resources to meet the needs of a diverse research enterprise and student body. The resulting campus CI improvements will support high impact student training, research opportunities, and professional development in the Arkansas Delta and beyond. This project is jointly funded by the Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). 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 · 2024-09

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award supports the acquisition of an X-ray diffractometer to support ongoing research efforts in materials engineering and biomaterials at Arkansas State University. X-ray diffraction is a nondestructive measurement technique that is useful in characterizing the crystal structure of both inorganic and organic materials, which is intrinsically linked to the electronic, mechanical, and chemical properties of these substances. This tool will enable structural characterization of a wide array of materials impacting several scientific disciplines, including advanced semiconductor devices, cementitious soils, engineered proteins, advanced asphalt paving materials, and biologically active small molecules. Research activities supported by this instrument also address critical issues affecting the US, such as the development of state-of-the-art space communication technologies, improving the efficiency of solar photovoltaic power generation, and the synthesis of novel proteins for therapeutic purposes and antimicrobial agents against antibioticresistant bacteria. Additionally, the instrument will provide unique experiential learning opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students at A-State, enabling them to engage more effectively with cutting-edge STEM concepts and better prepare them for future careers. Finally, targeted educational outreach activities will allow K-12 students and teachers to participate in hands-on experiments and explore STEM careers, impacting low socioeconomic status communities in the Arkansas Delta. The instrument is a comprehensive research platform for characterizing the structure of crystalline materials and small molecules. The available measurement techniques include powder diffraction, single-crystal crystallography, protein crystallography, X-ray reflectivity, and both conventional and grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering. Together, the capabilities of the tool will positively impact the following research projects: 1) optimizing the composition of distributed Bragg reflectors used in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers; 2) investigation of cementation of particulate soils on anti-soiling coatings used in solar photovoltaic applications; 3) understanding the relationship between microstructure intercalation and the nanomechanistic properties of polymeric asphalt binders to improve stripping resistance; 4) characterizing biologically active small molecules with antimicrobial and antitumor properties; and 5) development of novel engineering proteins for improved therapeutic properties. 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 · 2024-07

Many therapeutic molecules originate in plants. If their concentration in plants could be increased, perhaps the plants could be eaten directly to administer an effective dose. This is the strategy to be investigated. Engineered plants will produce therapeutic proteins. These proteins will be modified to anchor them to the cell wall. This should increase their dosage within the plant biomass. Each protein will carry a functional module (the GPI anchor) that attaches the protein to the cell wall. This project will provide hands-on learning opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students at Arkansas State University (A-State). The project will partner with A-State's outreach module “Biotech-in-a-Box”. This serves over 1,000 regional K-12 students each year. Outreach to the public and local K-12 students will foster greater awareness and interest in science and technology. The overall goal is to leverage a unique posttranslational modification, glycosyl-phosphatidyl-inositol (GPI) anchor, to strategically design and engineer novel GPI-anchored proteins (GPI-APs) in plant cells. The objectives are to create protein drugs with enhanced efficacy and to improve the production performance of existing plant cell lines. The proposal outlines three specific research objectives: 1. Investigate the glycosylation and functions of GPI-APs engineered in plant cells; 2. Assess the broader applicability and potential applications of GPI-APs engineering in plant cells; 3. Engineer GPI-APs to improve existing plant cell lines better suited for protein production. The unique GPI anchor structure, comprising a glycan core with a phospholipid tail, is expected to have a significant impact on the biosynthesis and therapeutic properties of anchored proteins. Specifically, the GPI anchor is anticipated to promote intracellular trafficking of anchored proteins in plant cells, leading to the production of glycoprotein with complete and homogeneous glycosylation, and effectively immobilizing or "displaying" proteins on the plasma membrane surface of plant cells. Additionally, it may facilitate the transcellular transport of therapeutic proteins across or into enterocytes, thereby increasing the bioavailability of orally administered biopharmaceuticals. On the other hand, the GPI anchor-mediated “protein surface displaying” feature will be leveraged to modify the structure of plant cell walls, potentially creating new plant cell lines with tailored traits better suited for protein production. This project is jointly supported by the Cellular and Biochemical Engineering Program in ENG/CBET and the Systems and Synthetic Biology Program in BIO/MCB. 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 · 2024-06

Global change is altering the distributions of parasites and their hosts with potentially grave impacts for wildlife and society. Understanding how shifting environmental conditions across space and time will influence the prevalence and intensity of disease is thus a critical research frontier. This project will uncoil the underlying processes shaping the spatial patterns of host-parasite interactions in a community of freshwater invertebrates and their parasites. Field studies will provide insights into how environmental conditions shape the distribution and genetic diversity of host and parasite species. Outdoor experiments will explore how different types of parasites impact the structure and diversity of host communities over time. Finally, laboratory experiments will reveal the role of genetic factors in determining individual host susceptibility or resistance to parasite infections. The project will train two PhD students and will offer transformative research experiences for undergraduate students. The creation of an online resource on gastropods, the deposition of samples and data in public collections and repositories, and outreach activities to increase awareness of parasites will all contribute to the broader understanding of freshwater biodiversity and its conservation. Metacommunity theory acknowledges that processes at multiple scales interact to affect local community composition, but applying metacommunity concepts to explain concurrent patterns of host and parasites is still in its infancy. And although evolutionary theory acknowledges co-evolutionary arms races, it does not often consider spatiotemporal environmental variation. This project considers the parallels between evolutionary and metacommunity theory and hopes to unify these aspects of ecology and evolutionary biology in the context of symbiotic relationships. This project will use spatial wetland surveys, site-specific water chemistry, remote sensing data, and reduced-representation genomic sequencing to model variance in snail community structure, the presence–absence of parasite species, and population genomic diversity. Infection and community dynamics in control and parasitized groups will be monitored in mesocosm experiments over several months. Finally, a genome-wide association study will be conducted to assess the role of specific alleles and genome-wide heterozygosity on infection probability. This project is jointly funded by the Building Research Capacity of New Faculty in Biology program in the Division of Biological Infrastructure, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Population and Community Ecology program in the Division of Environmental Biology. 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.