University Of North Florida

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-07

This Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) award will strengthen metal additive manufacturing by reducing defect-driven scrap and rework in laser powder bed fusion, a process used to produce geometrically complex metal parts for aerospace, biomedical, and energy systems. A common reason of build failure is the formation of streaks when the powder spreading recoater damages or disturbs. These streaks can trigger porosity and incomplete melting that propagate to later layers, degrading reliability and increasing cost, energy use, and material waste. This project will create a practical, in-process quality-control capability that observes each layer and applies the smallest safe corrective action only where it is needed. By turning layer images into risk-aware interventions, this work will advance the national interest by promoting the progress of metal additive manufacturing, supporting a more resilient industrial base through higher yield and less waste. Results will be integrated into course modules and laboratory exercises that train students in data-centric manufacturing. Outreach with regional manufacturers and community colleges will expand participation in manufacturing education and training and accelerate adoption of modern quality practices. The technical goal of this project is to develop a within-layer detect-predict-decide-act loop that couples perception, modeling, and control under explicit safety and time limits. A lightweight vision model will segment and quantify recoater streaks on each layer in no more than one tenth of a second and will output geometry features with calibrated confidence. A layer-aware digital twin, implemented as a fast hybrid surrogate maps streak features, scan plan, and energy/cooling descriptors to a calibrated porosity-risk map and exposes a what-if interface that scores candidate repairs by predicted risk reduction and time cost. A minimal-intervention controller will then select among a compact action set, such as micro-remelt, selective re-scan, modest power/speed edits, or partial recoat, while enforcing machine and thermal guardrails and defaulting to no action when expected gains are small. Performance will be validated using synchronized layer images, standard machine logs, and micro computed tomography measurements, targeting at least a forty percent reduction in streak-region porosity with no more than a three percent increase in build time. Public releases of datasets, trained models, digital twin packages, baseline decision policies, and deployable repair tools will support replication and technology diffusion across institutions and small manufacturers. 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.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2026 · 2026-06

PROJECT SUMMARY The proposed Research Education Program, PRIME-PEDS (Proficiency in Research and Innovation for Multidisciplinary Education in Pediatrics), will immerse undergraduate and graduate students in a structured, 12-week research training experience focused on pediatric rehabilitation, safety, and assistive technology. Hosted at the University of North Florida, the program integrates interdisciplinary training in biomedical engineering, behavioral science, and clinical research through mentored research projects, coursework, expert seminars, and direct exposure to clinical and community environments. Students (from Physical Therapy, Kinesiology, Engineering, Biomedical Sciences) will collaborate in small, cross-disciplinary teams to design and conduct research addressing real-world challenges related to mobility, balance, diagnostics, and assistive technology for children with disabilities. Examples of core training components include modules on pediatric motor control, ultrasound imaging, biomedical research ethics, clinical assessments, adaptive toy design, 3D printing, computer modeling, and seizure detection. Participants will engage in hands-on data collection and analysis, guided by faculty mentors and supported by partnerships with clinical (e.g., Mayo Clinic, UF Pediatrics) and industry collaborators (e.g., Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic). The program emphasizes scientific rigor, translational relevance, and interprofessional communication, preparing students for advanced study and careers in biomedical and rehabilitation sciences. Building on prior NICHD-sponsored training efforts at the University of North Florida, PRIME-PEDS leverages an established Experiential Learning framework within the PI’s laboratory, which actively engages students from multiple biomedical majors in mentored research. This foundation enables early-stage trainees to access interdisciplinary, hands-on experiences that promote long-term engagement in biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research careers.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

In this project funded by the MPS-LEAPS (Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways) Program and the Chemical Measurement and Imaging (CMI) Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Willis Jones and his students at the University of North Florida will perform studies to improve the determination of trace level analytes using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). LIBS is a versatile measurement technique capable of directly measuring solids, liquids, and gases with minimal preparation. A high-powered laser forms a small plasma that is used to quantify all elements present in a sample. However, the method is inherently very “noisy” and often provides results with poor reproducibility. Furthermore, the makeup of a sample (soil versus wastewater, for example) can ruin any attempt at measuring trace level analytes. Professor Jones and his students will construct a custom LIBS system and develop novel calibration strategies that attack both of these limitations. Their studies could result in calibration strategies that broadly improve LIBS measurements and extend beyond the LIBS space, leading to improved trace level quantification for all analytes of interest in innumerable fields of science. In addition, LIBS technology will lead to closely mentored research projects for undergraduate students and will be incorporated into the core curriculum at UNF, continually training new generations of budding scientists and enhancing their technical capabilities as increasingly essential and rapidly growing fields of research become more prevalent. Professor Jones and his students will develop novel, matrix-matched trace analyte calibration strategies that build upon the idea of standard dilution analysis (SDA), which has been shown to improve analytical accuracy and precision of calibrations while also correcting for all sample matrix effects, directly addressing the traditional limitations of LIBS. Initial investigations will focus on the direct analysis of liquid samples, beginning with preprepared static solutions before moving to flowing, on-line dilutions. All proposed liquid LIBS measurements will be performed using two methodologies: (1) introduction of prepared liquids into a pneumatic nebulizer, with the laser focused into (thus forming the plasma in) the generated aerosol (akin to sample introduction in workhorse analytical inductively coupled plasma (ICP) type measurements for trace analytes in solution) and (2) focusing the laser onto the surface of (or into) a bulk liquid. Successful proof-of-concept using SDA for trace level determinations using LIBS in liquids samples will be a significant improvement in LIBS calibration, and the principles investigated in this research will ultimately be extended and adapted for the direct analysis of solids. 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

This Integrating Research and Practice project uses an iterative approach to develop a STEM tabletop role-playing game for informal science learning. The project supports the development of game materials, which include freely available rules and learning-centered adventures. The game targets players ages 15 and older and includes content from biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics. Players acquire STEM content by engaging in gaming mechanics, player-driven customization, and claim-evidence-reasoning to resolve challenges and support scientific thinking. The project will also produce professional development material and workshops focused on student learning and informal learning settings. This project is informed by the game-based learning theoretical framework and uses descriptive data, observation, player artifacts, post-game discussions, playtest feedback, and follow-up interviews to examine the impact of tabletop role-playing games on informal STEM learning. The specific goals of this project will be examined through the following research questions: 1) What is the impact on participants' sense of STEM identity? To what extent does this impact differ among participant demographics? 2) In what ways can informal learning facilitators use an educational tabletop role-playing game to further their reach and impact? In what ways does facilitation align with or branch from facilitation of public engagement? How can facilitation be characterized as a model of informal education? 3) What factors support or inhibit the uptake of a tabletop role-playing game as a method of informal STEM education? This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing everyone multiple pathways for accessing and engaging in STEM learning experiences. 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.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-08

Abstract Cellular proteins need to fold correctly to obtain a specific three-dimensional structure and maintain it despite internal and external conformational insults. The importance of maintaining protein structure is emphasized by numerous human disorders such as neurodegenerative Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases, or prion disease, all considered protein-misfolding diseases. In all cases, proteins associated with the disease aggregate in a highly organized manner, forming large insoluble amyloid-like fibrils. The natural defense of the cell against protein misfolding and aggregation is a network of molecular chaperones, with the Hsp70s serving as a central hub in this network. Hsp70 chaperones recognize and bind short primary hydrophobic amino acid stretches, existing in virtually all cellular proteins, which become exposed during protein synthesis, folding, trafficking, membrane translocation, as well as disaggregation and refolding of misfolded proteins, including fragmentation of amyloid fibrils. This versatile activity of Hsp70 is regulated and targeted towards specific processes by a cohort of diverse J-domain proteins (JDPs), obligatory cochaperone partners of Hsp70. The paradigm is that various JDPs can recruit the same type of Hsp70 via direct interaction of their common J- domain, and at the same time, the diversity of other domains unrelated to cooperation with Hsp70 defines the specificity of individual JDPs. This model of JDP-driven specialization of JDP/Hsp70 systems extends Hsp70 biological roles beyond protein quality control to such essential processes as transcriptional regulation, ribosome biogenesis, mRNA splicing, or mitochondrial iron-sulfur cluster biogenesis. However, how JDP/Hsp70 systems actually perform so many diverse functions is not yet understood. This proposal examines a conceptually novel hypothesis that the specificity of JDP/Hsp70 systems can be determined by how JDP, through interactions other than J-domain, modulate Hsp70 activity directly rather than by their Hsp70-independent features. More specifically, we aim to investigate molecular and mechanistic details of a potentially new interaction between the J-domain adjacent region, glycine-rich region, and Hsp70 that emerged from our recent comparative NMR studies of two JDP classes. Furthermore, we will determine the arrangement and orchestration of all known molecular interactions between Hsp70 and the native dimeric form of JDP. Our chosen JDP/Hsp70 system is essential in vivo and specialized in amyloid fibril fragmentation and prion propagation, thus of significant medical relevance. Our experimental framework uses both yeast and human chaperone systems as well as utilizing a combination of in vitro and in vivo approaches for robust and comprehensive analysis and interpretations. Revealed molecular details and mechanistic insights will expand our understanding of JDP/Hsp70 systems, supporting ongoing efforts to develop chaperone-targeted therapies against misfolded diseases.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Project Summary/Abstract Caregiving for a spouse with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD) is extremely stressful and often prolonged, ranging from 3.3 and 11.7 years. For many caregivers, this period serves as a “living bereavement,” or a time of grieving the loved one they once knew before the ADRD progression. Heightened inflammation and its associated sickness behaviors may negatively influence caregiver’s health and quality of life. Low heart rate variability (HRV) reflects poor vagal tone, or a diminished capacity to emotionally and physiologically recover from stress and engage in one’s social environment, which could negatively impact their ability to give care. However, it is unknown whether interventions aimed at improving caregiver grief, inflammation, and HRV among ADRD spousal caregivers are feasible or effective. Guided by the NIH Stage Model for Behavioral Intervention Development, the candidate’s past research in Stage 0 informs the Stage 1 & Stage 2 research proposed here, providing valuable training in translating observational research findings into intervention development, and testing for preliminary efficacy. These studies will lay the groundwork for a future NIH-funded randomized control trial (R01 application submitted in Year 5) to test the efficacy of the targeted writing intervention in decreasing caregiving grief, improving HRV, reducing inflammation and sickness behaviors, and improving quality of life and caregiving self-efficacy among ADRD spousal caregivers. Training activities specifically designed to coincide with the proposed project will be accomplished through a combination of formal coursework, mentorship with directed readings, workshops, hands-on training, grant writing, and research activities. The training will take place primarily at Rice University’s Bioscience Research Collaborative (BRC), an innovative space where scientists and educators from Rice University and its neighbors in the Texas Medical Center (TMC) can come together to conduct collaborative research to improve human health through science. This five-year plan for the proposed Mentor Career Development Award is aimed at launching the candidate’s independent research career in identifying and targeting biobehavioral mechanisms that inform intervention development, reduce disease burden, and promote quality of life among the aging.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

This project focuses on creation of an open ecosystem, KnowLedger, through developing a suite of components needed for an open digital research notebook (DRN) that will nominally serve all research communities, putting the control of the development in the hands of the research community (as far as possible), promoting data science/informatics as an important part of all research activities, and encouraging research data sharing and reuse. KnowLedger is envisioned to be a complete rethink of what a research notebook should be able to do, enabling new ways to record data/take notes, connect with online resources, and flexible so it can be tailored to the needs of the science and the scientific workflow. Giving researchers the ability within KnowLedger to develop resources they need for RDM in an open and free ecosystem is anticipated to encourage contribution to/participation in its development and garner suggestions for configuration options and functionality broadly. The ecosystem will be developed as an open and distributed model using GitHub repositories as hubs for community development of data access/data analysis modules, data templates (including minimum metadata standards), and research workflows. The goal is to outline an approach, setup several key resources, provide ideas of how the ecosystem could be setup, and enable the research community to; understand the idea, see the future of RDM, galvanize their disciplines into action, and leverage their disciplines’ available funding for community 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 2024 · 2024-09

This project aims to develop a neuroimaging headband for neurofeedback, which will be a non-invasive and drug-free approach to empower individuals for cognitive enhancement and assist clinicians in neurological disease diagnosis and treatment monitoring. The investigator will develop an electronic textile-based headband (sports sweatband-like) combining functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) methods for brain imaging. Also, a mobile phone application (app) integrated with the headband will be developed for personalized neurofeedback training both at home and in hospital settings. The main challenges addressed here for accurate brain imaging in real-time are focused on developing highly sensitive and reliable hardware as well as advanced data processing algorithms (software) to extract relevant biomarkers for input into artificial intelligence (AI) models. Additionally, ensuring user-friendly phone app interfaces and effective personalized neurofeedback training protocols for users, especially in home-based settings, demands multidisciplinary innovation. This project aims to advance the development of an electronic textile-based headband capable of monitoring multiple biomarkers, such as fNIRS hemodynamic response and EEG along with signals from complementary sensors, while simultaneously conducting cognitive assessments in real-time. This research project will also address a critical limitation--variations in fNIRS signal quality due to skin tone differences. Thus, it will ensure equitable brain healthcare across racial and ethnic groups. By innovating wearable hybrid EEG-fNIRS neuroimaging headband technology and mobile app-based neurofeedback training, this research aims to contribute to early brain disease detection, monitoring, and personalized intervention strategies. This project aims to develop a neuroimaging headband for neurofeedback that will simultaneously monitor critical neural biomarkers, offering high-resolution brain imaging by merging EEG's temporal precision with fNIRS' spatial accuracy. Integration of auxiliary biosensors and head motion tracking using IMU in the headband will enhance biosignal processing algorithms' performance. This project will aim for the following innovations. (1) Electronic Textile-based Hybrid Brain Monitoring: the headband will be designed for user-friendliness and comfort analogous to a sports sweatband. It will integrate textile EEG electrodes using conductive threads and placeholders for fNIRS optodes (LEDs and detectors). (2) Bioinstrumentation: developing high-fidelity electronic circuits, optics, embedded systems and flexible PCB, it will fully integrate multi-channel continuous wave fNIRS, multichannel EEG and auxiliary sensors. (3) Neuro Biomarkers: the headband will enable the concurrent analysis of critical neuro biomarkers, such as changes in various features in oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin, and EEG frequency band power during neurofeedback training and neurocognitive assessments. This will allow the discovery of novel neuro biomarkers. (4) Adaptive fNIRS to Skin Tones: the headband will detect the wearer's skin tone and autonomously adjust the fNIRS hardware and algorithm in computing neural responses. (5) Mobile Phone App: the app will provide an intuitive and interactive platform for real-time personalized neurofeedback training by discovering novel neurocognitive assessment protocols, signal processing algorithms and AI models. Additionally, this project will facilitate STEM education by providing students with opportunities for hands-on learning. 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

An important goal of education is to help children independently control their own learning. To be able to self-control their learning, children should have a good sense of what they know, and how well. When children identify a gap in their knowledge, they need to then know what steps to take to address that gap. Yet, it is sometimes challenging for students to accurately judge what they do, and don't know well. This is especially problematic in challenging, but critically important domains, like when learning about fractions. This research will test methods for improving fourth through sixth grader's fraction learning, transfer of learning from one context to another, and children's ability to assess what they know and do not know, which is known as metacognition. Strategies for improving student's metacognition will be evaluated as they are learning fraction content by emphasizing both why students should be aware of what they do and do not know and how they should go about self-assessing this understanding using reflective questions, such as (1) "What information is given?" (2) "What steps do I need to take to get the right answer?" (3) "How can I check that my answer is right?" and (4) "If I think my solution is wrong, what should I do next?" This research will reveal insights on how to successfully encourage the productive use of metacognition and self-regulated learning in the context of math (fractions) learning. Few studies in the domain of math learning investigate both self-awareness of what one knows and does not know (i.e., monitoring) and decisions on how to proceed in the same experiment. This research plan will focus on implementing and evaluating metacognition training to improve fraction performance accuracy, self-awareness of what is known and not known about fractions, and control decisions, as well as the extent to which our metacognition training transfers broadly to other related math tasks and persists over a two-week delay. Fourth through sixth graders will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) a fraction content instruction, (2) fraction content instruction + metacognitive monitoring training, or (3) fraction content + metacognitive monitoring + control training. All children will complete a battery of their fraction knowledge at a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest to assess the potential benefit of metacognitive training beyond fraction-specific training on directly trained and related tasks. Investigating the promise of metacognitive training by asking children to engage in general, self-reflective questions in a "low cost" online intervention in the context of math learning will build on math cognition and math education theory. The results will also contribute important information regarding the design and implementation of potential educational interventions and teaching strategies leveraging metacognitive training in younger children. This project is supported by NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. 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.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2026 · 2024-07

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Skeletal muscle shows amazing plasticity and has the capacity to continuously regulate its size in response to external cues such as mechanical load, neural activity, hormones, growth factors, and nutritional status. The maintenance of muscle mass is controlled by a balance between protein synthesis and protein degradation pathways, a balance that shifts toward protein degradation during atrophy and protein synthesis during hypertrophy. To date, protein synthesis and degradation systems have been extensively studied in the context of muscle growth and wasting, while work to identify and characterize novel modulators of muscle hypertrophy and atrophy has been less prolific. As an example, the MAP kinase signaling pathway has been found to play an array of roles in skeletal muscle ranging from the regulation of fiber type development to controlling protein synthesis and autophagy pathways. Interestingly, gene expression analysis of muscle tissue isolated from mice following denervation revealed that Dusp4, a known negative regulator of MAP kinase signaling, is significantly upregulated. Further, previous studies suggest that Dusp4 preferentially regulates the Erk1/2 branch of the MAP kinase signaling cascade in skeletal muscle. While Dusp4 is rapidly and robustly upregulated in response to sciatic nerve transection, the functional consequence of upregulation of this dual-specificity phosphatase during neurogenic skeletal muscle atrophy remains unclear. Therefore, the overall objective of this investigation is to characterize the functional role of Dusp4 in modulating the molecular mechanisms that regulate muscle size and strength and determine how Dusp4 contributes to changes in muscle mass. This objective will be accomplished through the completion of the following specific aims. In aim 1, we will determine if Dusp4 expression is necessary and sufficient to induce muscle atrophy using in vivo electroporation of skeletal muscle to knockdown or overexpress Dusp4 for 3- and 14-days followed by measurement of muscle weight, myofiber cross sectional area, fiber type composition, and expression levels of markers of protein synthesis and atrophy. We hypothesize that knockdown of Dusp4 in denervated muscles will attenuate muscle atrophy, while overexpression of Dusp4 will promote skeletal muscle wasting. In aim 2, we will explore the hypothesis that Dusp4-mediated dephosphorylation may serve as a signal to alter the activity, localization, and/or stability of putative substrates in muscle. This hypothesis will be tested using an in vivo overexpression approach combined with an unbiased phosphoproteomic analysis to identify and validate the full complement of Dusp4 targets in skeletal muscle. The successful completion of this project will demonstrate for the first time that Dusp4 acts as a regulator of skeletal muscle mass through modulation of the Erk1/2 branch of the MAP kinase signaling pathway. Furthermore, if the findings of this investigation demonstrate that Dusp4 participates in the neurogenic atrophy cascade by acting as a direct or indirect modulator of muscle wasting, then inhibition of this dual-specificity phosphatase could prove beneficial in the treatment of skeletal muscle atrophy associated with neuromuscular disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and aging.