Washington State University

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-02

Wildfire-related power outages can significantly impact people, businesses, and larger communities to varying degrees. By bringing together necessary partners, i.e., utility companies, ratepayers, regulators, local agencies, and health and energy organizations, into a community collaborative, this project will study wildfire-related outages, develop actionable solutions, and create a more effective, balanced resilience planning framework. The team will develop an advanced wildfire simulator and outage prediction model that integrates diverse landscapes, community characteristics, and ignition sources. This simulation will provide a realistic prediction of wildfire risks across the entire service area and will serve to fully understand wildfire impacts on both humans and the power grid. Wildfire risk assessment models, combined with grid simulations, will generate new knowledge about how wildfires impact grid components and how utility planning strategies can, in turn, mitigate wildfire risks. This project will establish a community-focused power grid wildfire resilience planning framework that will mitigate wildfire-related outage risks while promoting fair and balanced energy recovery among communities. This approach will integrate area-specific (e.g., census tract) metrics into resilience planning to ensure strategies are technically sound and to promote and to promote equitable distribute of benefits, costs, and burdens. The transdisciplinary team will incorporate the needs and perspectives of various stakeholders who have a tangible and immediate interest in wildfire resilience planning. Both engineering models and community feedback will be integrated into the community-focused framework to ensure that grid-resilience strategies are technically sound and promote the fair distribution of benefits, costs, and burdens of power disruptions. An interactive dashboard among collaborative partners will be used to help understand how utility decisions impact outage risks and their effects on areas of the 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 2025 · 2025-02

In this project a novel catalyst design aimed at reducing pollutants from gasoline- and diesel-fueled vehicles will be investigated. This new design has the potential to reduce the amount of expensive and strategic noble metals, such as platinum and rhodium, required to meet the strictest regulatory standards for carbon monoxide (CO) emissions from tailpipes. Additionally, the accuracy of computational and artificial intelligence (AI) methods used to predict new catalyst designs will be examined. The outcomes of the research will be incorporated into a computational catalysis educational program for undergraduate and graduate students and integrated into two graduate courses currently taught by the principal investigator. The project will build on the foundation developed during the lead investigator's decade-long work combining Density Functional Theory (DFT) and Machine Learning (ML) methods. This foundation allows for the exploration of the catalytic properties of the “29” oxide structure, a unique copper oxide film that can be stably grown on a Cu(111) crystal, enabling the development of systems that leverage this structure. This oxide acts as an ideal support for atomically dispersed precious metals, making it highly effective for catalysis. To design and evaluate the performance of atomically dispersed Pt and Rh atoms on the "29" oxide Cu support, the computational work will be conducted in collaboration with experimental partners. The structure and redox properties of the "29" oxide surface on Cu(111) will also be examined by focusing on dynamic changes (fluxionality) as it is reduced to the "44" oxide structure under reaction conditions. The "29" and "44" refer to the unit cell size of each oxide structure. A key goal of the study is to reconcile previous models of the "29" and "44" oxide surfaces with recent non-contact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) images, which show two distinct stoichiometric arrangements for these structures, as reported in a recent publication (Zhu et al., Journal of the American Chemical Society, 146 (2024), 15887–15896). Simulated X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, Normal Incidence X-ray Standing Waves, and Surface X-ray Diffraction data will be correlated with experimental results. New models of the "29" and "44" oxide structures will be generated using global optimization algorithms and compared with the nc-AFM data. Additionally, the cooperative effects between the copper oxide surface and isolated Pt or Rh atoms will be modeled by integrating results from the Atomistic Global Optimization X package with first-principles calculations. This modeling effort will help identify the most stable structures and enable a better understanding of the oxidation/reduction pathways involved in low-temperature CO oxidation with atomically dispersed metals under realistic reaction conditions. 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

The risk and cost of cyber-attacks on our national assets and critical infrastructure continue to rise with increasing complexity and connectivity in computing environments. There is a demand to cultivate cybersecurity professionals who can fill the workforce gap. This new SFS program at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at Washington State University will educate and train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals for federal, state, local, and tribal government positions. The project will leverage a B.S. in Cybersecurity program at multiple campuses of the WSU system. Participants will get comprehensive, hands-on training in security across the complete spectrum of computing (hardware, systems, software, and web) and learn how emerging artificial intelligence and cryptography concepts can build more resilient cyber systems. The project will train a cohort of undergraduate and graduate students over five-years and provide cybersecurity education, research and experiential learning opportunities, curricular innovation, and career mentoring. The project will emphasize training in six interrelated themes: (1) software supply chain, (2) cyber-physical systems, (3) artificial intelligence and security, (4) cryptography and post-quantum security, (5) hardware security, and (6) web security. The curricular and learning innovations will benefit SFS scholars, students, and faculty mentors. Collaborations with internal entities at WSU will help to increasing participation in computing. The multi-campus innovation opportunities will extend to community colleges and open up government career opportunities to new pools of potential applicants. This project is supported by the CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service (SFS) program, which funds proposals establishing or continuing scholarship programs in cybersecurity and aligns with the U.S. National Cyber Strategy to develop a superior cybersecurity workforce. Following graduation, scholarship recipients are required to work in cybersecurity for a federal, state, local, or tribal Government organization for the same duration as their scholarship support.   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 · 2025-01

ABSTRACT Johns Hopkins and its partners, the White Mountain Apache Tribe (WMAT) and Navajo Nation are uniquely positioned and prepared to advance suicide prevention science through the funding opportunity “Service-Ready Tools for Identification, Prevention and Treatment of Individuals at Risk for Suicide” (RFA-MH-21-110). Native American (NA) communities experience substantially higher rates of suicide and sharp increases over time relative to other groups, exacerbated by chronic underfunding of health care and mental health services. Despite these adversities, NAs have exercised tribal sovereignty to support some of the most innovative, practical, and effective approaches to suicide prevention. One such model, the Celebrating Life program (CL), a community-based suicide surveillance and case management system, was developed originally by the WMAT and shown to help contribute to reductions in suicide attempts and deaths over time. The CL program is now being scaled through the Southwest Hub for Youth Suicide Prevention (U19MH113136). As this program has scaled, our pilot work has revealed barriers to implementation, including 1) challenges to risk identification, and 2) difficulties matching individuals’ level of risk to evidence-based interventions as a means to improve scarce resource efficiencies. To help overcome these barriers to implementation, NIMH funded our team to develop and pilot test Native-RISE (U19MH113136-02S3). Native-RISE is a systems-level strategy that leverages predictive analytics to enhance risk identification and integrates and improves the efficiency of local NA case managers who deliver brief contact interventions. The proposed project will leverage our team’s historic MOU with Indian Health Service (IHS) and decades-long trust-relationships with tribal partners to test Native-RISE and its integration in partnership with three NA-serving health care settings through a Hybrid Type III randomized implementation trial. Specifically, this project aims to 1) optimize the implementation of Native-RISE across three NA-serving health care settings, 2) determine the effectiveness of Native-RISE in reducing suicide attempts and improving the reach of evidence-based suicide prevention services, and 3) describe the costs associated with implementing Native-RISE to inform scale-up and sustainability. Our study addresses key priorities for NIMH (NOT-MH-21-090) and is in line with NIMH’s strategic plan Objective 4.3. If results are achieved, Native-RISE will become an effective and scalable approach that improves services to prevent suicide and advances our understanding of how to implement predictive analytics and more personalized care for suicide prevention.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2026 · 2025-01

ABSTRACT Research on Pharmacogenomics (PGx) and opioid use disorder treatment is rapidly expanding and supports the likely high impact of using PGx in opioid use disorder treatment, however most published studies have not researched the clinical application of PGx. To address this critical gap and exert a high, sustained impact on the field of personalized medicine in substance use disorder treatment, this study will assess the acceptability and feasibility of PGx guided opioid use disorder treatment; promoting the National Institute on Drug Abuse mission by advancing science on addiction treatment and applying that knowledge to improve individual and public health through advances in personalized medicine for people with substance use disorder. This study will: 1) Identify barriers and facilitators impacting the acceptability and feasibility of a PGx testing protocol to inform opioid use disorder treatment by engaging patients, providers, clinic staff, and administrators in OUD treatment in open and closed ended surveys to identify barriers and facilitators; 2) Develop and evaluate evidence based educational resources for providers of medications for opioid use disorder and their patients by creating and evaluating digital education materials based on Aim 1 results and current literature; and 3) Evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of PGx guided methadone dosing through an 8-week randomized controlled trial (arms: PGx, services-as-usual) where primary outcomes of acceptability and feasibility are assessed. Secondary outcomes will include patient engagement, treatment adherence, substance use, cravings, and withdrawal symptoms. Post-intervention, methadone providers who had patients in the study will be surveyed on feasibility, acceptability, appropriateness, change in prescribing, comfort using PGx, and suggestions for improvement. Medication dosing based on PGx holds the potential to decrease deaths, increase treatment retention, and reduce the use of non-prescribed opioids through personalized medicine, this study will take the first steps toward examining that potential. Situated in a richly supportive environment in the internationally regarded Program of Excellence in Addictions Research, I have access to many well established and funded mentors, space, equipment, software, finances, and protected time to conduct my research. The proposed training plan integrates mentorship from experts in clinical trials (McPherson), pharmacogenomics (Scott) clinical application of PGx (Limdi), biomedical ethics related to genetics (May), and opioid use disorder treatment (Layton); and training in Ethical, Legal and Social Implications central to patient and provider trust and uptake of genomics in substance use disorder treatment, clinical application of PGx to substance use disorder treatment, and guidance in developing my research career and laboratory. This Mentored Research Scientist Development Award will build on my previous training, allowing me to pursue my long-term career goal of becoming an independent investigator with an established program of research poised for high scientific impact and focused on the intersection of Personalized Medicine and Substance Use, through PGx testing.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

This award provides support for a conference that will bring together a wide range of attendees to discuss compound weather and climate hazards. Compound hazards refer to the occurrence of back-to-back or coincidental extreme events, such as multiple hurricane landfalls affecting the same region in quick succession. This conference will include scientists and community stakeholders with the end goal of providing community-level guidance on where and how best to focus research attention to comprehensively characterize societal risks from changing climate hazards. The conference will take place in spring 2025 on the campus of Portland State University in Oregon. The number of participants is estimated to be 75-100, including physical and social scientists, and stakeholders such as city planners and emergency managers. The conference themes are focused on coastal, island, rural, and urban communities. The participants will discuss the combined impacts of flooding, tropical cyclones, droughts, wildfires, heat, air quality and more. The conference will foster potential future interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaborations to advance fundamental knowledge of compounding and cascading hazards and identify solutions to minimize risks to various front-line communities. 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 · 2025-01

Project Summary A key mechanism for immune evasion and persistent infection by the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, is antigenic variation of the VlsE surface protein. The native vlsE gene has not been receptive to mutation by any available methods over the years, which has greatly impeded progress in the study of this system. Using an ectopically expressed copy of vlsE, we have strong evidence that vlsE recombination can occur in trans, and that mutation of individual genetic elements within the vlsE gene copy are critical for expression and gene conversion. Most importantly, this work led to the discovery of a novel method for introducing mutations into the native vlsE gene via a mutated trans copy harbored on a linear shuttle vector. Despite this important evidence, certain mechanistic aspects involved in vlsE expression and recombination remain unknown. Our long-term goals are to determine the mechanism of VlsE antigenic variation and overall implications of surface antigen protection promoted by the VlsE lipoprotein. The objective of this application is to decipher the mechanistic details of cis-acting factors involved in vlsE expression and gene conversion. Based on published studies and preliminary findings, our central hypothesis is that specific guanine-rich DNA regions represent cis-acting elements important for the gene conversion mechanism, and that the putative SpoVG binding site is necessary for vlsE expression and recombination. The rationale for the proposed research is that identifying the mechanistic details of this system will provide the knowledge required to design future long-term studies targeted at dissecting the overall mechanism. Together, the proposed research is relevant to NIH’s mission that pertains to developing fundamental knowledge that will potentially help to reduce the burdens of human illness and disability. Guided by preliminary findings, our hypothesis will be tested by pursuing two specific aims: 1) Establish the importance of guanine-rich DNA regions for vlsE recombination; and 2) Demonstrate a role for the putative SpoVG binding site in vlsE expression and gene conversion. Under the first aim, mutations of guanine-rich DNA sequences within vlsE will be generated in B. burgdorferi and used to infect both immunologically competent and deficient mice to look for loss of bacterial persistence due to a lack of VlsE antigenic variation compared to the wild type control. Under the second aim, qRT-PCR will be utilized to quantitate the relative vlsE expression levels during host infection by a SpoVG binding site mutant clone compared to a wild type control, and any effects on vlsE gene conversion assessed. The proposed work is innovative because it makes use of a newly discovered method to introduce genetic mutations into the native vlsE gene on the lp28-1 plasmid to address the novel concept that vlsE expression is required for the antigenic variation process. Overall, these studies will significantly advance our knowledge of immune evasion by B. burgdorferi, and provide more useful strategies to prevent and treat Lyme disease in humans.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-10

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually to restore stream ecosystems in the United States. One common approach uses beaver mimicry (installing structures akin to beaver dams) to mitigate climate and land-use impacts on river ecosystems. Yet, there is limited scientific understanding of their effectiveness. That is, do they produce the intended hydrological goals of the restoration? This project will develop the scientific foundation to measure and model the impact of beaver dam analogs on water flows and work with restoration practitioners to learn and monitor restoration effectiveness. The research will provide the hydrologic understanding needed to evaluate, improve, and expand restoration practice. The fundamental scientific pursuit of this project is to understand how beaver dam analogs influence water yield and streamflow timing by the physical alteration of hydrologic flows among stream-atmosphere-aquifer reservoirs. The project will connect and coordinate the growing scientific understanding of the hydrological impact of common river restoration practices. Numerical simulations will be used to test the magnitude of storage and release of water produced by restoration actions over a range of climate, soil, geomorphic and design conditions in western North America. The approach includes on-site measurements to test model simulations and evaluate intended restoration outcomes. The project team will co-implement do-it-yourself water/weather measurement stations with local restoration practitioners to develop the needed technical protocols (study design, sensors, and data infrastructure). The team will engage with resource agency scientists during the data collection, analysis and modeling to improve practitioner-led environmental monitoring and increase the likelihood of restoration success. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-10

Carbohydrate Memristor Empowered Environmentally Sustainable Processor-in-Memory Nontechnical description: Artificial intelligence (AI) systems have profound influence on societal wellbeing of humans and fueling significant economic growth. However, operation of conventional computing architecture in AI systems as well as manufacturing and disposal of conventional computing devices lead to significant energy consumption, depletion of nonrenewable natural resources, and ecological deterioration. Therefore, a serious concern of environmental sustainability to such increasingly pervasive computing systems has been raised, and improvements in system performance, energy efficiency, and ecological friendliness require new devices and systems. In this project, a new environmentally-sustainable processor-in-memory system is proposed to benefit the entire computing community including mobile and wearable computing, cloud computing and data center, electronic sensing and controlling, communication and networking. This project will also contribute to the development of high-quality workforce skilled in design, fabrication, testing, and modeling of memory devices and processor-in-memory computing systems for the growing needs in the US. The students and postdoctoral scholar participating in this project will receive unique training in engineering problem solving and technology development, and their research and educational experience will be enhanced by complementary expertise and close collaboration between the two research groups. Technical description: Processor-in-memory systems implemented with memristors have great potential to perform complex AI computations faster and on a smaller footprint. The goal of this project is to address the environmental sustainability challenge in computing by developing a novel brain-inspired processor-in-memory system empowered by memristors made from carbohydrate materials for energy-efficient operation, renewable material resource, sustainable device manufacturing, and ecologically-friendly disposal. The carbohydrate materials will be naturally extracted from plants, vegetable, and fruits with low cost and waste generation. Innovative fabrication techniques for carbohydrate-based memristor and processor-in-memory system will be developed with reduced water use and chemical waste, greenhouse gas emission, and manufacturing related energy consumption. The processor-in-memory system will be constructed by implementing carbohydrate memristors and reconfigurable peripheral circuits to achieve sustainable computing, enable performance improvement, and ensure high operation efficiency, longevity, and reliability. 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 2024 · 2024-09

While there are incredible strengths, American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults have the highest rates of fatal poisonings from methamphetamine alone and in combination with fentanyl. AI/AN adult drug poisoning mortality more than quadrupled over a seven-year period. The rapid implementation of interventions for stimulant use is therefore desperately needed among AI/AN people. Contingency management (CM) is the most effective intervention for stimulant use disorders (StUD). CM is an intervention in which people who submit urine samples consistent with stimulant abstinence receive tangible reinforcers. Two clinical trials of Tribal CM (combined n=272) were associated with lower levels of stimulant, alcohol, and cannabis use. Alongside the positive findings from our previous CM trials, we identified additional factors important to increasing effectiveness of CM among AI/AN people. During our previous clinical trials of CM, we identified challenges to attendance and retention that among others, included mental health severity (p<0.05) and location (p<0.05). Care coordination addresses engagement of each participant-relative (i.e., study participant) by linking them to needed resources and services that support their individual needs. Findings from our clinical trials also determined a need to characterize and overcome implementation barriers (e.g., lack of organizational fit, staff shortages). The purpose of this R61/33 proposal is to work with 2 partnering American Indian communities (including 3 sites) to develop and examine the impacts of a Tribal Contingency Management and Care Coordination (TCM+CC) intervention for stimulant use disorders on CM attendance, retention, and secondary outcomes. We will utilize implementation frameworks to identify barriers (R61) and assess novel implementation solutions (R33). During the R61 phase we will 1) partner with a Scientific Review Panel, an AI/AN Community Advisory Board, and experienced Implementation Facilitators to develop and refine the TCM+CC intervention, implementation strategies, frameworks, and tools to be implemented in the R33 phase; 2) Determine additional necessary centering to enhance adoption of CM through 45 semi-structured in-depth interviews. During the R33 phase we will conduct a type 1 hybrid effectiveness/implementation randomized controlled trial comparing our TCM+CM to a Tribal CM only control group (n=240). Our aims are to 1) Examine the effects of TCM+CC compared to standard Tribal CM on attendance and retention, stimulant and other drug use, and well-being; and 2) assess TCM+CC implementation outcomes through planning, adoption, competence, fidelity, uptake, and policy.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2024 · 2024-09

There are nearly 7 million undergraduate students enrolled in the 20 U.S. states and Washington D.C. that have legalized the use of recreational cannabis. A study of cannabis use across 11 U.S. college campuses found 53% of college students had used cannabis in their lifetimes, and 26.2% had used in the past month. In fact, the cannabis marketing industry, which uses brand personality and lifestyle experiences to sell cannabis products, views young adults as a prime target audience for its marketing efforts. Yet, the human brain continues to develop until age 25, and cannabis has been shown to interfere with brain development and cognition in both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies. So, there is a critical need to educate college students about the risks of cannabis use and to educate those who still choose to use cannabis on how to navigate the complex marketplace of cannabis products. Campus health educators across the country have identified a need for cannabis-related information, but the frequently changing legal and product landscape has made providing such information a challenge. Our long-term goal is to reduce cannabis misuse among young adults. We have developed an intervention that positively impacts college students' knowledge of cannabis products and laws, efficacy in navigating cannabis products, and risk perceptions. The objective of this application is to refine and assess the feasibility and acceptability of this technology-based intervention for college students that provides information on cannabis products, cannabis marketing, laws, and relevant risks of cannabis use. We will refine our existing content through focus groups with 35 college students and 35 campus health educators and an advisory committee. We will use a mixed method sequential explanatory design consisting of a survey of cannabis users and non- users from three campuses, each in states where cannabis is legal, followed by in-depth interviews with college students to examine intervention acceptability and feasibility. We will examine whether perceptions differ based on past use and predictors associated with cannabis use and misuse. The proposed study will result in a refined, theoretically grounded, expertly designed intervention aimed at increasing young adults’ cannabis literacy. Based on the findings of this study, we will next pursue a larger randomized controlled trial to test intervention efficacy and outcomes across multiple sites in the United States. Ultimately, this intervention will increase awareness of the risks associated with cannabis use while also empowering young adults who choose to use cannabis to do so in an informed manner, reducing cannabis misuse among college students in the United States.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

The design of new, more active, and selective catalysts is vital for creating cleaner, more sustainable chemical processes with wide-ranging applications, including renewable energy and chemical syntheses. A typical catalytic process includes multiple elementary steps involving many surface-bound intermediates and transition states. The energetics of these intermediates and transition states are crucial, as they determine the rate and selectivity of the catalysts, yet accurate energies are only available for a few key intermediates on metals. The project will use Single Crystal Adsorption Calorimetry (SCAC) to directly measure the heat of adsorption and co-adsorption with solvents on clean single-crystal surfaces in an ultrahigh vacuum. Graduate students and postdocs involved in this project will benefit from the learning and professional environment at PNNL. Microcalorimetry will also be integrated into a mini research project for high school students attending Summer Experience in Science and Engineering for Youth at Oregon State University. SCAC provides the only way to measure the heat of adsorption for irreversible events like dissociative adsorption, which are crucial for producing adsorbed molecular fragments ubiquitous in catalytic mechanisms (e.g., -OH, -CH3, -OCH3, -OOCH) and part of the project. These measurements will also expand to include metal oxides (e.g., FeO/Pt(111). The adsorbate energies gained from these studies will provide fundamental information about the effects of solvents on the binding of reaction intermediates. They will further serve as benchmarks for more accurate theoretical predictions of adsorption energies and effects of solvent on their values, improving predictability and enabling computational catalysis design. 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

People in rural areas, including those in agricultural communities, face disproportionately high risks associated with wildfire hazards. Educational approaches that more fully consider their perspectives and goals are needed to mitigate these risks. Accordingly, this project will build partnerships among rural community organizations, a small science center, and a university, with the purpose of understanding diverse perspectives on wildfire. These perspectives will be used to develop informal science learning resources and programming that better prepare a broad range of audiences to understand multiple facets of wildfire and to mitigate their associated risks. These perspectives will also inform the creation of research questions and a corresponding research design that can be used to explore whether the informal learning experiences are meeting community-defined learning goals. The project team will establish an advisory board, representative of diverse groups affected by wildfire, that will guide these efforts. To facilitate dialogue across different audiences, the project team will organize a public, participatory art installation in which different groups (e.g., rural families, wildfire frontliners, informal educators, artists, scientists, recreational land users, and agricultural workers) will share their experiences with and understandings of wildfire. Ultimately, this project will result in a plan for developing and researching informal educational resources related to wildfire, as informed by numerous relevant and diverse perspectives, which have the potential to benefit society by mitigating risks associated with wildfire. This project will result in a plan for the development of informal science learning resources that will build public scientific literacy about wildfire. These materials will foster systems thinking about the complex causes and results of wildfire. They will also foster data literacy through supporting the interpretation of spatial and numerical data, such as burn risk maps, fire perimeter maps, wind patterns, or evacuation routes. To elicit relevant perspectives on wildfire, which will form the basis of these informal learning resources, the project team will engage different audiences in eight arts-based community knowledge-building workshops. These audiences may include youth and families from rural communities impacted by wildfires, Indigenous people with historical knowledge of wildfire stewardship, migrant farmworkers, wildfire frontliners, scientists who study wildfire, and artists whose work addresses wildfire, among others. The project team will conduct ethnographic interviews with sixteen people who reflect diversity in age, experience, expertise, gender, race, or ethnicity, to further inform their plans for the development and evaluation of informal learning resources related to wildfire. This project will result in community-informed educational resources and a corresponding research trajectory. This project will also result in an innovative plan for the co-design of informal science learning resources, which can serve as a model for other small and mid-sized science centers that seek to provide locally-relevant and responsive programming in the context of community partnerships. This Partnership Development and Planning 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 multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement 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.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

This project will develop and test a learning progression for middle school physical science that incorporates the three dimensions identified in Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS): the Disciplinary Core Ideas of matter, interaction, and energy; the Science and Engineering Practices of constructing explanations and developing and using models; and the Crosscutting Concepts of cause and effect and systems and system models. Bringing together all three NGSS dimensions is an innovation that allows for the project to explore the variety of learning pathways that students may follow as they apply scientific knowledge and practices to make sense of compelling phenomena or solve complex problems. This has the potential to help teachers, researchers, and curriculum developers improve how they support students. Participating middle school science teachers from a range of schools representing diverse communities will receive professional learning and guidelines using the learning progression to adapt their local curriculum and instruction materials. The project will examine students' learning growth over time and how teachers use the learning progression to support their students’ learning. This project serves the national interest by exploring how to support teachers in creating equitable and coherent learning environments and promoting all students' development in problem-solving and sense-making in science. This project advances research on learning progressions in two ways: by developing and testing a three-dimensional learning progression consistent with NGSS, and by exploring a variety of learning pathways within the proposed learning progression. The project explores three research questions: 1) How does the theoretically grounded learning progression change as a result of empirical evidence from teachers and students and feedback from experts? 2) In what ways do teachers use the learning progression to adapt their curriculum materials, instruction, and assessments to improve student knowledge-in-use? 3) In what ways and how do students' knowledge-in-use develop in the learning progression-based adapted classrooms? To address these questions, the project will design, revise, and finalize the learning progression iteratively using both qualitative and quantitative data sources across three years. Using data from students’ responses to classroom-embedded assessment tasks, the researchers will employ latent growth curve models to examine student knowledge-in-use development. Using data from teacher and student interviews, classroom observations, and teacher and student artifacts, the researchers will develop a case study that explores teachers' use of the learning progressions and how they adapt the learning progression to their local curriculum, instruction, and assessment materials to support student learning. The case study will also explore whether and how teacher adaptation affects student development. The learning progression will contribute to teaching and learning in science by guiding the development of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional learning in a coherent manner to provide all students opportunities to learn in science and support teachers to improve their local science learning systems. Findings from the project will expand the current knowledge and research on learning progression with multiple intermediate learning pathways for three-dimensional learning that provide all students the opportunity to learn in science. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. 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 REU Site award to Washington State University, located in Pullman, WA, will support the training of 10 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2025-2027. It is anticipated that a total of 30 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities or from under-represented groups, will be trained in the WSU Robustness and Resilience of Aquatic Biological Systems (R&R REU Program). Biological systems in our oceans, lakes, and streams are under extreme pressure of environmental change, and scientists aim to understand the complex mechanisms that allow these systems to either maintain robustness and resilience to these pressures or collapse. The primary objective of the R&R REU Program is to expand students’ understanding of the robustness and resilience of biological systems by engaging them in research projects that investigate how genomic, cellular, physiological, behavioral, and ecological systems of aquatic plants and animals respond to environmental challenges. Students will learn how research is conducted in this field, present their research at a campus-wide REU Summer Symposium, and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences and scientific publications. Assessment of this program will be done through an online tool. Students should apply to the REU site using NSF ETAP (Education and Training Application: https://etap.nsf.gov). The R&R REU Program will bring together an interdisciplinary team of investigators from the School of Biological Sciences, School of the Environment, and Animal Sciences that study aquatic biological systems at different levels of organization to mentor undergraduate students who ask questions within the field of systems biology, with access to high-throughput phenomics equipment to study physiology and behavior of organisms under different environmental stressors. Students will engage in Systems Thinking and Data Wrangling workshops, including indigenous knowledge and Western science approaches, and reading groups focused on multi-scale analysis of biological systems. Students will also receive training on research code of conduct, scientific literacy, collaboration, science communication, and professional development. Students will be introduced to scientists from academia, industry, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and tribes in a seminar series to broaden their professional networks and exposure to diverse career pathways in STEM fields. 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

The role of economic interactions in political and social organization in past and present societies is a matter of debate. Archaeology is well situated to address how economies impact and were influenced by socio-political structures. This project examines the relationship between economic and sociopolitical organization in a prehistoric society. It focuses on the role of lithics, or stone tools, in an economy to broadly understand how individuals of different sociopolitical statuses interacted through economic activities. The project draws from and adds to anthropological research on the role of economies in power differentials in both the past and present. Importantly, the approach of the project works to illustrate the complexity of past economies, providing a more nuanced view of past human behaviors. Research activities will include opportunities for students, including mentorship experience, and professionalization opportunities. Project members will conduct flintknapping, or stone tool production, workshops, which will connect local residents with past technologies used in the region. This project addresses the relationship between economic and sociopolitical structures, It documents regional scale production and distribution of lithics to understand how these tools were made, exchanged, and used. These data are utilized to understand whether past economic activities involved competition among producers of the same tools and addresses how membership or allegiances with certain political groups impacted peoples economic interactions. To address these issues, this project conducts excavations of known lithic production areas, analyzes previously excavated materials, and geochemically sources the stone used to make the materials to trace the location of the potential distribution networks of these materials. The geochemical sourcing will employ a novel application of the geochemical technique, Inductively Coupled Plasma – Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) to trace the distribution of lithics from their production through their use and discard.. These methods provide a clear picture of a prehistoric economy shedding light on the ways in which economies served as mechanisms for mediating socio-political divides. 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

The racial and ethnic diversity of the K-12 student population far exceeds the diversity of the current teacher workforce and teacher candidate pipeline. To address this gap, systemic changes in the structural and cultural dimensions of university teacher preparation programs are required. This project will leverage an existing consortium of STEM teacher preparation programs in Washington State to: (1) identify community assets and systemic barriers to recruiting and supporting STEM teacher candidates from historically underrepresented populations; (2) develop strategies for preparing STEM teacher candidates to enact culturally sustaining pedagogies; and (3) advance understanding of how universities can develop authentic partnerships with historically marginalized communities to support STEM teacher preparation. The significance of this project is that it aims to establish authentic partnerships with individuals and groups typically underrepresented in STEM and elevate the knowledge and leadership from marginalized communities to collaboratively address barriers and obstacles to becoming STEM teachers. This project will employ a descriptive multiple case study design to understand how institutes of higher education work with their local communities to dismantle systemic barriers to recruiting and supporting students from historically underrepresented groups in STEM teacher preparation. Further, the project will investigate how these teacher preparation programs leverage the knowledge of leaders from marginalized communities to develop and share strategies for preparing future STEM teachers to enact culturally sustaining pedagogies. With sites spanning urban, suburban, and rural settings, this research will enhance our collective knowledge about contextual factors that support or constrain efforts to address inequities in STEM teacher preparation. The community-led work at each region is grounded in the principles of Targeted Universalism and will utilize tools and frameworks from the Equity-Driven Systems Change Model to center the voices and experiences of marginalized communities. Anticipated impacts include new recruitment and retention models for diversifying STEM teaching, revised curricula to infuse culturally sustaining pedagogy into STEM teacher preparation, and new equity-minded structures and policies to guide teacher education program decisions. This collaborative project is funded by the EDU Racial Equity in STEM Education activity, which is supported by the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU). This activity supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Awarded projects seek to center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of the individuals, communities, and institutions most impacted by systemic inequities within the STEM enterprise. Programs across EDU contribute funds to the Racial Equity activity in recognition of the alignment of its projects with the collective research and development thrusts of the four divisions of the directorate. 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

Architected materials are materials with tailored arrangement of one or more materials in a periodic or quasi-periodic fashion. Such arrangement leads to engineered physical properties that are not directly accessible with their individual constituents. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will support research that investigates the mechanics of a novel class of architected materials that constitute multiple material phases, specifically a soft solid and a liquid. This entails understanding the influence of solid-liquid phase interaction and geometrical arrangement on the mechanical response of these materials under external stimuli. The knowledge generated will allow creation of architected materials with tunable, multifunctional material response. This in turn allows design of structures and devices that emulate the flexibility and toughness of soft biological matter, without their complexity, for biomedical, healthcare, and soft robotics applications. Example applications include realistic organ models, energy absorbing structures, and flexible actuators or sensors. The educational plan will investigate pathways for integrating computational science and engineering, an increasingly critical component for all engineers and scientists, into mechanical engineering education and dissemination through modern web-based interactive computing platforms. The overarching research objective is to understand the nonlinear thermomechanics of soft architected materials that embed liquid phase inclusions of characteristic sizes ~0.1-1 mm within a soft elastomeric solid to be created via a novel additive manufacturing process. To understand the effective material behavior and mechanics of these materials, a nonlinear homogenization framework that considers the liquid inclusion geometry, topology, and its interface with the solid will be developed. The homogenization framework will be validated via mechanical testing on additively manufactured specimens. The research performed will advance our understanding of architected materials with complex microstructures and multifunctional behavior and can potentially be extended to hierarchical multiscale materials. The main synergistic educational activity will involve the development of a science gateway to host a collection of open-source computational tools and educational resources relevant to architected materials. Additionally, curriculum enrichment and outreach activities to promote computational science and engineering education among K-6, undergraduate, graduate, and professional students will be undertaken. 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 · 2024-09

PROJECT SUMMARY Both the total number of elderly persons and the incidence of lung disease will increase in the coming decades. It is vital that we define the normal physiological changes that take place in the aging respiratory system. Peak lung function occurs in early adulthood and progressively declines with age. The decreased lung function is readily apparent in the maximal expiratory flow volume curve (MEFV), depicting decreases in maximal expiratory airflow (MEF) at all lung volumes in elderly adults. Clinically, the reduced MEF is attributed to a concomitant, progressive loss of lung elastic recoil. However, in young-to-middle aged adults, the inhalation to total lung capacity that precedes a maximal forced expiration causes a transient airway dilation. The deep inflation-induced airway dilation results in higher MEF than can be achieved in the absence of the deep inflation (DI). The effects of normal aging on the dynamic interaction between a DI and MEF is not known. This is problematic, since the MEFV curve is interpreted assuming that the airway response to a DI is equal across the aging spectrum. We hypothesize that one cause of the decreased MEF with aging is a blunted airway dilatory effect of a DI. If this hypothesis is true, it would indicate that the MEFV curve exaggerates the reduced MEF in elderly adults. Three specific aims will test our hypothesis. Aim 1 will compare the effect of a DI on the MEFV curve in young and elderly adults. We hypothesize that a DI will increase MEF in young adults whereas it will decrease MEF in elderly adults. The effect of a DI on airway caliber will be quantified by comparing MEF after a DI with MEF during a forced expiration begun at normal end-inspiratory lung volume (maximal:partial [M:P]). All M:P measurements will be analyzed at 40% of vital capacity. Aim 2 will determine the effect of aging on the bronchodilatory effect of a DI. In young adults, a DI exerts a bronchodilatory effect on airways that have been constricted by inhaled methacholine (airway smooth muscle agonist). We hypothesize that the bronchodilatory effect of a DI will be reduced in elderly adults. Inhaled methacholine will be used to cause bronchoconstriction. M:P measurements will be used to determine the magnitude of DI-induced bronchodilation (as in SA1). If findings support our hypothesis, they will provide evidence that aging is associated with the loss of an essential mechanism for preserving airway function. Aim 3 will compare airway distensibility in young and elderly adults. We hypothesize that airway distensibility will be lower in elderly adults than young adults. Using impulse oscillometry, airway distensibility will be quantified as the change in airway conductance relative to the change in lung volume (∆Grs/∆VL), [l·cmH2O-1·s-1·l-1]). These experiments will generate insight into the effects of aging on the strength of coupling between the airways and the surrounding elastic tissues. This proposal will generate novel data that addresses the question: Is interpretation of the MEFV curve inaccurate in elderly patients? The findings will lend insight into the mechanisms for the maladaptive changes to lung function with aging and might significantly impact clinical interpretation of spirometry in elderly adults.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

This EArly-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project will investigate the emergence, mechanisms, and applications of collective rationality (CR) among self-interested agents in the design of mixed autonomy networks and infrastructure systems. In many natural and engineering systems, various collective phenomena, such as spontaneous cooperation, spatial segregation, and behavior evolution and formation of social norms, can emerge at system level when the decisions and maneuvers of self-interested agents interlace with each other. Strategic agent behaviors play a key role in this process. This observation suggests that one may obtain a system with desired properties by carefully designing behaviors of its agents. The research will explore this idea and put forward the concept of “collective rationality” of mixed traffic towards with the intent of explaining the formation of cooperation among self-interested driving agents in mixed autonomy transportation systems, to reduce travel cost, uncertainties, fuel emission, as well as to enhance equity among all road users. Broader applications include autonomous vehicle behavior design, emergency evacuation, and mitigation of pandemic spread. The research will be further disseminated through curriculum design, K-12 education, and collaboration with practitioners, local government, and industry partners. This research project will explore and rigorously define the concept of collective rationality in mixed traffic and its application in designing strategic behaviors of autonomous driving agents in mixed autonomy environments. The core research hypothesis is that collective rationality can emerge in broad scenarios even if the involved agents are self-interested. Game theory and reinforcement learning will be leveraged to verify this hypothesis theoretically and computationally. To establish theoretical models of collective rationality in mixed traffic, two classes of models with different levels of agent behavior details will be developed, respectively focusing on the one-shot interaction of n-class driving agents, and dynamic inter- and intra-class interactions and an analytical Fokker-Planck approximation to the corresponding evolution dynamics. To develop frameworks for collective rationality-informed autonomous vehicle behavior design, researchers will consider two autonomous vehicle behavior design frameworks using reinforcement learning, which incorporate collective rationality in reward design and employ a bi-level pricing structure to equitably fine-tune the benefit of cooperation among agents. The research team will also expand and explore the CR concept for other application contexts, such disaster evacuations. 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

There is currently little to no evidence for effective treatments for perinatal musculoskeletal pain. This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Pivot award will allow the PI to develop perinatal musculoskeletal models and simulation approaches to enhance research capabilities of perinatal orthopedic issues. Using modeling and simulation approaches will allow researchers to observe the internal workings of the musculoskeletal system and experiment with novel approaches to treat orthopedic issues, all without risking harm to the pregnant individual and fetus. Additionally, musculoskeletal simulations could shed light on why human females evolved slightly different physical traits than males that predispose them to poorer musculoskeletal health throughout their lifespan. The models created in this project will lead to exponential improvements in the field of perinatal biomechanics. This award will also allow the PI to perform outreach activities to educate female workers in low-income jobs throughout the state about the musculoskeletal risks associated with pregnancy in various occupations, how and when to take advantage of work accommodations, and what their ergonomic options are to mitigate injury risk and protect their long-term health. Biofidelic musculoskeletal models and simulation approaches are currently unavailable for studying perinatal and female-specific biological questions. The research project will integrate training and research for the PI and the students involved, to gain and integrate knowledge from two disciplines, muscle biomechanics and optimal control modeling and simulation, to forge a new direction in gestational organismal biomechanics research. The overall research objective of this project is to understand how to properly model the impact of pregnancy on muscle contractile properties, and the corresponding effects on the cost functions that underlie gait selection with the following scientific objectives: (I) determine how pregnancy and postpartum alter torso and hip muscle mechanical properties, (II) determine the extent to which spine extensors accommodate for muscle mechanical property changes and postural changes during pregnancy, (III) determine changes to the gait objective function through typical pregnancy and postpartum. This research will result in improved biofidelity to a pregnancy model set and simulation approaches that more accurately represent objective function changes through pregnancy. 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 · 2024-08

Evolution and persistence of animal populations depend in part on the presence of variation within those populations in how individuals cope with environmental challenges, but that variation is not constant over time. This project will explore when and how changes in the environment - specifically, changes in body temperature - can alter physiological functional diversity among individuals living in proximity to one another. The research team will combine experiments on intertidal invertebrates (mussels) with comprehensive study of their protein expression patterns to document how individuals differ in their molecular response to environmental fluctuations. The work will also identify connections between functional diversity at the molecular level and measures of each individual’s performance. Climate change is expected to negatively impact many populations, but the aggregated outcomes will depend on how individuals respond to their unique conditions. This project will disentangle important complexities in biological responses to the increasing frequency and intensity of environmental extremes, ultimately contributing to more accurate biological forecasting. Through this work, the research team will mentor a diverse set of trainees including a postdoc, Ph.D. students, and undergraduates, each of whom will receive support to present their findings at conferences. The project also will support a collaborative scientific working group that will foster the merging of physiology and genomics to better predict how animals will perform in the future in more variable, and perhaps entirely novel, environmental conditions. Individuals vary in their physiological rates, tolerances, and other aspects of function. The magnitude of this variation itself can change over short periods, in different environmental conditions, or for different representations of physiology, but key uncertainties remain. In particular, both theory and prior results alternately suggest that stress "masks"/reduces functional variation or "unmasks"/increases otherwise hidden variation. This project will explicitly quantify how environmental stress and environmental heterogeneity mask variation in some aspects of function while unmasking variation in others and/or reorganizing connections in the molecular phenotype (the proteome). It will connect environment-driven shifts in the architecture of "subnetworks" of the proteome (i.e., groups of co-expressed proteins) both "up" in scale to organismal performance and "down" to physiological mechanisms that differentiate individual mussels in their stress resistance. The team will combine manipulative experiments with state-of-the-art quantitative proteomics approaches, using the intertidal California mussel (Mytilus californianus) as a tractable model, to evaluate shifts in the architecture of protein expression subnetworks in different thermal treatments. The treatments will vary in the mean intensity and inter-individual heterogeneity of body temperature before and during acute heat stress events. The integrative, omics-to-organisms approach will stimulate conceptual advances and generate novel insights into the role of context-dependency in environmental physiology. The results should also provide vital environmental context to the genomes-to-phenomes framework, in line with goals of Rules of Life. 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 · 2024-08

Project Summary Alcohol use in the Unites States is a public health crisis that costs the U.S. health care system $249 billion annually. However, only about 10% of individuals with alcohol use disorder receive treatment and a significant proportion will relapse within one year of treatment. These trends are especially troubling among young adults who exhibit the highest prevalence of alcohol use disorder among U.S. cohorts but are least likely to seek treatment. Disruption of the body’s stress response system has been identified as a key factor that contributes to risk of relapse and innovative and widely accessible interventions that help individuals cope with acute stress during early recovery are urgently needed. Music listening has been shown to elicit activity in areas of the brain associated with reward and emotions and has thus been proposed to be an effective tool for emotion regulation and stress management. However, no relapse interventions have capitalized on the potential of music listening to rehabilitate these systems. There is a lack of evidence that music-listening can influence emotion regulation, and ultimately reduce acute stress, in real-world settings and uncontrolled environments. We aim to develop the first just-in-time adaptive music-listening intervention to regulate emotions and reduce stress among individuals within the first 90 days of detoxification from alcohol use. We design the study with two phases to address three aims: For Aim 1, we will conduct formative research with a sample of young adults who have received treatment for alcohol use disorders and are within 90 days of sobriety to identify features of music selections that are most effective in reducing stress in real-world, ambulatory settings; For Aim 2, we will focus on developing mobile health technology that uses passive sensing and machine learning to automatically predict moments of heightened stress in real-time and suggest specific musical selections when stress is detected. During Aim 3, we will test the feasibility of a novel music-listening intervention among a second sample of young adults who have received treatment for AUD and are within 90 days of sobriety. The goal of our proposed study is to provide a cost-effective and accessible music-listening intervention to support the increasing population of individuals struggling with relapse risk during early stages of recovery from alcohol use disorder. This research will provide a critical foundation upon which large-scale efficacy trials of adaptive just-in-time music interventions can be conducted.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2024-08

ABSTRACT American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities have been disproportionately negatively impacted by opioid and stimulant drugs, health conditions that cause chronic pain, and related problems such as trauma, suicide, and alcohol use. These problems are caused by settler colonialism. Therefore, AI/AN communities are best positioned to understand and overcome these challenges using cultural strengths and protective factors. Too often research is driven by funder priorities and led by non-community researchers rather than centered on community objectives and led by local research teams. Thus, AI/AN people may not experience sustained health benefits or have the opportunity to develop and strengthen their own research expertise and infrastructure. In response to the opioid epidemic that is disproportionately harming Native people and calls by AI/AN leaders to support communities in implementing their own solutions, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invites Tribes and Native American Serving Organizations (T/NASOs) and alley organizations to form The Native Collective Research Effort to Enhance Wellness (N CREW). The objectives of N CREW are to support T/NASOs to conduct community prioritized research, grow their infrastructure, and improve the quality of relevant data for local decision-making. With the support of N CREW, T/NASOs will conduct research and data improvement projects to promote wellbeing and healing from the effects of opioid and stimulant drugs, pain, and related problems, such as suicide, alcohol use, and historical trauma. We will form a key component of the N CREW Native Research Resource Network (NRRN) entitled, “Promoting Community Wellbeing Through Indigenous Science and Healing (PC-WISH).” PC-WISH will partner with other NRRN members to support T/NASOs as they develop and pilot research and data improvement projects. PC-WISH is led by a Multiple Principal Investigator team of three Native Investigators (Abigail Echo- Hawk, Kamilla Venner, Stacy Rasmus), and a non-Native researcher (Michael McDonell), who together have over 50 years of experience leading or partnering with T/NASOs, and a productive history of collaboration with one another. Our team has expertise in research on culturally grounded and adapted prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery interventions for opioids, stimulants, pain, and other problems, as well as leaders in Indigenous data improvement frameworks and research with Urban Indian people. PC-WISH is rooted in the understanding that Indigenous Knowledge is the basis for healing in AI/AN communities. We propose an Indigenous Research and Evaluation Partnership Model based on the metaphor of the seasons of the harvest. Using this model and guided by the principles of Tribal and Community Based Participatory Research, we propose the following aims. We will listen and learn from communities to understand their research and data improvement strengths and resource needs. We will host InterTribal Cafés in the first two quarters of the project to learn and document research readiness. We will use this information to create Partnership Plans that will guide our supports and develop blueprints in collaboration with T/NASOs to guide their formative work. We will develop, implement, and refine research trainings, tools, and knowledge exchange opportunities (e.g., workgroups, ongoing consultation) to support the growth of T/NASO research capacity. We will lead and engage in activities that establish, strengthen, and maintain partnerships, as reciprocal communication is the foundation of effective collaboration. We will evaluate our activities by using the Indigenous Evaluation Framework and host InterTribal Cafés at the end of Phase 1. We will use this feedback to reflect on lessons learned in preparation for Phase 2 of N CREW. We will create a dissemination and resource website to share lessons learned and serve as a resource to T/NASOs in the second phase of this important project. We will partner with T/NASOs to disseminate relevant information to their communities and the field. We will also co- lead cross-N CREW activities in collaboration with other NRRN members. Our work will be impactful because we have a track record of long-term sustained partnerships with Rural and Urban T/NASOs to design, implement, and disseminate intervention research and data improvement projects. We will use culturally grounded or adapted approaches to develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate our work. Our application is innovative because we have expertise that spans the prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery spectrum. We also have extensive research partnership experience in co- developing interventions grounded in local Indigenous Knowledge and culturally adapting evidence based approaches. Further, we can support T/NASOs who may want to develop and pilot multilevel strengths based interventions (individual, family, community), or interventions across the lifespan. PC-WISH has strong AI/AN leadership and representation and includes the only National Tribal Epidemiology Center that is focused on supporting Urban Indian communities. We will utilize innovative, culturally responsive methods to support T/NASOs in reaching their milestones, coordinate with NRRN partners, and refine our efforts so we are prepared to support the expansion of N CREW research in Phase 2 and beyond. This study is part of the NIH’s Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative to speed scientific solutions for the overdose epidemic, including opioid and stimulant use disorders, and the crisis of chronic pain. The NIH HEAL Initiative bolsters research across NIH to improve treatment for opioid misuse and addiction and acute and chronic pain.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

This project investigates social-ecological relationships within Pacific Northwest high-elevation ecological zones, emphasizing long-term cultural burning practiced by indigenous communities. The primary objectives of the project are to conduct archaeological surveys of subalpine ecosystems; interpret processes of high-elevation subsistence during the early Holocene and subsequent changes in burning practices; and investigate how subsistence land management influenced historical fire regimes and long-term ecosystem stability/change. This study employs an interdisciplinary approach that interweaves archaeology, paleoecology, participatory mapping, and computational modeling to evaluate how human-environment interactions shape high-elevation landscapes. This research develops partnerships with federal land managing agencies and indigenous partners in the co-interpretation of research results. Historically, fire has been used as a part of a set of tools to manage ecosystems but relatively little is known about the influence of historical practices of burning in high-elevation ecosystems. This project evaluates the spatial distribution and chronology of high elevation land-use, documents long-term trends in climate and human influence on fire and vegetation, and records material evidence for cultural burning practices to rejuvenate or maintain important plant species. This research develops a novel paleo-fire reconstruction and introduces new methods of soil charcoal analysis to make more substantial connections between past human land-use, cultural fire, and vegetation change. Datasets resulting from this project are evaluated using a computational “virtual laboratory” to examine dynamics among climate and cultural burning that may not be interpretable from the archaeological and fire history data alone. Results from this project advance the understanding of social-environmental change and stability in high-elevation ecosystems to enhance cooperative management strategies (e.g., co-stewardship, co-management), maintain cultural ecosystem services, reduce potential future wildfire severity, and buffer against ecosystem loss in these unique landscapes. 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.