Columbia University

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-06

This I-Corps project focuses on the development of a decentralized financial platform that enables peer-to-peer lending while eliminating interest-based transactions. This solution addresses the challenge faced by individuals and businesses who lack access to fair and transparent credit due to high interest rates and traditional financial barriers. Many borrowers, particularly in smaller communities, face limited financing options while lenders seek alternative ways to preserve value in an inflationary economy. By utilizing asset-backed digital tokens, particularly those backed by gold, this platform ensures that loans are collateralized and repaid based on the equivalent value of gold rather than fiat currency. This approach not only mitigates the risks of currency depreciation but also provides a more stable, transparent, and accessible credit alternative. The adoption of this technology has the potential to enhance financial access, promote economic stability, and provide a secure lending environment that benefits both borrowers and lenders. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of the technology. This solution is based on the development of a blockchain-powered lending infrastructure that enables the tokenization of real-world assets for collateralized loans. Unlike traditional lending systems, this platform leverages distributed ledger technology to ensure transaction transparency, enforceable smart contracts, and automated repayment mechanisms based on asset valuation. By using cryptographically secured digital representations of physical assets, lenders can provide credit with minimized counterparty risk, while borrowers can access capital without reliance on volatile fiat-based loan structures. This work contributes to advancements in decentralized finance and asset tokenization, offering a novel framework for secure, interest-free lending with applications in both consumer and institutional financial markets. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-05

Nontechnical Description This collaborative project will explore how polymers can be designed to leverage electron spin properties using light. This quantum phenomenon offers potential to transform emerging applications in information science and imaging. One promising but unproven way of generating useful spins involves a special class of organic molecules that, when properly designed, can efficiently use light to generate desirable quantum states. In this project the research team will develop a new approach to assemble light harvesting polymers that contain stable radicals to study the flow of energy to the spin center. The discoveries that ensue from these studies will lead to transformative technologies for spintronics, magnetic imaging, and quantum information science. The collaborative approach also focuses on mentorship, collaboration, and inclusion to foster a sense of belonging while expanding access to science. The researchers will promote recruitment and long-term success through initiatives that create pipelines from K-12 to professional careers. Technical Description This project will explore the unique spin characteristics of triplet pairs generated through singlet fission (SF) in macromolecular systems. The research team will develop macromolecular architectures that enable control over exciton dynamics and spin interactions in radical-containing polymers. The research will focus on designing novel multifunctional systems that can harness high spin polarization of the triplet pair multiexciton state to achieve enhanced energy conversion, spin polarization transfer, and optoelectronic applications. The project is structured around two primary objectives: (1) designing and characterizing multiexciton dynamics in radical-containing polymers, and (2) determining the spin and population dynamics to demonstrate the efficacy of spin polarization transfer in these systems. These activities will address significant hurdles hindering substantial progress in applications of SF that span from the lack of fundamental guidelines of multichromophore design in macromolecules to the orchestration of spin polarization transfer pathways to stable radicals. Traditional studies have focused on generating multiple excitons from a single photon, but this project differentiates itself by emphasizing the control and utilization of spin dynamics for energy conversion and quantum information processes. The project’s success will lead to a deeper understanding of the fundamental interactions between triplet pairs and radical spin centers, establishing new paradigms in multiexciton chemistry and molecular spintronics. This will significantly impact emerging technologies such as spintronics, magnetic imaging, and quantum information science by providing foundational knowledge for designing systems with enhanced spin polarization and stability at non-cryogenic temperatures. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

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

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

This project supports a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site dedicated to plasma physics. Covering both plasma astrophysics and magnetically confined plasma and fusion research, this REU Site will bring together the capabilities of both the Applied Physics and Astrophysics departments at Columbia University to provide a compelling intellectual environment and strong cohort experience for six to eight summer undergraduate students interested in this vibrant sub-field. We will engage students in primarily physics majors in both experimental and computational research activities. Students will be supported for a ten-week summer program to carry out a variety of research tasks relating to the aforementioned topics, enable them to gain direct exposure to cutting edge research in plasma physics. Through these efforts the project will contribute to the broader development of the nation’s scientific workforce. This REU Site will be the first and thus far only REU Site dedicated to plasma physics and fusion research. Both fundamental astrophysical plasma physics and applied fusion-inspired plasma physics research will be conducted within this REU site. The student projects will be linked by the common language of plasma physics: magneto-hydrodynamics, plasma waves, and kinetic theory. The cohort-level experience will center on these common elements. Columbia’s program supports a range of on-campus experiments, including three-dimensional plasma confinement devices called ‘stellarators’, two toroidally axisymmetric devices called ‘tokamaks’, and a burgeoning fusion clean energy technology program. Columbia’s magnetic confinement theoretical and computational program involves the study of plasma equilibrium, stability, and transport processes. Columbia's plasma astrophysics program studies plasma phenomena occurring in a broad range of astrophysical systems ranging from the Sun and the solar wind up to high energy relativistic systems like pulsars, active galactic nuclei, accretion disks, and supernovae. Students will be assigned to either experimentally-oriented (hands-on) or computationally-oriented projects across these areas. As a cohort, all students will be expected to engage with one-another and regularly communicate their findings to their peers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

This proposal will support travel for about 15 U.S.-based students to attend the 2025 Real World Cryptography (RWC) conference, which will be held in March 2025. Real World Crypto provides a venue for discussion of the latest research, developments, and trends in the field of cryptography, with a focus on helping practitioners understand the current state-of-the-art in cryptographic research and how it can be applied in practice. Students will attend technical paper presentations, poster sessions, and panel discussions to learn about new research findings and trends. Providing support for students to attend RWC will provide knowledge sharing, increased visibility of the students' research (and awareness by the students of others' research), and career development opportunities. The requested funds will allow students who otherwise would not be able to attend will be given the chance to deepen their knowledge of privacy technologies and meet researchers and other students. They will also have opportunities to learn about internships and job openings and to discuss employment and collaboration with more senior members of the field and build their professional networks. The call for applications will be widely distributed through a range of organizations and mailing lists, with the goal of reaching a wide applicant pool from different institutions, disciplines, and backgrounds in order to grow the cryptography research community. Selection criteria include presentation at the conference, documented financial need, and distribution of awards across multiple institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

With the support of the Chemistry of Life Processes program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Neel Shah from Columbia University is investigating how tyrosine kinases, a class of enzymes found in all animals and many other organisms, accurately relay information within cells. Tyrosine kinases play important roles in regulating cell growth, cell division, cell death, and responsiveness of cells to their environment. They operate by sensing biochemical cues and then chemically modifying other proteins, but in order for this to occur faithfully, tyrosine kinases must recognize specific proteins to modify out of the sea of possible targets in a cell. Professor Shah’s laboratory will explore the molecular rules underpinning protein recognition by tyrosine kinases. This research will illuminate new mechanisms by which tyrosine kinase signaling is controlled and also inspire the design of novel inhibitors of these enzymes. In conjunction with this research, the Shah lab will develop and implement hands-on biochemistry lessons at a local middle school to show students the numerous roles that enzymes and other biomolecules play in everyday life. The 90 tyrosine kinases found in humans have highly similar catalytic domains. Despite their structural homology, subtle differences in the active sites of each tyrosine kinase engender them with the ability to phosphorylate different substrates, in part by recognizing specific linear patterns of amino acid sequences. There now exists a reasonable description of sequence preferences for nearly every human tyrosine kinase. However, a complete picture of the biophysical basis for substrate selection and knowledge of how tyrosine kinases select substrates in different signaling contexts are still lacking. In this work, researchers within the Shah laboratory will first use protein chemistry and high-throughput peptide phosphorylation screens to examine how post-translational modifications to tyrosine kinases alter their substrate specificities. Next, using biochemical measurements coupled with structural analysis, researchers will assess whether the first-order approximations of sequence specificity that currently dominate the field can be improved by taking into account the energetic coupling between individual amino acids within a linear recognition motif. Finally, using the biochemical and biophysical insights into substrate recognition gained, a unique strategy for the design and synthesis of selective kinase inhibitors will be explored. This effort will produce new chemical tools to dissect kinase signaling and provide a template for the development of a new modality of kinase-targeted inhibitors. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-03

Most structural biology methods examine proteins at one moment in time, as if their structures were static. In recent years, however, we have come to understand that the dynamics of a protein are essential to its function. More tools are needed to examine protein dynamics. In this research, the investigator will seek to apply a method of time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy developed in his lab to diverse biological molecules of eminent interest in medicine, in collaboration with three renowned scientific laboratories, thus broadening the utility of this important tool for studying protein dynamics. The method involves rapidly mixing two components of a reaction, allowing the reaction to proceed for a controlled length of time, then rapidly freezing the sample for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Time-resolved cryo-EM will show the progression of a biochemical reaction as a sequence of intermediate states, like successive frames of a movie. The application of this method in the life sciences will greatly expand our understanding of molecular interactions in the cell in healthy persons, as well as their disruption in disease. This research is truly interdisciplinary as it is at the intersection of biology, biomedical engineering, nanofabrication, microfluidics and high-performance computing. As such it will inform molecular medicine and inspire projects for graduate students in the labs of the collaborators and nation-wide as it opens avenues of research and training in health science research never explored before. Using newly designed PDMS-based microfluidic chips, the PI's team will apply the time-resolved cryo-EM sample preparation method, which his lab has developed and demonstrated with the ribosome, to a diverse range of other molecules: (1) RNA polymerase, a large molecule that copies the genetic information from DNA to make mRNA; (2) GLP1R, a G-protein coupled receptor found on beta cells of the pancreas and neurons of the brain; and (3) multi-drug efflux transporter AcrB, to be isolated and inserted into proteoliposomes. Although the structures of these molecules are known, their mode of action involving domain motions in the time range of 10 to 1000 milliseconds cannot be explored with normal methods of structure research. Time-resolved cryo-EM can fill this knowledge gap. Samples will be supplied by three collaborating labs, and feasibility of determining intermediate states in the functional cycle will be explored. The experience gained will guide the decisions of the PI’s team on necessary design modifications, desired ranges of control parameters, and the addition of other features required to make the device generally applicable. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-03

This project provides funding for the Research Vessel Marcus G. Langseth to conduct oceanographic research missions supported by the National Science Foundation. The oceanographic research vessels of the Academic Research Fleet (ARF), operated by the academic institutions within the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) framework are multi-use facilities used to expand knowledge of the ocean environment. The surface work of these ships is complemented by human-occupied, remotely operated, and autonomous undersea vehicles and sensors that provide vital tools to understand the oceans and their resources. These seagoing research and educational facilities enable scientists and students to study natural phenomena and train future scientists while on board state-of-the-art oceanographic research vessels utilizing high-quality instrumentation. The ship operators will also conduct learning activities for students and the general public including hands-on demonstrations of marine science research guided by faculty, students, and ship crew members. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-03

This project aims to acquire a laser ablation microprobe (LAM) and quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (Q-ICPMS) at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University to support a broad sweep of research by LDEO, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and greater New York City researchers and students. The Q-ICPMS makes it possible to measure most of the elements in the periodic table with great sensitivity (below parts per trillion detection limits) in minutes. The LAM is a front-end sampler that allows measurement of solid materials in spots as small as 5 microns. Twenty-one separate research groups have developed new applications with the proposed instrumentation, including projects that bear on volcanic hazards, geohealth, and critical minerals. This project also provides support for geochemically-focused research projects by summer interns at LDEO, and provides training opportunities for students in state-of-the-art, hands-on chemical analysis. Purchase of a new excimer laser and Q-ICPMS will leverage two other high resolution ICPMS instruments in the designated lab (a 2009 Nu AttoM and a 2012 Thermo Neptune-Plus), enabling applications that range from multi-trace element to high precision isotope ratio measurements in microns-spot measurements. The primary research to utilize the LAM-Q-ICPMS system is focused on measuring chemical zonation in volcanic crystals for developing diffusion timescales of magma in motion beneath active volcanoes, and on measuring boron isotopes in serpentinites to trace the deep earth water cycle at subduction zones. Others in the user group propose provenance studies that focus on paleoclimate or human artifacts; in situ trace element analyses of melt inclusions, tephra and crystals for volcanic-magmatic-ore deposit research; corals and foraminifera for paleo-climate reconstructions; geohealth applications in the study of trace metals in rice, hair, soil and paint; and environmental engineering applications in carbon sequestration and processing of ores. In addition to LDEO and the AMNH, the new instrumentation will support research at other institutions in the New York City area, including several CUNY campuses and Stockton University. The facility will also provide training opportunities for up to 20 graduate students given existing projects. Further applications and new technique development are anticipated with another decade-plus of LAM-ICPMS capabilities. 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

Both earthquakes and ice sheet collapse pose enormous hazards with severe societal consequences. Both systems are partly controlled by friction. Microscopic contacts at rock interfaces of the fault or the base of the ice sheet controls the friction in these systems. The details of how these surfaces evolve as rocks fail hold information to better understand future events and to assess hazards. It is impossible to observe these interfaces in nature. The most informative measurements come from sensors placed at the surface. The goal of this proposal is to instead observe an experimental system to determine how interfaces slip and evolve. The experiments listen to ice slip experiments with sensors to study how the faults evolve, and how changes may affect seismic hazards. The project will support a graduate student and a collaboration across three institutions. The goal of the study is to understand how the evolution of contacts during cycles of shear, slip, and stability control large scale behaviors in both faults and glacial systems. This will be accomplished by directly observing the coupled processes that control nucleation, slow and fast slip, healing, drag, and melting in ice to understand the fundamental mechanisms that drive the evolution of conditionally unstable frictional interfaces. A series of both static and sliding experiments will be performed using a custom cryogenic biaxial apparatus and a sample of ice atop a glass plate. Ice will be used for two key reasons: 1) it is transparent, allowing light and images to be transmitted through it; and 2) it has a low melting temperature, such that exploring a modest range of temperature covers a broad swath of homologous temperature, T/Tm, and thus both brittle and ductile behavior. This knowledge, analyzed by cutting-edge machine learning data analysis methods and extrapolated up to larger systems, will improve understanding of the mechanics of the entire stick-slip cycle and stability. The project will support a graduate student and a collaboration across three institutions. 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

Evidence from ice cores in Antarctica has shown that the carbon dioxide (CO2) content of the atmosphere has changed systematically with Earth’s climate over the last 800,000 years, with lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations in cold (glacial) intervals. Because the oceans must maintain a balance between alkalinity supplied by continental weathering, and alkalinity removed by calcium carbonate burial, at least over long time periods, a reduction in the burial of calcium carbonate on continental shelves would induce an increase in the carbonate ion concentration of seawater to preserve more calcium carbonate in deep sea sediments. If seawater had a greater carbonate ion concentration than today, then it would absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere. However, the exact mechanism(s) responsible for this CO2 variability remain(s) to be determined. To address this key knowledge gap, the investigators seek to test a method for estimating the carbonate ion concentration of seawater in the past. Existing methods for estimating carbonate ion concentration are labor-intensive and expensive. This proposal aims to test a method that would be much faster and much less expensive. The scientific goal is to combine estimates of carbonate ion concentration from marine sediments with the other geologic evidence to determine the relative importance of biological processes and of changes in sea level as factors that contributed to lower atmospheric CO2 concentration during glacial intervals. Broader impacts activities include training, mentoring, and the involving undergraduate students in research, community outreach events, and workforce development. The investigators plan to advance the calibration of an existing proxy for calcium carbonate (CaCO3) dissolution, and to determine if the proxy also provides reliable estimates of bottom water carbonate ion concentration. Calcium carbonate dissolution in the deep sea is sensitive to changes in bottom water undersaturation (expressed as Delta [CO32-]), so a proxy method for CaCO3 dissolution (Globorotalia menardii Fragmentation Index – MFI), if rigorously calibrated, should provide a measure of bottom water Delta [CO32-]. The MFI method is rapid, inexpensive, only requires a microscope, and is suited to the involvement of undergraduate students in research on the global carbon cycle. The immediate goal is to determine if the MFI method can be used to provide a reliable measure of Delta [CO32-] through a 3-pronged calibration effort with previously collected samples: (1) Determine the MFI across a range of water depths in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific, where Delta [CO32-] and the rate of CaCO3 dissolution have been measured independently; (2) conduct a global survey, including the Eastern Equatorial Pacific, to compare MFI against climatological Delta [CO32-] to assess potential regional variability in the relationship between Delta [CO32-] and MFI; and (3) determine the MFI from marine sediments from the Central Equatorial Pacific, covering the last 160,000 years, in two cores where Delta [CO32-] has already been measured using B/Ca ratios in epibenthic foraminifera. 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

Massive amounts of data are now collected by nearly every industry and academic discipline. Uncovering the hidden insights in such data holds the key to major scientific challenges such as understanding how the brain works, discovering mechanisms leading to diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease, and combating climate change, among many others. But discovering key features and important relationships in complex and huge data poses major statistical and computational challenges. The investigator aims to develop new statistical machine learning approaches and theory for this task that break up huge data sets into small random subsets called minipatches to facilitate both faster computation and improved statistical efficiency. The new methods will be implemented in open-source software and applied to huge biomedical datasets in genomics and neuroscience. The project will provide undergraduate and graduate students training and professional development opportunities. Discovering key features and important relationships in complex and huge data commonly found in biomedicine poses not only major computational challenges but also critical statistical challenges. To tackle these challenges, the investigator plans to develop a new framework termed minipatch learning. Inspired by the successes of random forests, stability approaches in high-dimensional statistics, and stochastic optimization strategies, the investigator will build ensembles from many random tiny subsets of both observations and features or variables called minipatches. While ensemble learning strategies are commonly used in supervised machine learning, the investigator will use minipatch learning for the tasks of feature selection, model-agnostic inference for feature importance, and learning relationships amongst features through graphical models. The approach, which trains on very tiny subsets of the data, is expected to have dramatic computational and memory savings. The investigator aims to show both theoretically and empirically that such a strategy poses significant statistical advantages as well. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-02

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will support research that intends to advance understanding of the blood-clot interactions that may result in stroke for some patients with heart rhythm disorders. Atrial fibrillation, the irregular beating of the heart’s left atrium, is the most common heart rhythm disorder affecting millions of people worldwide. This condition leads to a four to five-fold increase in stroke risk. More than 90% of the blood clots that result in stroke are confined to the left atrial appendage due to low blood velocities in this region of the heart. However, there is a gap in our understanding of how the differences in left atrial geometry and tissue structure contribute to clot growth and clot breakup that can lead to stroke. This project will create a computational model of the left atrium to investigate how the heart’s structure changes blood flow patterns, elevating the risk of clot breakup. The knowledge gained from this project could have a far-reaching impact on other applications where clotting is a major risk, such as deep vein thrombosis and prosthetic heart valves. Further, this research will be integrated into an educational program and outreach plan under the theme of Engineering for Cardiovascular Health and Wellness. This includes enhanced coursework with hands-on projects and on-site and virtual research opportunities. These activities are designed to promote interest in STEM careers while fostering awareness of heart disease and biomechanics research. The research goals of this project are (i) to understand how the left atrial geometric and structural characteristics correlate with arrhythmogenic contraction and thrombogenic blood flow pattern and (ii) to interrogate how the left atrial tissue-blood interactions destabilize a clot to embolize, thereby leading to stroke. These goals intend to be met by creating an enhanced multiphysics cardiac biomechanics modeling framework capturing coagulation cascade and blood-clot interactions. Specific research objectives include (1) to create arrhythmogenic excitation-contraction patterns by varying the left atrial geometric and structural parameters, including size, tissue thickness, pulmonary vein attachments, and the extent of tissue fibrosis, (2) to evaluate the thrombogenicity of aberrant wall motions triggered due to atrial fibrillation, and (3) to understand blood-clot interactions in the setting of a deforming left atrial appendage. Critical questions to be answered include: (a) Do all atrial fibrillations trigger clots? (b) Is the clot severity associated with geometric hotspots and structural remodeling patterns? (c) What hemodynamic mechanisms are responsible for clot fragmentation and dissociation into emboli? These research activities are integrated into an educational and outreach plan that expands accessibility in engineering education. Together, the project supports the PI’s long-term goal to advance the clinical management of heart disease through cardiovascular biomechanics research while providing multidisciplinary education to a new generation of students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Glacial mass loss, a key indicator of climate change, is governed by the flow of ice. Glaciers lose mass to the sea due to internal ice movement, or ‘flow,’ caused by gravity. The rate of flow expected, which is described by a mathematical relationship based on laboratory observations of solid ice, is a large source of uncertainty in models of sea level rise. Ice flow laws do not yet incorporate the role of meltwater, even though water ice often occurs close to its melting temperature. Our models of increasingly warm ice therefore do not fully capture the enhanced flow rates that are known to occur when meltwater is present, and thus do not always match natural observations. This work hypothesizes that the orientation of the meltwater itself is key to understanding flow, drawing parallels from recent experimental work on rock-magma systems, and aims to create new flow laws that explicitly include meltwater via the results of new experimental deformation tests. The investigator will use the results of these tests to improve existing deformation simulation software so that future climate scientists can extrapolate specific laboratory results to other settings. As icy settings warm due to climate change, the role of meltwater in controlling glacial flow will only increase. The ice flow laws established from this work will provide necessary, timely inputs for models of iceberg calving and sea level rise, yielding direct benefit to society through improved understanding of natural hazards threatening our planet. The investigator will also train an undergraduate student and advance the involvement of women and gender minorities in STEM research through in-person outreach activities. To characterize and quantify the role of meltwater orientations in governing the geophysical properties of deforming icy systems, this project will employ multiple experimental geometries: compression, torsion, and a combination of the two. Several compressive deformation tests will also include forced oscillations, increasing our understanding of temperate ice flow in tidally modulated settings. These experiments will allow researchers to examine how both meltwater and solid ice orientations evolve in diverse glacial settings, using unique cryogenic imaging machinery; this microstructural imaging will then be combined with mechanical data from deformation experiments to create flow laws for temperate ice that contain a specific term for the evolving role of meltwater. The results of all experiments will then be used to modify open-source microstructural deformation simulation models, yielding publicly accessible computational tools that reflect the physics of melt orientation. This project will thus produce a flow law and microphysical models that clarify how ice and meltwater together create the macroscopic geophysical properties of deforming ice across regimes. 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

Our magnetic field influences Earth’s habitability, human technology and communications, upper atmospheric dynamics, and more. Recent changes to the field open questions as to how the field will to change in the future, and the impact this will have on the Earth system. Notably, during the historical period when humans have made direct measurements of the field, the geomagnetic field strength has decreased and the rate of North Magnetic Pole movement has accelerated. This project will study geologic archives of geomagnetic change from 10,000 to 7,000 years ago, an era that may have been similar to modern geomagnetic field changes. Specifically, the project strengthens international collaborations to synthesize new and existing reconstructions of direction and intensity changes from Arctic Ocean and lake sediment cores that create a broad longitudinal transect including Northern Alaska, Arctic Canada, Northern Greenland, and Northern Europe. This project will target 22 core samples that meet strict quality requirements and are available to the US research community in NSF supported repositories but have not previously been investigated for geomagnetic reconstructions. Two graduate students will learn methods that will have broad applications to their future careers in geophysical, data analysis, and earth science fields. This project will establish an early to mid-Holocene paleomagnetic transect across the Arctic to test a fundamental, yet somewhat counter intuitive, hypothesis about the nature of the geomagnetic field. The hypothesis, “the decrease in geomagnetic dipole moment observed in the last two centuries represents a transition to a more stable, more geocentric axial dipole like field that could persist for millennia”, is informed by 1) Holocene dipole moment reconstructions, 2) longer-term (100 thousand year) dipole moment reconstructions, 3) reconstructions of global field morphology that demonstrate that high intensities of the late Holocene are associated with a more dynamic field than the more average intensities of the early Holocene, and 4) disagreement between modeling efforts for the early Holocene that stems from limited data coverage. While previous work often discusses two states of the geomagnetic field—one that is strong and stable and one that is week and unstable—this hypothesis suggests that the field may be better described by three states with the greatest stability at intermediate dipole moments. The research team identifies archives for which strong independent radiocarbon chronologies already exist (or can be developed), extend to the early Holocene, and have very high accumulation rates (minimally >50 cm/kyr; ideally >100 cm/kyr). Reproducibility is at the heart of this work and is a critical test of reliability. Expected products will include new full-Holocene, full-vector paleomagnetic reconstructions from three Arctic regions (the Beaufort Sea, Northern Greenland, and the Northern North Atlantic) that will be among the highest quality and highest resolution reconstructions available. When combined with previously published data, this paleomagnetic transect will enable exploration of geomagnetic variations at the right time interval needed to assess this hypothesis. This project will support the education of two graduate students, support an international collaboration, and lead to the development of outreach materials on the Earth’s magnetic field. 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

Visualizations of data, such as charts and graphs, are increasingly used to communicate and analyze data in business, health, journalism, and many other domains. When presenting data, one important issue is uncertainty: data can be noisy, incomplete, or biased, while statistical analyses based on data often return a range of possibilities. Failing to include information about uncertainty in a visualization can mislead viewers; however, adding uncertainty information can make visualizations more complex, which could also cause confusion. The key idea of this project is that visualizations should be designed to be responsive to the needs, abilities, and resources of viewers, displaying an appropriate amount and complexity of uncertainty information. For instance, someone with experience in data analysis and facing a long-term strategic decision might want a complete picture of the range and likelihood of outcomes and could afford to spend time poring over a complex set of contingencies and predictive intervals. Someone with less experience and making a short-term tactical decision might get the most utility from a simpler representation that shows the estimated average case, along with the lower and higher boundaries of the estimate. The project team will develop methods to model people's abilities and needs, along with a library of ways to represent uncertainty, that can be combined to make more valuable and widely accessible visualizations that improve people's decision-making ability. The goal of the project is to explore the design space of responsive uncertainty visualization. To do this, the research team will first examine the relevant resources needed when considering visualization design, from practical concerns like screen display size and internet bandwidth to higher-level concepts like visualization literacies, decision-making constraints, and rhetorical goals. This will be done in conjunction with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds who work in high-impact decision scenarios like crisis informatics. The team will then explore how designs for uncertainty visualizations can be adapted to the constraints imposed by these various resources, creating a "design dictionary" of responsive approaches, ready for use for any designers working to communicate uncertainty information to diverse audiences. 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 ocean plays an important and variable role in Earth’s climate system, as it works with the atmosphere to move and store heat and moisture throughout the globe. In the Atlantic Ocean, a series of surface currents brings warm, salty seawater northward, where it cools and becomes dense enough to sink to great depths. The atmosphere receives the heat from the cooling ocean, warming the climate at high latitudes, and the newly dense water spreads southward at depth and throughout the world’s ocean as the North Atlantic Deep Water. This system of surface and deep currents is called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), and there is evidence from computer models and deep-sea sediments that when it has changed in the past, the North Atlantic region experienced dramatic and abrupt climate change. There is also increasing concern that this ocean circulation might slow down in the future. This project is designed to take advantage of high-quality deep-sea sediment cores to examine evidence of the behavior of the ocean circulation in connection with warm and cold intervals during the last ice-age climate cycle. It will help establish the link between ocean circulation and climate change in the past, with potential implications for the future. This research project will promote training and learning for a postdoctoral investigator, science educators and students. This project will involve the generation of high-quality, high-resolution paleoceanographic data, including multiple proxies for deep-ocean circulation, largely utilizing legacy materials from a suite of deep-sea drilling sediment cores from the North Atlantic Ocean. The project will fill substantial knowledge gaps and allow hypothesis testing by improving the resolution of sedimentary data from the peak last interglacial interval at the Bermuda Rise in the western basin, and by generating the first deglacial depth transects and long, high-resolution datasets of these combined AMOC proxies from the eastern basin at the Iberian Margin. The data will be used to test hypotheses regarding the spatial structure and role of AMOC in past climate change, including glacial, interglacial, and abrupt oscillations in the climate system. 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 broader impact of this I-Corps project is based on the development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-guided tracheotomy assist device that enhances the safety, speed, and accessibility of emergency airway procedures. By combining ultrasound technology with advanced machine learning algorithms, the device assists providers in accurately locating critical anatomic landmarks for tracheotomy and cricothyrotomy procedures. This system allows non-expert personnel to perform life-saving airway access in settings where trained specialists may not be available, such as during emergencies in the field or in remote locations. The device's potential to reduce complications and improve success rates could transform emergency response practices across healthcare settings, including emergency rooms, ambulances, military medical units, and intensive care units (ICUs). In the long term, this technology could become common in public spaces, giving first responders and civilians a reliable, intuitive tool to manage severe airway obstructions and save lives. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of the technology. The solution is based on the development of a portable device that integrates an ultrasound probe with a machine-learning algorithm to guide airway cannulation. The device detects and marks anatomical landmarks in real time, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to set the ideal cannulation angle and depth while avoiding critical structures. Research has demonstrated that the device can successfully distinguish airway structures and provide precise guidance for accessing the trachea in emergency scenarios. Unlike existing tools, which primarily aid incision control, this innovation actively identifies and navigates complex anatomy, addressing a key reason for procedural failure. This approach provides a novel solution that has the potential to empower more healthcare providers to perform this life-saving intervention with confidence and accuracy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This project will test the role of migration in maintaining and generating biodiversity using state-of-the-art tracking and genomic technology. Individuals from nearly every animal group migrate and billions of individuals, migrate thousands of kilometers each year. Considerable variation in migration route has been documented but what is less well understood is the underlying genetic basis for that variation and the consequences for maintaining species boundaries or even promoting diversification of new species. This research will make use of a global network of radio towers to collect data on migration routes in the Swainson’s thrush, a migratory bird with eastern- and western-migrating subspecies. Individuals of this species, like many others, migrate from breeding grounds in the northwestern North America via central America and south into Chile each year. This project will evaluate the underlying genetics of migration route and the consequences of routes intermediate between the classical eastern and western routes for survival and the maintenance of the subspecies. Many of the radio towers are hosted by schools. Thus, research themes and infrastructure from this project will also be used as inspiration for teaching resources for elementary, secondary, and undergraduate students across the Americas. Education modules focused on migration and evolution will be designed for teachers, provided in English and Spanish, and offered to students internationally across the migration routes of the thrush. These modules will integrate ‘nature of science’ pedagogy while featuring international coordination as key to the protection of migrating species. Migration’s importance for speciation was proposed nearly three decades ago but has received far less attention. Many migrants breed next to one another but use different migratory routes. These routes are largely genetically determined and often involve navigation around large geographic barriers. Accordingly, hybrids in these systems are predicted to take intermediate routes that bring them over these barriers, reducing their fitness and gene flow between species. This project will test migration’s role in speciation. Specifically, state of the art infrastructure for tracking birds and genomic resources developed to genotype hundreds of individuals at low coverage will be used to (1) compare survival rates of parental and hybrid thrushes, (2) identify genetic variants underlying migratory traits, and (3) test if selection against hybrids is acting on these variants. No direct test of migration’s role in speciation has been conducted to date, leaving critical gaps in our understanding of speciation, given that differences in migration are taxonomically widespread and could help explain the predominance of young species pairs in the temperate region. Migration could also be a compelling example of an extrinsic postzygotic isolating barrier, given that reductions in hybrid fitness derive from mismatches between their intermediate behavior and parental environments. Extrinsic isolation is thought to be important in speciation, but its extent in nature is unknown, especially in vertebrates. This work will reach fields beyond speciation as well, including the genetics of complex behavior and conservation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

This project provides funding for the Research Vessel Marcus G. Langseth to conduct oceanographic research missions supported by the National Science Foundation. The oceanographic research vessels of the Academic Research Fleet (ARF), operated by the academic institutions within the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) framework are multi-use facilities used to expand knowledge of the ocean environment. The surface work of these ships is complemented by human-occupied, remotely operated, and autonomous undersea vehicles and sensors that provide vital tools to understand the oceans and their resources. These seagoing research and educational facilities enable scientists and students to study natural phenomena and train future scientists while on board state-of-the-art oceanographic research vessels utilizing high-quality instrumentation. The ship operators will also conduct learning activities for students and the general public including hands-on demonstrations of marine science research guided by faculty, students and ship crew members. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Enhancing the computational skills of all American students is essential to building a robust and globally competitive workforce, yet efforts to integrate computation into K-12 education has highlighted a massive shortfall in appropriately trained educators. This high school-focused Research Practitioner Partnership will bring together computation and science education experts from Columbia University and the City University of New York (CUNY) to understand the challenges facing K-12 educators in the New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) as they seek to increase their computational expertise, and to provide both professional and curricular support to those already teaching computational courses at the high school level. By generating new insights into the types of support that K-12 teachers need to bring high-quality computational learning into the classroom and ensure its meaningful integration across courses and grade levels, this project will inform the design of education and professional development programs that effectively recruit and retain high-quality computational K-12 educators. Despite recent strides in developing computational curricula at the K-12 level, the United States faces a deficit of effective computational educators, . Recent research highlights a number of obstacles to recruiting and retaining computational educators including missing pre- and in-service preparation and professional networks, workplace isolation and insufficient support in developing and delivering culturally aligned and pedagogically coherent curricula. The goal of this work is to develop a robust high school research practitioner partnership (HS-RPP) between Columbia University, City University of New York (CUNY) researchers and practitioners and New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) teachers to reveal challenges teachers experience with existing Computer Science(CS)/Computational Thinking(CT) certification pathways, and to conduct exploratory research on the efficacy of peer support and professional development in curricular coherence for enhancing science teacher identity - and therefore persistence - for high school instructors. 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

Animals time many of their behaviors to coincide with features of the environment. Climate change is affecting this synchrony and this mismatch will have cascading effects on our ecosystems. This project will examine the connection between migratory timing and resource availability in a songbird. Resources on the breeding grounds (e.g., insects important for raising young) are peaking earlier each year. Songbirds may not be able to respond to these changes, modifying the timing of their migration to arrive on the breeding grounds earlier. This mismatch is not only of concern to researchers; federal and state wildlife agencies are also trying to prepare for the downstream consequences of this phenomenon. Accordingly, this project was designed in collaboration with wildlife agencies. Results will help policy makers assess existing protection policies and test new management plans for migratory songbirds. Local outreach along the migratory flyway is also planned (e.g., educational programming on migration that will connect children across North and South America). Underrepresented groups in STEM will also be recruited in this project and included in both the research and outreach plans. Plasticity and adaptation could allow migrants to advance their migratory timing, but direct estimates of these mechanisms and their molecular basis are rare and restricted to a small number of proximate populations. This project will begin filling this knowledge gap, using state-of-the-art tools from several disciplines (e.g., animal movement ecology, genomics and computer modeling) and data from a broad geographic scale. Specifically, (1) plasticity and (2) adaptation for migratory timing will be estimated and (3) the molecular basis of this trait will be examined. Estimates of plasticity and adaptation will then be (4) integrated into models predicting how populations will respond to climate change and specific conservation strategies being proposed for this group. The species chosen for this work already shows advances in their migratory timing, but these advances are weaker in populations that breed further north. This trend could relate to the fact that environmental conditions on the breeding grounds are less predictable for northern breeders and is a question this project will address. Results from this project will be relevant to many fields (e.g., genetics, behavior and evolution) and the predictive framework can be used for other systems, traits and environmental variation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-12

Understanding the Earth's interior remains a top research priority in the geosciences. How much carbon is in the Earth's mantle, how much goes in and how much comes out - these questions remain unanswered despite decades of dedicated research. Yet the answers to these questions have profound implications for how the Earth's interior must function and how our planet has evolved over geological time. This project aims to precisely quantify the carbon content and its isotopic signature (δ13C) in the upper mantle to constrain how much of the Earth's carbon is contained in the upper mantle and in which regions of the mantle it accumulates. This research will not only advance our fundamental knowledge of Earth's interior but also support education by training a graduate student in state-of-the-art experimental and analytical techniques. The project seeks to determine the carbon content and δ13C signature of the upper mantle through a two-pronged approach. First, the researchers will experimentally determine the mass-dependent isotopic fractionation of carbon during the degassing of silicate melts. High-pressure/high-temperature experiments will be conducted using internally heated pressure vessels and piston-cylinder apparatuses to simulate conditions in the upper mantle. These experiments will measure the isotopic fractionation coefficients (α) as a function of melt composition, temperature, and pressure. Second, the team will directly measure δ13C in deep mantle melts using melt inclusions from volcanoes such as Etna, Erebus, and El Hierro. By combining experimental data with natural observations, the researchers will back-calculate the original carbon content and isotopic signature of the mantle. The project will utilize recent advances in secondary ion mass spectrometry. The results will provide a comprehensive understanding of the carbon cycle in the upper mantle, contributing to our knowledge of Earth's deep carbon reservoirs and their impact on global geodynamics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-11

The ability of T lymphocytes, cells with key roles in adaptive immunity, to patrol the body, respond to pathogens, and coordinate activities of organs has led to their use as a “living drug”, most prominently against cancer. However, reliable manufacture of these cells remains a challenge, which has inspired the development of biomaterials that promote desirable qualities of these cells. This project focuses on using the stiffness of such materials to improve T cell production, focusing on the growing realization that the chemical composition of each material affects cell response. Specifically, this project investigates how transport of nutrients such as oxygen through biomaterials can improve T cell production and sensing of mechanical stiffness. The fundamental knowledge gained from this project will directly benefit entities involved in cell manufacturing for immunotherapy of cancer, autoimmune disease, and an ever-widening range of diseases. This project brings together mechanical engineering, biomaterials engineering, and applied immunology, and will continue to train a workforce at this diverse intersection of fields. This project also benefits from a robust commercialization environment, which will educate the next generation of researchers in not only the underlying engineering but the process of product commercialization, protecting benefits for the U.S. economy and society. The design of reactors for manufacture of living cells has major impacts on the quality and production reliability of therapeutic products. An intriguing approach to improving cell manufacturing has emerged using the ability of T cells to sense the stiffness of an activating surface; replacing the stiff materials commonly used for cell activation with mechanically softer counterparts offers more cells per round of growth and control over cell phenotype. However, the chemistry of the material affects this mechanosensing, shifting or altering this response through mechanisms that are not well understood. This project will fill this gap in knowledge by testing the role of oxygen availability, as modulated by the material, in driving T cell response. This project will use new in vitro growth configurations together with numerical simulations to test the effect of oxygen availability on a set of strategic T cell responses. The broader impact of the work includes workforce development such as the Lab-to-Market (L2M) Accelerator bootcamp will also provide training activity for students involved in this research (graduate, undergraduate, and high school students) to gain experience in translating laboratory ideas to commercial products. 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

Many systems that are central to modern society – such as web search engines, smart assistants, generative AI, and web archives – rely on the ability to automatically load (a.k.a. "crawl") large numbers of web pages quickly. However, "web crawler" software that has been traditionally used to crawl the web is now insufficient for three reasons. First, many pages require users to be logged in. As a result, a traditional crawler sees only the login page and is blind to content that actual users would see. Second, the number of web pages is ever-increasing, and interactive pages and web applications have significantly increased the amount of computation necessary for a client to identify all the resources on a typical page. In combination, these factors make it significantly more expensive than before to crawl either a large corpus of sites or to recrawl pages frequently to capture changes. Third, many pages are dynamic or interactive, and many use embedded third-party services such as maps, social media widgets, and language translation are either hampered or fail to work on crawled page copies. As a result, systems and studies that rely on content crawled from the web lack visibility into a large portion of the web, are unable to keep up with the rate at which they need to crawl pages and end up replaying crawled pages with poor fidelity. To address these challenges, this project will develop Sprinter, a modern web crawler capable of capturing the web and its rich services as seen and experienced by users. Sprinter will crawl any page such that the content crawled is representative of what users see on the page. Its overheads will grow sub-linearly with the number of pages and the frequency of monitoring. Any page crawled using Sprinter will be renderable in a manner that closely approximates the original page, both visually and functionally. To develop Sprinter, the project will make research contributions along three dimensions. First, the project will use widespread support for authentication via single sign-on (SSO) providers such as Google and Facebook and generate representative browsing profiles from privacy-preserving network traces. Second, to make Sprinter’s crawling efficient, the project will devise techniques to reuse application computations across similar pages and to identify a small representative subset of pages that Sprinter needs to measure at high frequency. Lastly, to enable high-fidelity replay of the crawled copy of a page, the project will develop methods to crawl all of the page’s resources that will be needed to serve any common load of that copy. A major broader impact is in the research and use cases that Sprinter enables for the community. Further, Sprinter and the results of its crawls will be made available to other researchers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.