Oklahoma State University

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-04

The Earth’s surface is constantly moving and changing shape. In some places, like East Africa, a continent stretches to the point of breaking, forming continental rifts that, after a period of time, can form new oceans. Numerous studies show that continental rifts develop along weakened zones caused by deep intrusions of magma. Some continental rifts, however, form without evidence of magma intrusions and are known as magma-poor or "dry" rifts. In this project, an investigation of the East African Rift System will take place along the Northern Western Branch located in Uganda, East Africa where magma-poor rifting is taking place. A wide range of geophysical, geological, and geochemical observations will be collected, and numerical modeling of the region will be performed to advance our understanding of how these magma-poor rifts form and evolve. In conjunction with the scientific investigation, ]Ugandan partners will be engaged in data collection techniques. Ugandan and US graduate students will participate, underrepresented students mentored, and several open-access data sets and model products shall be developed. Societal implications of this study include advances in rifting models used for hydrocarbon exploration, improved estimates of CO2 flux into the atmosphere that occurs during continental rifting, and new insights into seismic hazards associated with active faulting. The scientific results of this project will be communicated, in part, through short educational videos geared towards public audiences. Continental rifting is an integral component of the plate tectonic paradigm, yet speculation remains about the physical processes involved in magma-poor/-dry rifting. The goal of this project is to apply a combination of geophysical, geological, geochemical and geodynamic techniques to the Northern Western Branch of the East African Rift System in Uganda to test 3 hypotheses: (1) in magma-rich rifts, strain is accommodated through lithospheric weakening from melt, (2) in magma-poor rifts, melt is present below the surface and weakens the lithosphere such that strain is accommodated during upper crustal extension, and (3) in magma-poor rifts, there is no melt at depth and strain is accommodated along pre-existing structures such as inherited compositional, structural, and rheological lithospheric heterogeneities. Observational methods in this project include: passive seismic to constrain lithospheric structure and flow patterns; gravity to constrain variations in crustal and lithospheric thickness; magnetics to constrain the thermal structure of the upper crust; magnetotellurics to constrain lithospheric thickness and the presence of melt; GNSS to constrain surface motions, extension rates, and help characterize mantle flow; geologic mapping to document the geometry and kinematics of active faults; seismic reflection analyses of intra-rift faults to document temporal strain migration; geochemistry to quantify mantle-derived fluids in hot springs and gases; and geodynamic modeling to develop new models of magma-poor rifting processes. 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 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site award to Oklahoma State University, located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, supports the training of 10 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2026-2028. In this program, funded by the Division of Chemistry and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), the student participants will perform research at an R1 institution while working on important problems in Chemistry. The projects are designed to be appropriate for their skill level and to promote their interest in the sciences. Professional development training will expose the students to elements of graduate school and increase their awareness of career opportunities within the field of chemistry. The program will encourage participation by students from primarily undergraduate institutions in the state of Oklahoma. The selected students will participate in interdisciplinary research that focuses on Materials Chemistry, Medicinal/Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Advanced Spectroscopies, Chemical Biology, Catalysis, Environmental Chemistry, Bioanalytical Chemistry and Computational Chemistry. Students will benefit from the highly collaborative environment, one-on-one interactions with faculty and graduate student mentors, state-of-the-art facilities, and opportunities to present their research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-03

This I-Corps project is based on the development of a discovery platform to optimize enzymes for industrial processes. Enzymes are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. Enzymes may be used in the chemical industry and other industrial applications including food and beverage processing, pharmaceutical and cosmetic production, animal feeds, textiles, paper production, and household cleaning products. Currently, enzymes are limited by the number of reactions they can catalyze and also by their lack of stability in organic solvents and at high temperatures. To address these challenges, protein engineering has been developed to create new enzymes with novel properties. However, this technology is often hampered by the inability to specifically identify or design enzymes with the combination of properties needed to make the process both technically feasible and economically viable. The aim of this discovery platform is to identify enzyme variants that have the required combination of properties to create new industrial enzymes with superior properties that will improve industrial processes. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of a platform to identify regions of the amino acid sequence space that encode proteins for enzyme-based industrial processes. Proteins in nature occur as protein families that share similar amino acid sequences and three-dimensional structures but often have considerable functional diversity. Biotech companies developing, producing, or using enzymes may encounter a protein from a protein family of interest exhibiting excellent stability but slow catalytic activity while another protein from this protein family has the opposite pair of functional characteristics (excellent catalytic rate but poor stability). Currently, it is challenging to obtain an enzyme that combines both desirable properties. A process has been developed that may yield dually optimized enzymes. This approach provides an enhanced sampling approach to identify previously undiscoverable functional proteins in sequence space. The solution is applicable to any enzyme or protein activity for which an optical readout is available either for the purified protein or in cell-based assays and it may be used to achieve optimal combinations of a wide range of protein properties. The goal of the technology is to identify variants of proteins and enzymes that exhibit a combination of enhanced properties. This enhanced sampling technology is based on the design and experimental study of a series of computationally derived proteins. The technology combines gene synthesis, high-throughput measurements of the properties of enzyme variants, and strategies to select the most informative sequences. Such proteins may make enzyme-based industrial processes economically viable and yield proteins with superior properties for a range of biotechnology applications. 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

The mathematical study of fluid dynamics and interacting particle systems plays a crucial role in science and engineering, where one of the main approaches is the analysis of the associated partial differential equations (PDEs). These equations are pertinent to a wide array of real-world applications and have been extensively researched. For instance, they are essential in understanding related phenomena in physics and biology, such as formation of severe weather conditions and collective animal behavior. Additionally, they play a vital role in addressing some of the nation’s most pressing issues such as weather prediction, aircraft design and collective dynamics modeling. Developing mathematical theories in this area is both challenging and immensely valuable for comprehending intricate behaviors. The primary focus of this project is to investigate the steady states of these equations. The main goal is to develop a comprehensive analytical framework that enhances the understanding of these steady states, including their existence, singular behavior, and stability. An integral part of this project is the educational component, which will offer training opportunities for students and provide platforms for professional development of young researchers in PDEs and analysis. This project contains three interrelated directions. The first direction focuses on the three-dimensional (3D) incompressible Navier-Stokes equations (NSE), progressing toward a comprehensive understanding of an important class of steady states with scaling-invariance property. The plan is to first address the existence of these solutions and then investigate their singularity behavior and classification. The second direction aims to understand the stability of steady states of the 3D incompressible NSE, building on the results from the first direction, where new analytical tools with more general applications are developed. The third direction studies the aggregation-diffusion equation. The goal is to study the steady states of the equation and whether the dynamics converge to the steady states, as well as the stability of the related interaction energy. This project is jointly funded by the Applied Mathematics program in the Division of Mathematical Sciences and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

This Research Infrastructure Improvement EPSCoR Research Fellows project will provide a fellowship to a faculty member and training for a graduate student at Oklahoma State University. This work will be conducted with collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh. Climate change is now a major selective pressure for many organisms with consequences for range distributions, timing of migration and breeding, and changes to body shapes and sizes. However, the mechanisms underlying these changes are often poorly understood and may be critical to predicting the ability of organisms to respond to climate change. The microbiome is a strong candidate mechanism for generating differences in body size, and the avian microbiome is particularly understudied, especially in connection with host phenotypes. Through the fellowship, the PI aims to use a house sparrow study system to test the idea that gut microbiome composition contributes to body size variation and the ability of organisms to adapt to local environmental change. This project will integrate multiple data types to provide insight into a novel mechanism, microbially mediated plasticity that may allow organisms to respond rapidly to human-induced environmental change. The broader impact of this project includes undergraduate trainees in the research, the advancement of women in science, and the leveraging of information from fellowship activities to revamp a Physiology course. Rapid environmental changes challenge the ability of organisms to adapt through genetic mechanisms. To facilitate more rapid responses to environmental change, organisms utilize phenotypic plasticity. Additional plasticity may be conferred by the genes of the diverse microbes inhabiting hosts. This extended range of phenotypes is called microbially mediated plasticity, and the potential for the microbiome to contribute to host adaptation to environmental change is a novel and largely unexplored mechanism that might enhance host acclimation. Body size is one trait likely to be important in adaptation to environmental change. In endotherms, body size increases with latitude following the ecographic pattern, called Bergmann’s Rule. Larger body sizes are favored in colder environments for heat retention or greater fat stores. However, despite widespread taxonomic support for Bergmann’s Rule, the mechanisms responsible for generating this pattern are unknown. Through this fellowship, the PI will work with collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh to use house sparrows to test the idea that gut microbiome composition contributes to body size variation and the ability of organisms to adapt to local environmental change. Specifically, this fellowship will enable the PI to utilize previously collected samples from a widely distributed songbird and: (1) determine the effect of the gut microbiota on adult host phenotypes across environmental gradients, (2) determine the relationships between the gut microbiota and growth rates during development, and (3) determine the effect of host environment on the gut microbiota of developing young through a reciprocal transplant experiment. The fellowship training will also support a new active learning lab for a large undergraduate Physiology course. 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

Recent studies reveal that gaps in current atmospheric observations contribute to uncertainties in weather model forecasts. These gaps arise due to a mismatch in resolution between existing measurement tools, such as radiosondes, and modern Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. To address these gaps, this project aims to understand how small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) can obtain high-resolution atmospheric measurements under realistic wind conditions. sUAS offer advantages like reusability and independence from finite resources like helium. The project will focus on developing a reliable sUAS-based scientific measurement platform for atmospheric data collection and extending the flight autonomy of sUAS through an improved understanding of their interactions with atmospheric turbulence. This initiative will enhance weather forecasts and provide valuable environmental monitoring capabilities. Spatial and temporal observational gaps in existing measurement systems contribute to model forecast uncertainty. This uncertainty results from a resolution mismatch between current measurement systems, such as radiosondes, and advances in Numerical Weather Predictions (NWPs). This mismatch prevents NWPs from achieving maximum regional skill, particularly for pressure, temperature, humidity, and two-dimensional wind speed and direction measurements. Considering technological advances in small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) and their deployments for atmospheric boundary layer studies, sUAS could fill this data gap. They provide high-resolution spatiotemporal measurements of the lower atmosphere and maintain ground-relative position even in high winds. Compared to radiosondes, sUAS are nearly 100% reusable, environmentally friendly, and independent of finite resources like helium. Successful sUAS-based atmospheric measurements date back to the 1970s, with significant advancements in the early 2000s. Research teams developed custom sUAS designs for atmospheric sampling, with publications validating their effectiveness compared to towers, radiosondes, and LIDARs. Recent efforts have shown the feasibility and advantages of assimilating WxUAS data into NWPs and using sUAS for in-situ weather verification. However, reliable measurements from UAS platforms remain challenging due to the influence of the drone's presence, propulsion unit, and atmospheric turbulence on measurements. Turbulence also reduces flight autonomy and precludes extended missions in turbulent weather. To better understand UAS behavior and capabilities, this project will utilize a pixelated-wind facility known as a windshaper. Using multifan technology, UAS of any size can be flown in realistic wind conditions, including turbulence, shear flows, gusts, vortical flows, precipitation, and pollution particulates. The two main objectives of the project are: (1) to develop a reliable scientific measurement platform based on UAS for probing atmospheric pollution (chemicals, particulates) and thermodynamic and wind properties, and (2) to extend the flight autonomy of fixed winged UAS by developing a fundamental understanding of their interaction with microscale atmospheric turbulence. This collaborative U.S.-Swiss project is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), where NSF funds the U.S. investigator and SNSF funds the partners in Switzerland. 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

In 2050, the global population is expected to reach nearly 10 billion. Global food production and water consumption will increase by at least 70% and 50% by 2050, respectively. Today, one third of U.S. counties suffer from severe drought, causing losses of more than $30 billion/year to U.S. irrigated farms. In-situ soil monitoring in crop fields to enable efficient irrigation practices is an important water management strategy. Nevertheless, only 12% of irrigated farms in the U.S. have deployed soil sensors due to limitations of current technologies, which are unable to infer field-wide soil conditions from local sensor measurements. There are also challenges in using soil monitoring to improve irrigation scheduling. This project will advance the fundamental science underlying strategies to capture field-scale soil moisture and salinity data to optimize soil monitoring and irrigation control. The success of the project will make sensor-based digital agriculture attractive and economically viable for farmers, which will help strengthen the national security of food and water resources. The project will also help build research capabilities at Oklahoma State University in scientific computing, artificial intelligence, digital agriculture, and sustainability. It will provide opportunities for students to conduct STEM research. In addition, educational and outreach programs will raise awareness and broaden participation of engineering students, farmers, and local communities in digital and sustainable farming, thus helping prepare the next-generation workforce to adopt digital solutions and systems thinking in the food and agriculture sectors. This project develops a data-driven, physics-augmented digital twin to address whether and how field-wide soil moisture and salinity profiles can be attained by a small number of strategically placed sensors, and explores how to leverage these profiles to design efficient crop irrigation systems. The project integrates water-solute-soil dynamics modeling, sensor network design, and irrigation scheduling to provide efficient and affordable solutions for field-wide soil monitoring and irrigation decision-making. The project will develop foundational theories and efficient algorithms to model complex spatiotemporal water-solute-soil dynamics and solve the associated inverse problem. It will create a new physics-integrated active learning framework based on spatiotemporal Gaussian process coupled with mutual-information filling principle for optimal soil sensor placement. Furthermore, it will develop provably safe and convergent reinforcement learning algorithms for precision irrigation scheduling, as well as the first systematic techno-economic analysis model to quantify economic savings and payback period. The education and extension plan integrated with the research activities include creating a soil monitoring and irrigation decision-making test bed, launching a new course in sustainable systems engineering, introducing course modules combining process systems engineering, agriculture, and sustainability into chemical engineering curriculum, and engaging with farmers in rural communities of Oklahoma to promote soil monitoring and water management practices. This project is jointly funded by the Process Systems, Reaction Engineering and Molecular Thermodynamics (PRM) program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-12

This project aims to investigate the health risks of e-cigarettes and cannabis aerosols, especially new products mixed with synthetic cooling agents, whose health effects are under-researched. These inhalable aerosols are popular among youth and Native American communities in Oklahoma, where vaping rates exceed the state average. The project will utilize an advanced, physiologically realistic artificial lung system to quantify how these aerosols affect the human respiratory system. This fellowship offers the lead researcher training in lung exposure and toxicity quantification while building a sustainable partnership with world-renowned environmental health scientists at the University of Los Angeles (UCLA). The research will provide insightful data and methodology to guide public health policies to mitigate the risks of emerging underregulated vaping products. By developing a similar experimental lung system at Oklahoma State University (OSU), this fellowship will help the lead researcher establish a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary research program, enhancing OSU’s infrastructure and fostering new collaborations in public health. The project also offers outreach activities and courses by integrating cutting-edge aerosol exposure research into K-12, undergraduate, and graduate STEM education, particularly benefiting underserved Native American communities. These efforts will foster diversity in STEM and prepare the next-generation scientists to address public health challenges. Aligned with the NSF's mission, this project will advance environmental health knowledge and support public welfare. This Research Infrastructure Improvement EPSCoR Research Fellows project will provide a fellowship to an Associate Professor and training for a graduate student at OSU. The proposed fellowship aims to leverage a cutting-edge in vitro artificial lung system to study pulmonary health risks associated with vaping aerosols from e-cigarettes and cannabis, particularly those containing unregulated additives like synthetic cooling agents (e.g., Wilkinson Sword (WS)-3 and WS-23). The project will address critical gaps in understanding the health impacts of these emerging aerosols, especially among youth and Native American populations in Oklahoma. Specifically, the fellowship supports a collaborative effort between OSU and UCLA, under the guidance of Professor Yifang Zhu, focusing on advanced exposure and toxicity risk assessment using UCLA’s state-of-the-art in vitro artificial lung system. The research objectives include quantifying the exposure and toxicity levels of e-cigarette and cannabis aerosols, analyzing subject-specific lung responses, and developing a next-generation artificial lung system at OSU. Three specific aims will guide this project: (1) Quantify exposure and toxicity levels of various vaping aerosol components, (2) Assess variability in lung responses using the in vitro artificial lung system, and (3) Build and validate a next-generation in vitro artificial lung system at OSU. These efforts will lead to new research capabilities in Oklahoma, improve public health policy development, and enhance OSU’s respiratory and environmental health research infrastructure. The project will address vaping-related health risks, particularly in underserved communities, and foster future interdisciplinary collaborations and education in pulmonary health research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-10

Critical infrastructure networks (such as gas, water, and power) are large-scale cyber-physical systems comprising multiple stakeholder entities that manage and operate different sections of the network. As a result, data-driven cyberattacks lead to cascading impacts across the entire network on account of physical and operational interdependence among stakeholders. Unfortunately, the majority of approaches for detecting such network-wide attacks require centralized data aggregation and computation leading to privacy and security concerns, high decision latency and significant hardware and software upgrade costs. The project novelties pertain to the decentralized detection of network-wide, data-driven cyberattacks without the need to move sensitive operational data from the stakeholders. The project broader significance and importance are in the development of a diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce geared towards bolstering national industrial cybersecurity; and enhanced STEM participation of undergraduate students especially from underrepresented groups through a series of workshops and hackathons targeting industrial cybersecurity preparedness. This project serves as a key enabler for new research directions pertaining to decentralized algorithmic and computational frameworks for cyberattack detection that deliver publicly verifiable detection outcomes. These frameworks are further complemented by a differential privacy driven, decentralized machine learning paradigm that captures subsystem interdependencies. The project uses blockchains and decentralized file systems to provide a computational framework that can help ensure the integrity of model parameters and proofs. The primary expected outcome from this project lies in the realization of trustworthy and private industrial cyberattack detection schemes driven by publicly verifiable outcomes especially in multi-stakeholder environments. Additionally, this project is also expected to bolster situational awareness of local stakeholders through its focus on learning subsystem interdependencies with strong privacy guarantees. Lastly, use of blockchain based decentralization is expected to provide fundamental design insights for implementation of scalable, low-overhead compute frameworks with minimal disruption to prevailing Information Technology (IT) & Operational Technology (OT) systems. 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

Three-dimensional printing of polymers, which can be processed easily at reasonable cost, has enabled customized fabrication of objects with complex geometries and functionalities. However, many of the polymers used exhibit low thermal stability and high flammability, especially biopolymers such as polylactic acid (PLA), which is one of the most common feedstocks for fused filament fabrication (FFF). One potential solution to this problem is to print polymer nanocomposites. However, the layered structure and bonding in FFF can lead to anisotropic properties and internal voids or gaps between printed layers that are not found in their counterparts manufactured using thermocompression. These properties may affect the ignition and combustion behaviors of 3D-printed polymer nanocomposites. The principal aims of this project are to systematically study heat and mass transfer dynamics of 3D-printed PLA nanocomposites with FFF and to better understand their effects on ignition and combustion behaviors. The insight from this project may guide the design of new flame-retardant systems and improved fire safety for 3D-printed biopolymer products, which could reduce the frequency and severity of fires. This proposed research is a multidisciplinary project that integrates research and educational activities to enhance the pool of multidisciplinary engineers and professionals in local communities. The goal of this project is understand the heat transfer and mass transfer associated with the ignition and combustion of 3D-printed biopolymer nanocomposites. Literature is scarce on the use of polymer nanocomposites for 3D-printing applications to reduce their flammability hazards, although this technique is effective in bulk polymers manufactured using thermocompression. Samples manufactured using thermocompression show a uniform dispersion of nanoparticles, leading to a homogeneous and isotropic material structure. By comparison, samples manufactured using 3D printing show different structural characteristics. Besides the anisotropic properties and the presence of voids, 3D-printed parts often are not uniformly filled; instead, they have internal infill patterns that provide structural support while minimizing material usage. The choice of infill density can affect the heat transfer and mass transfer in the anisotropic condensed phase of burning polymers. However, few studies have been performed to investigate these effects and gain a fundamental understanding. The project will fill this knowledge gap with three main objectives: (i) synthesize biopolymer nanocomposites-based filaments for 3D printing, (ii) manufacture samples using FFF and determine structural characterization, and (iii) study ignition and combustion behaviors of 3D-printed PLA nanocomposite samples under well-controlled fire conditions. This project is expected to promote the development of performance-efficient and cost effective flame retardant biopolymer nanocomposites for sustainable 3D printing applications. 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 EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project aims to revolutionize telemanipulation, a vital component of human-robot systems requiring precise, contact-intensive, and safety-critical manipulations. Traditional methods involve a human operator controlling a dexterous robot hand to interact with external objects, often mimicking human hand movements. These teleoperation approaches, however, need to adequately address the challenges arising from the physical interactions of the robotic hand with objects, resulting in indirect and counter-intuitive control challenges for human operators. This research incorporates the outcomes of robot-object physical interactions, potentially transforming human telemanipulation technology in essential societal sectors such as healthcare, disaster response, exploration, and manufacturing. Moreover, the project will incorporate advanced machine learning, sensor fusion, and human-computer interaction topics into curricula, promoting youth participation in STEM fields. Successful outcomes promise significant societal benefits, including enhanced efficiency and safety in critical operations, new standards for teleoperated systems, and fostering innovation in human-robot collaboration. The research project aims to establish a framework for end effects-oriented dexterous telemanipulation centered on three primary research objectives. First, a learning-based robot control policy will be developed to interpret human commands using end-effect-based task features, improving task learning. Second, a safety-aware, multi-modal perception system will be created to optimize sensory inputs, ensuring intuitive and safe operation. Third, control and feedback mechanisms will be integrated within telemanipulation to provide precise and intuitive bi-directional interactions between the operator and the robot, reducing latency and enhancing task performance. The technical approach includes advanced machine learning techniques, such as Markov game modeling and learning-based control policies, to enable robots to learn and execute end-effect commands. Additionally, the project will enhance the understanding of manipulation interactions by developing a multi-modal perception system that fuses human sensory inputs, creating an intuitive and cohesive operator experience. By integrating principles from robotics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence, the project aims to minimize latency and errors in human-robot collaboration. These results will significantly advance dexterous telemanipulation, human-robot systems, and safety-aware multi-modal sensing. 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 planning grant develops academic-community partnerships that will advance Earth systems science in the study of regional impacts of climate change. It will do this through the creation of a working group and a series of workshops that prioritize community needs as a result of the shifting dryline in the southern Great Plains – the transition separating aridity zones in the region. Community priorities are integrated into the project through engagement with partners at early stages of the project. Project goals focus on efforts to adapt to and mitigate the effects of the shifting dryline zone. A particular objective of this planning project is to identify community needs and determine which Earth science projects should take priority to be responsive to community interests. The dryline, which separates the arid western portion of the southern Great Plains (and the US) from the less arid eastern side of the line, has created three zones (arid west, the transition zone, less arid east). Each zone differs in climate, and therefore life, and as climate change shifts the line from west to east, life will need to adjust to these changes in climate. The planning grant is framed on the following three objectives, (1) convene an interdisciplinary working group of academics and community members; (2) co-produce knowledge between community partners and scientists about life along and on either side of the dryline, with an aim to identify Earth science projects and preliminary solution sets that are demonstrably actionable and community-relevant; and (3) coalesce the ideas and guiding principles from community members and academics, via a series of workshops. The shifting dryline has myriad implications for communities located in each of the three zones created by the shifting dryline. This planning grant focuses on shifting patterns of extreme weather (both convective events and extreme temperatures), increases in the size and scope of wildfires, impacts on agricultural practices, impacts on aging electrical grid infrastructure, and the changing economic and cultural characteristics of 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.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

Many animals compete with other members of their species over access to resources, such as food, shelter, and mates. As a result, some species have evolved weapons to help them outcompete their rivals. Examples include the branching antlers of deer and the elongated horns of rhinoceros beetles. However, weaponry alone is only half of the picture, as many species have also evolved ways to defend themselves against their rivals. For example, goats have evolved thicker skin to limit horn damage during male-male combat. Such defensive shields can have an important role in determining who wins a fight. However, despite its importance, defensive capacity has largely been overlooked. This project will investigate the costs, benefits, and evolutionary consequences of defensive structures used in male-male combat. Synergistic broader impacts include a public museum exhibit about armor in animals, and training scientists at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral level. Previous work investigating male-male combat has almost exclusively taken an offensive perspective, while the role of defense has almost been completely ignored. How well an individual is defended during a fight can determine whether that individual will win or lose. Thus, an individual’s defensive capacity is critical to their fighting success. However, almost nothing is known about why some individuals are better defended than others. Moreover, evolutionary arms-races between weapons and defensive structures are postulated to have a role in weapon diversification. Thus, our lack of knowledge about these defensive traits is also a critical obstacle to understanding how such arms-races influence the evolution and diversification of weapons. To address these gaps in knowledge, this project will take an experimental manipulation approach to determine why some individuals are better defended than others, and use phylogenetic comparative methods to evaluate the causes and consequences of evolving these defensive structures. Overall, this project will make new conceptual insights into an understudied dimension of male-male combat by integrating data across biological scales. This work will expand the frontiers of knowledge and train students to enter the STEM workforce. 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 Smart and Connected Health (SCH) award will support research that advances national health, prosperity, and welfare by investigating the potential of Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems to mitigate the spread of airborne viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and other pollutants in school classrooms. Due to the nature of the indoor classroom environment, school-aged children are particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases, and most current HVAC systems are not optimized to effectively prevent cross-infections. This research project combines a computational model that captures the effects of airflow on viral transport, uptake, and immune response with a generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) model trained by laboratory data and simulation experiments to improve design and real-time control of air handling technology. By optimizing HVAC systems to minimize infection risks, the project plans to contribute to healthier indoor environments, reducing the incidence of disease transmission and improving overall public health outcomes. The goal of this research project is to develop a robust, multiscale computational model to understand the relationship between HVAC design, indoor airflow, virus emission, transmission, and infection risks among children in representative indoor environments. Specifically, the research objectives are to: (1) determine the spatiotemporal concentration distribution of pollutant- and virus-laden aerosols in classrooms with various layouts and children’s respiratory systems, using a model that combines Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Host Cell Dynamics (HCD) to generate infection risk indices that guide HVAC system design optimization; and (2) develop a generative AI-empowered tool for efficient HVAC design and real-time control to mitigate infection risks. The computational model aims to predict virus-laden aerosol transport, distribution, and infection risks from emission sites to children’s respiratory system under multiple HVAC configurations. The generative AI model plans to deploy generative adversarial networks (GAN) and diffusion models for the design and optimization of HVAC systems, reducing computational costs and enhancing design efficiency. This project leverages the interdisciplinary expertise of the research team to with the intent of creating a transformative tool for public health enhancement. The project includes outreach to engage K-12 students, educators, and the broader community, raising awareness about the importance of indoor air quality and the role of advanced technologies in public health. Additionally, the project provides interdisciplinary training opportunities for students and researchers in engineering, computer science, data science, and public health, promoting diversity and inclusion in these 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

How can disease outbreaks in an increasingly interconnected world be better predicted and responded to? The project tackles this challenge by combining two key sources of information: community wastewater and human behaviors. While current methods often rely on delayed and inaccurate medical reports, our innovative approach analyzes traces of viruses in sewage and incorporates various types of data about human activity. This includes information on people's movements, social interactions, online searches, social media posts, and immune factors. By combining these diverse data sources, the Investigators aim to detect diseases earlier and gain a more comprehensive understanding of how they spread through communities. The investigators will also examine how public attitudes and behaviors evolve during prolonged health crises. Although the initial focus is on COVID-19, the methods to be developed could be applied to other infectious diseases, helping communities worldwide prepare for future health emergencies. Beyond the research, the investigators are committed to training undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds, nurturing the next generation of public health professionals. Ultimately, this project will provide valuable tools for health officials to make quicker, more informed decisions to protect public health. The goal of this project is to enhance mathematical epidemiological modeling by integrating human behavioral data with wastewater surveillance data, creating a more comprehensive and timely approach to outbreak detection and response. By synthesizing advancements across mathematical modeling, wastewater epidemiology, and geographic information science (GIScience), the research approach innovatively connects human behavior insights with wastewater data to enhance viral transmission understanding and forecasts at the community level. To achieve this, the Investigators will pursue three main objectives: (1) Develop an early-warning system using wastewater and digital and social behavior data; (2) Create a socio-immuno-epidemiological framework to examine the effectiveness of pharmaceutical interventions and the emergence of dominant variants using wastewater surveillance data; and (3) Model the impact of pandemic fatigue social behaviors on viral transmission at the community level. These objectives will be addressed by a interdisciplinary research team, which brings together expertise in applied mathematics, epidemiology, public health, and geography. This approach represents a significant step forward in understanding the complex interactions between human behavior, immune responses, and pathogen spread. Ultimately, the research outcomes will equip health officials with valuable tools for designing proactive, targeted, and adaptable interventions, enabling quicker and more informed decision-making. This award is co-funded by DMS (Division of Mathematical Sciences) and SBE/SES (Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, Division of Social and Economic Sciences). 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 broader impact of this I-Corps project is the development of a patient-centric device that treats xerostomia (dry mouth) by providing moisture to the mouth at a controlled rate through the night. Xerostomia originates from head and neck cancers, Sjögren disease, diabetes, medications and other causes. Loss of saliva at night causes serious sleep deprivation, mouth sores, dental decay, and other serious maladies. Drinking wets the mouth in the daytime, but people cannot drink all night. The device is compact, durable, and requires neither an external power source nor extensive maintenance. In the U.S., studies estimated that 19% of the population or 63 million people suffer from xerostomia. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of the technology. This solution is based on the development of an over-the-counter device that is applied within the mouth to treat xerostomia (dry mouth). The product is engineered from both traditional and modern computational and experimental physics. It is constructed using Federal Drug Administration approved materials and designed for easy customer use. The device utilizes a novel design that carefully replicates the delivery of moisture to a dry mouth at a rate compatible with the common flow rates of saliva. Preclinical studies demonstrate both the ability to control moisture flow without the use of power and the device viability. Low maintenance, simplicity of use, easy access, and affordability defines the translational potential of this technology. 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

In many species of spiders, females kill and consume males either before, during or after mating. Cannibalism has been shown to benefit females by increasing the quality of the offspring that they produce. Although, the mechanism responsible for this benefit of consuming the male body remains unclear. The benefit to females of consuming males is especially interesting in species where males are very small. In these cases, it seems there is a chemical in the male body that can benefit females even when it is consumed in low concentrations. The goal of this project is to study cannibalism in spiders to determine which chemicals in the male body result in benefits to female offspring production, especially chemicals like micronutrients and dietary essential nutrients that can have benefits at low concentrations. It is hoped that the information that is learned about micronutrients and dietary essential nutrients in spiders will have implications for better understanding the nutritional ecology of a wider range of species. In addition to generating new knowledge, this project will have broader benefits to society by training students to be scientists, and through public outreach on the role of spiders in ecosystems. Cannibalism occurs in a diversity of spiders and has been shown to have benefits to offspring production, including species with a high degree of size dimorphism (i.e., very small males). Despite significant research on the occurrence of male cannibalism, the chemicals in the male body that are responsible for the benefit of cannibalism remain unclear. It is likely that micronutrients or dietary essential nutrients are responsible for the nutritional benefit of male cannibalism, given that males are a small part of the female diet, especially in species with small males. The goal of this study is to determine which micronutrients, dietary essential amino acids, or dietary essential fatty acids are responsible for the nutritional benefit of male cannibalism in spiders. At a phylogenetic scale, the work will compare the body composition of males and females of many spider species to test if males concentrate certain nutrients in their bodies. At the ecological scale, the work will compare male spiders of two focal species with insect prey to determine if males represent a nutritionally-unique prey item. Finally, at an experimental scale, a study will test if nutritional supplements containing putative nutrients identified in male bodies have the same nutritional benefits as consuming the male body itself. This research provides a model system for increasing our understanding of micronutritional ecology, which is an emerging area of nutritional ecology. 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

Membranes are a cost-effective and efficient technology for chemical separations that benefits the various industries that require separation, purification, and filtration processes. Membranes are materials that filter molecules based on size, charge, and other characteristics. Membranes with large pores allow liquids and gases to pass through easily (i.e., membrane permeability). However, membranes with large pores or structural defects often allow a range of molecules to pass through instead of selectively removing the desired molecules (i.e., membrane selectivity). The inherent trade-off between membrane permeability and selectivity must be considered when designing new membrane materials for commercial applications. The ability to precisely control pore size and defects is crucial for fabricating membrane materials with the optimal combination of permeability and selectivity for a given separation. Unfortunately, achieving the desired level of control is technically challenging and has limited the commercial potential of membrane technologies. This research project aims to develop membranes for difficult gas separations, specifically for olefin/paraffin separations. Due to their similar chemical properties, current techniques for separating these chemicals are energy-intensive and expensive. This project will develop pore-engineered membranes using a novel approach that allows dynamic changes to the membrane structure during gas separation testing. This will ensure precise control of structural defects and pore sizes, leading to high selectivity at any desired permeance. This approach could lead to new applications for functional materials in other gas, liquid, particle, and biomolecular separations while providing valuable insights to improve chemical separations of commercial importance. The project also offers educational opportunities for students from underserved groups in STEM fields through the Oklahoma-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (OK-LSAMP) program. This initiative provides students with practical experience and skill development, including co-authoring research papers, presenting their work at in-state and national conferences, and publishing their findings in peer-reviewed journals. This research aims to uncover principles for designing and creating microporous membranes using Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) for advanced separations. Zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) membranes have significant potential for difficult gas separations, such as olefin/paraffin separation. However, controlling defects, pore sizes, and gas diffusion rates is crucial for realizing this potential. A new approach, in situ ALD modification, is proposed to minimize defects and control pore size in ZIF membranes to improve separation performance. This innovative method allows real-time monitoring of the membrane's transport properties and gas separation performance while being modified by in situ ALD. The research project aims to understand the relationship between the ALD process, membrane structure, and performance by combining in situ ALD processing with high-resolution characterization techniques. The key hypothesis is that ALD formation of metal oxides on membranes eliminates molecular scale membrane defects, precisely tunes pore sizes, and rationally introduces facilitating interactions between the metals and diffusing gases, maximizing gas selectivity and permeance. The research objectives are to (a) determine the effect of catalytic ALD on curing membrane defects, (b) elucidate the effect of ALD formation of metal oxide on gas selectivity by continuously controlling and monitoring pore size, and (c) exploit a metal ALD by controlling molecular interactions between metals and gases using the electronegativity of transition metals and determine the effects of such interactions on permeance. The project will yield a new understanding of the relationship between membrane structure and atomic-level processing using ALD. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

The Industry-University Cooperative Research Center for Earth Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Utilization (CEGRU) proposes an integrated collaboration between two sites, Oklahoma State University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, to conduct science and engineering research to reduce greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere through prevention, mitigation, utilization, and sequestration. The Center's core is composed of university faculty and students and an advisory board of diverse of interested entities that include private sector companies, government agencies, and national research labs. Other community organizations and stakeholders will also be involved with a goal of reducing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and its consequent impacts. The Center seeks to accomplish its goal by performing transdisciplinary basic research to advance greenhouse gas storage resource assessment and increased subsurface security via development of novel energy and greenhouse gas storage in the geologic subsurface and carbon dioxide storage in manufactured materials. Recognizing that making the required energy transition from petroleum requires tradeoffs, some of which can have different negative impacts, this Center will pursue integrative research to evaluate and track impacts to air quality, water, climate, and society. In terms of broader impacts, community engagement will be integral to all activities to effectively identify key stakeholders and their buy-in for success of projects, focusing on understanding current community and stakeholder sentiment, collaboration on resolutions, and the development of ongoing relationship management strategies. The Center’s engagement of undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs in research activities will contribute to the development of the workforce of the future that is required to support net-zero greenhouse gas goals by 2050. Active collaborations with Minority-Serving Institutions will ensure equitable training opportunities for a diverse future workforce. Such interactions can result in much needed equitable improvements in the diversity of the research community and in impacted communities where technologies will be implemented. The Oklahoma State University contribution to the proposed Center for Earth Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Utilization (CEGRU) will focus on science and engineering that is complementary to research at the Center's Illinois Lead Site. The Oklahoma Site will take the lead in the wellbore/subsurface infrastructure by developing novel wellbore construction/completion materials and technologies that ensure a sealed subsurface system for the long term which is crucial for greenhouse or hydrogen gas storage security. This work will be done in collaboration with material scientists and other researchers at the Illinois Site. The Oklahoma Site will also lead in airborne methane greenhouse gas detection and mapping, using novel in-situ and remote sensing tools and data collected from legacy oil and gas wells. Results of this research will be used to identify wellbore integrity issues that will improve understanding of failure types to prevent future wellbore failures. Materials investigations will include those applicable to advanced engineering solutions that ensure wellbore integrity in the presence of greenhouse gases, at low pH, and various pressure and temperature conditions. Work will employ interdisciplinary science and engineering methods from high pressure/high temperature physics and surface chemistry to subsurface engineering that includes rock-cement-metal wellbore models. The research at the Oklahoma Site of the proposed industry-university cooperative research center aims to illuminate the intricate relationship between, leak development, subsurface rock characteristics, and wellbore drilling and completion technologies. This approach allows the development and implementation of more effective greenhouse gas prevention and mitigation strategies. Additional work will include complementary research in geological and geophysical subsurface evaluation which will be integrated with the Illinois Site's work. In addition to the wellbore and related work, the Oklahoma Site will also lead a seismic data processing and integration thrust in collaboration with the Illinois Site's expertise in seismic reflection interpretation and passive seismic data analysis for carbon capture and storage. It will join with the Center Illinois partner in strategic communication efforts to support the Center outreach agenda and community engagement efforts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Non-Technical Abstract: Topological phases in condensed matter systems have emerged as a fascinating new paradigm in the past few decades. Such phases are of great interest due to their fantastic potential for numerous quantum information science applications, including as building blocks of quantum computers. Complex oxide materials have been predicted to host such phases, in some cases at elevated temperatures suitable for broad practical use. In this project, the research team aims to develop the synthesis and characterization of such materials using several approaches to maximize the probability for discovery of unique topological phases. Success of this research will establish a new class of topological materials and determine their potential for applications. This project also addresses the current need for increased educational activity for both topological physics and materials science. For the former, the principal investigator is developing two new courses focused on topological physics for both undergraduate and graduate students. For the latter, an annual week-long summer camp for middle-school students is being held in the research laboratory. Technical Abstract: Complex oxides host a variety of fascinating properties with many possible applications in quantum information science. Unfortunately, many of these efforts are stymied by the difficulty of the required synthesis and characterization techniques. In particular, strontium ruthenate has received heavy scrutiny in recent decades due to its unconventional superconductivity and ferromagnetic instability. The controversial superconductivity was until very recently believed to be odd parity with potential for hosting Majorana fermions. Furthermore, theoretical calculations also predict topological phases in ruthenates when confined along atypical crystallographic orientations. In this project, the research team is investigating both behaviors by synthesis and band structure characterization of geometrically engineered ruthenate heterostructures. Innovative pulsed laser deposition techniques are adapted to stabilize the materials in the required orientations despite the polarity mismatch between layers. Surface preservation and cleaning procedures in combination with state-of-the-art characterization techniques such as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and cross-sectional scanning tunneling microscopy are implemented to study these materials. Realization of topological phases in geometrically engineered oxides would provide key insight into their properties and facilitate their utilization in quantum information devices. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

In recent years drone technology has become increasingly common as seen by a spike in market growth for the drone industry. In order to enable heterogeneous drones to autonomously connect with the existing Internet architecture, the Internet of Drones (IoD) paradigm has been created to generate a network of interconnections among drones as well as zone service providers. As the IoD paradigm has been widely adopted in various civilian and military application domains, the IoD systems are being targeted by adversaries to cause damage to properties, people, and cyberspace. This project seeks to develop a security mechanism which is applicable and suitable for multi-tasking and large-scale IoD applications with strong privacy preservation. The proposed security mechanism can be easily integrated with the existing IoD paradigm and enable IoD systems to achieve the desired levels of security and privacy while meeting the practical requirements of IoD applications. These outcomes are expected to have a positive impact on the construction of secure and efficient aerial communication framework in the future. Currently, seniors have limited cybersecurity awareness, and women and Native Americans remain underrepresented in cybersecurity education/workforce. The effort also includes a novel effort to increase seniors’ cybersecurity awareness, and several outreach activities for broadening participation in computing and cybersecurity. The overall objective of this project is to develop a novel certificate-based authentication scheme that enables pseudonymous, application-aware, and cross-domain IoD communications. To attain the overall objective, this project will design a certificate issuing protocol, create a certificate conversion protocol, and produce a certificate revocation protocol. The proposed certificate-based authentication scheme advances the state of the art by supporting multi-tasking and large-scale IoD applications with strong privacy preservation. The proposed scheme will be evaluated via security analysis and verification, event-driven network simulation, and real-world experiments. Overall, the outcomes of this project will become the foundation for building a secure and efficient aerial communication framework, and provide security, privacy, and practical design considerations for other open and interoperable platforms. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Creating defects in advanced materials can alter the materials' structure and enable them to perform in unique ways when exposed to light. These defects, called color centers, can interact with light and serve as important building blocks for the development of quantum computing, which can enable significant advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity, new materials development and improvement of weather forecasting. This award supports fundamental research to provide needed knowledge for manufacturing these unique materials. The results from this research will benefit the US economy and society. The integrated educational program of the project will disseminate the research activities to a broad community of students and teachers at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels. These initiatives aim to increase the skilled workforce of engineers with improved participation from underrepresented American populations. This project aims to develop a laser-induced non-equilibrium process that will enable the formation of desired solid state defects that can function as color centers in 2D-hBN and offer the controlled tunability of single photon emitters in the visible spectrum. The study will first identify the processing conditions necessary for creating color centers in hBN by high-throughput screening. Optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy will then be used to characterize the 2D layer morphology and Raman spectroscopy will be used in combination to confirm the formation of hBN. Based on these findings, (i) machine learning-assisted atomic-resolution imaging of the defects using scanning transmission electron microscopy will be performed to identify the atomic arrangement at the defect sites, (ii) atomic-resolution core-loss electron energy-loss spectroscopy studies will be performed to investigate the electronic states at the defect sites and to correlate these electronic states with the atomic structure. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry will be used to obtain overall stoichiometry, elemental area density and impurity distribution. Photoluminescence spectroscopy will then be used to quantify the photonic response of the material and develop an understanding of the relationship of the atomic structure to this photonic response. The scientific outcomes of this study will contribute to advancing fundamental knowledge of the creation and optical performance of color centers in hBN and their qualification to demonstrate single photon emission. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

This award supports the renewal of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site in physics at Oklahoma State University. This project will allow eight to ten undergraduate students to perform summer research at Oklahoma State University for ten weeks. The primary objective is to immerse students in a stimulating multidisciplinary research atmosphere that will allow the participants to pursue a personalized research project in physics. This REU program will develop human resources into the STEM workforce that enhance the nation's technology base and are critical for the well-being of society at large while improving STEM education. Research projects are available in several areas, including Atomic Physics, Computational Physics, Experimental and Theoretical High-Energy Physics, Optical Physics, Optoelectronics, and Quantum Information Sciences. Participants will also attend seminars on a variety of topics, including professional development and careers in physics, receive ethics and safety training, and engage in cohort activities with other 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 2024 · 2024-06

Computer software is crucial for power systems engineering related to the power grid. As an infrastructure providing essential services, power networks are mission critical. In the design and analysis of power systems, simulations largely precede real-world experiments that are expensive and risk inherent. Although industry applications are centered around commercial software, open-source software is gaining popularity for quickly prototyping new solutions to emerging problems. This project will explore pathways for establishing and sustaining an open-source ecosystem to create advanced, robust, and flexible software for power grid applications. The project will bring together stakeholders to build a vision for the rapid translation of innovations by providing an open-source ecosystem that reduces effort duplication and promotes code reuse. The broader impacts include (1) accelerating the pace of innovation and technology translation for power systems engineering, and (2) engaging stakeholders in an open-source ecosystems that will contribute to industry software to enhance grid efficiency and resilience. In this project, the research team will conduct scoping activities for an open-source ecosystem (OSE) centered around the open-source ANDES software for power grid analysis. Specifically, the goals are to: (1) identify fundamental and critical needs in data, features, and packages to align the interests of potential contributors to the ecosystem, (2) create strategies and plans for high-impact activities to establish the OSE by attracting users and contributors and facilitating distributed development, (3) define an organizational structure for sustaining the OSE by empowering and incentivizing stakeholders, including users and contributors from academia, research laboratories and industry, and (4) identify long-term funding and industry engagement strategies that yield expanded user and contributor bases for sustained impacts. This project aspires to propel power system engineering toward a future where open-source collaboration unlocks innovation for energy applications. This project is jointly funded by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) Program which seeks to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-06

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is the development of metallic nanoparticles that can replace precious metal nanoparticles for catalytic applications. Precious metal nanoparticles, such as platinum (Pt) nanoparticles, are currently used as catalysts in the energy industries even though they are expensive. This technology is designed to produce multi-metallic nanoparticles with the aim to replace or reduce noble metals used in the energy sector. The business hypothesis is that the multi-metallic nanoparticles will serve as better catalysts and electrodes than the presently used Pt nanoparticles and help energy industries such as oil and gas, fuel cells, and hydrogen production to improve cost-effectiveness, process efficiency, and reliability. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of a laser-based technique that enables the ultrafast fabrication of a variety of multi-metallic nanoparticles. This nanosecond laser-processing technology enables the creation of multi-metallic nanoparticles of different sizes, shapes, and compositions covering a large dimensional and compositional space. The technology is based on the rapid shriveling of thin films into nanoparticles through the laser-induced melt-phase dewetting phenomenon, which subsequently accumulates in a droplet shape via thermally-driven mass transport and surface energy minimization. The approach has been tested to manufacture several monometallic noble metal (platinum, gold, and silver), non-noble metal (nickel and cobalt), bimetallic (silver-cobalt, gold-nickel, gold-cobalt, and copper-nickel), and multi-element alloy (nickel-cobalt-chromium and nickel-cobalt-chromium-iron-copper) nanoparticles. The technology produces nanoparticles that exhibit high-quality, contamination/oxidation-free characteristics that may be tailored for intended applications including improved functional properties such as shelf-life, stability, and catalytic activity. 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.