University Of California Santa Barbara

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Non-Technical Summary: Self-assembly refers to the spontaneous emergence of well-defined structures from an initial disordered state. Common examples include the formation of soap films, the folding of proteins and nucleic acids, as well as the formation of crystals. Self-assembly is a powerful bottom-up approach to materials synthesis. While capable of generating intricate structures, equilibrium self-assembly suffers from limitations. It requires microscopic constituents that exhibit riotous dynamics driven by thermal noise. To overcome these limitations, this project will develop a paradigm of active assembly for generating materials from building blocks that exhibit no thermal motion. Non-thermal Velcro-like bundles of filaments are placed in an active fluid. Spontaneous flows generated by active fluid endow passive bundles with enhanced dynamics. These bundles move chaotically, stick to each other, generating permanent connections, and assembling three-dimensional elastic networks, whose structure and mechanical properties cannot be realized with conventional self-assembly methods. The proposed research provides a powerful platform for generating new materials with unique properties. From a societal perspective, the proposed project will provide rigorous interdisciplinary training to graduate students. The project will also provide invaluable research opportunities and extensive mentoring to undergraduate students from UCSB and throughout the California State educational system. Finally, the project pursues extensive outreach activities targeting the general public and K-12 education, enhancing the public awareness of materials research. Technical Abstract: Self-assembly is a versatile paradigm for engineering materials with intricate structures and targeted mechanical properties. Well-understood equilibrium statistical mechanics provides a quantitative relationship between the interactions of the microscopic building blocks and the ensuing macroscopic properties of the target assemblage. Notwithstanding its considerable successes, equilibrium self-assembly suffers from limitations. Self-assembly demands an equilibrium environment wherein all intermediate states exhibit thermal motion. To ensure that the process reaches the target state, one has to balance the strength and specificity of the attractive interactions against the characteristic thermal energy. This project aims to extend the capabilities of equilibrium self-assembly by establishing the foundations of active assembly. Chaotic flows generated by an active fluid endow passive molecular building blocks with enhanced stochastic dynamics and excess energy that are not accessible in equilibrium. This overcomes energetic barriers that trap the equilibrium system and allows for the exploration of a much larger landscape of accessible states. In active assembly, the building blocks move throughout the sample, encounter each other, and bind together to give rise to soft materials with unique structures, shapes, mechanics, and dynamics. When compared to equilibrium self-assembly, active assembly extends the manifold of accessible structures, overcomes kinetic trapping associated with equilibrium, and enables the assembly of mesoscale building blocks that do not exhibit thermal motion in the absence of activity. In the first aim, actin filaments and their crosslinkers are placed into a microtubule-based active fluid. Being advected by the active flows, actin filaments efficiently explore the accessible phase space and assemble into elastic networks whose architectures are not accessible using conventional protocols. State-of-the-art microscopy and quantitative image analysis elucidate the kinetic pathways of network assembly in real-time with near-molecular detail. In the second aim, the rheological properties of the assembled elastic network are correlated to the microscopic network structure. These unique features will enable a study of the non-thermal transition from floppy networks lacking a finite shear modulus to networks with a finite rigidity. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

With support from the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor David Patterson of the University of California, Santa Barbara will develop tools capable of identifying the exact structure of a single, trapped molecule. This includes not only determining the molecule’s chemical formula but also its handedness (chirality). Many molecules, including most found in biological systems, exist in left- and right-handed forms, much like left- and right-handed gloves. This chirality plays a critical role in molecular function, yet it remains difficult to measure using existing analytical techniques. A successful tool could have broad applications in biology and chemistry and may help illuminate the origins of homochirality in life on Earth. Students working on these next-generation techniques will form the backbone of tomorrow’s technological workforce. Chirality will be detected in a single molecule through a non-destructive, multi-step process. First, the target molecule will be co-trapped with a laser-coolable atom, which can be imaged via laser-induced fluorescence. The ensemble will be cooled to a few Kelvin through collisions with cold helium gas. At this temperature, carefully tailored microwave pulses will manipulate the molecule’s rotational state. A specific combination of three resonant pulses, polarized along the x, y, and z axes, will be chosen to selectively excite one enantiomer while leaving the other unaltered. The resulting rotational state will then be read out using inelastic recoil spectroscopy, a recently demonstrated, non-destructive method capable of measuring the rotational and vibrational state of a single molecule. The molecule is then re-cooled, and the process repeated many times to achieve high-fidelity measurement. Similar spectroscopic techniques will be employed to determine the molecule’s isomer and isotopomer. Prior to this work, measuring both the identity and chirality of a single molecule has remained well beyond the state of the art. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The overall objective of this project is to produce a new tool for accurate and reliable wind observations from coastal high-frequency (HF) radar at the same resolutions as currents and demonstrate their validity via comparisons with in-situ observations. Considering the kilometer scale variations in wind and currents will lead to advancing our knowledge of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. High frequency radar-based surface wind observations will fill a critical gap in our capability to observe and understand coastal ocean dynamics and ocean-atmosphere interactions. In HF frequency radar-based efforts, signal attenuation, or path loss, is largely related to the wind field itself, which represents a key difference from satellite-based wind extractions. To resolve some systematic issues of previous HF radar-based methods, PIs propose to finalize a generalized method for wind extraction process using a ‘tomographic’ approach. This new approach will be demonstrated through the production and analysis of two long records of coastal ocean winds and currents in two geographically distinct coastal regions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

With the support of the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professors De Vries and Gordon at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will develop a novel technique to combine high resolution imaging with detailed chemical analysis. This work addresses a difficult challenge and a critical need in many scientific areas that require the analysis of miniscule samples, especially for complex organic compounds. Examples of applications include chemical diagnostics, analysis of artifacts and art, archeology, geology, soft materials, polymer physics, catalysis, materials science, microelectronics, and biological samples. The technique, which is akin to a ‘nanoscale-biopsy’, will use a two-step approach whereby material is first collected from a nanoscale size area of the sample and then analyzed by sophisticated chemical techniques. The project will involve collaborations with colleagues in diverse fields, such as biology programs at UCSB – to study genetic material in tissue, the Getty Conservation Institute – to study paint layers in classical paintings, and Materials Science programs – to study heterogeneous junctions in solar cells. Both undergraduate and graduate students will receive training in the design and construction of advanced experimental instrumentation, complex computer simulation, and conducting fundamental research. The instrumentation to be developed will employ a modified atomic force microscope (AFM) for both imaging and material collection. The latter will be achieved by tip-enhanced laser desorption (TELD), in which the field of a laser pulse is focused by the AFM tip, acting as a plasmonic antenna to locally collect femtogram levels of intact molecules from a surface for subsequent chemical analysis. The analysis will be performed by resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry, and PCR amplification and sequencing for biological samples. Given these capabilities, the microscope will provide detailed physicochemical and optical information about materials at the level of their intrinsic heterogeneity; as such, significant contributions to fundamental and applied science in many fields can be envisioned. The work will also provide fundamental data related to exciting and manipulating evanescent optical fields with plasmonic structures, and detailed information about the materials and thermal chemistry of laser desorption 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 · 2025-08

This award will support the principal investigator’s research in number theory. A central focus of number theory is understanding the structure of rational solutions to polynomial equations with rational coefficients. Since the 20th century, L-functions—a special class of complex analytic functions defined through an infinite product over prime numbers—have emerged as an essential tool in advancing this understanding. There is a prevailing belief that deep connections exist between the arithmetic properties of polynomials equations and the behavior of their associated L-functions.The Bloch-Kato conjecture predicts such connections in a broad and unifying framework, and the Iwasawa-Greenberg main conjecture offers an analogue in the setting of p-adic deformations. The PI will investigate these conjectures. This award will also support the mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students, the organization of seminars and several outreach activities. The PI’s research will largely focus on developing new techniques for studying p-adic properties of algebraic automorphic forms, which provide a useful bridge between the Selmer groups and L-functions for Galois representations arising from automorphic representations. The key technical components include: studying p-adic deformations of iterations of geometric Maass-Shimura differential operators for symplectic and unitary groups within the framework of classical and higher Coleman theory; generalizing the construction of p-adic L-functions for symplectic and unitary groups to cases where the ordinary locus of the associated Shimura varieties is empty, by analyzing the dynamics of Up operators; investigating the p-adic properties of various Eisenstein series on unitary and orthogonal groups to produce the inputs for bounding Selmer groups through congruences among automorphic forms and Euler systems; and constructing new Euler systems by producing extensions of Galois representations via étale cohomologies of Shimura varieties, and by using certain degenerate cases of Gross-Kudla-Schoen diagonal cycles. Built on the results obtained in these technical components, new cases of the Bloch-Kato conjecture and the Iwasawa-Greenberg main conjecture will be deduced. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-08

PROJECT SUMMARY The menopausal transition is marked by a rise in gonadotropin secretion and a decline in sex steroid hormones – up to 90% in the case of 17 -estradiol. For many women these pronounced endocrine changes are accompanied by changes in memory and attention (“menopause fog”), yet the influence of endocrine aging on the brain remains severely understudied. Further, navigation has emerged as a promising behavioral marker for detecting individuals at risk for dementia. Animal studies provide powerful evidence that sex hormones impact navigation ability and regulate the synaptic organization of the brain’s navigation circuitry, which overlaps significantly with brain regions impacted earliest in the progression to AD. However, corresponding studies interrogating sex hormones’ role in navigation circuitry have yet to be carried out in humans. This is surprising, given that sex differences in navigation are evident across mammalian species and women constitute two-thirds of the AD population. Few studies have established whether deficits in navigation emerge in midlife or whether age-related changes vary by sex or endocrine status. These represent critical gaps in our understanding of the aging brain and limit efforts to use navigation as a tool for determining AD risk. This Multi- PI proposal brings together an interdisciplinary team of experts in neuroscience, endocrinology, biostatistics, and spatial cognition with strong collaborative ties. Combining immersive, ambulatory virtual environments (VEs) and state-of-the-art brain imaging, we will elucidate the effects of endocrine aging on spatial navigation ability and its neuronal systems. To do so, we will enroll cognitively normal midlife men and women (N=240, ages 45-55), with a balanced distribution of pre-, peri-, and postmenopausal women per STRAW-10 guidelines; this also establishes an initial cohort for future longitudinal studies. Next, we will enroll older adults (N=160, ages 56-80) and younger adults (N=160, ages 18-44), balanced by sex, to assess navigation ability across the adult lifespan. In Aim 1, we will employ state-of-the-art walking VR methods to establish the impact of endocrine aging on navigation behavior during the critical midlife period. Immersive, ambulatory VR paradigms allow us to systematically probe diverse domains of navigation with greater ecological validity than data generated from stationary computers or handheld devices. In Aim 2, we will combine sub-millimeter resolution anatomical imaging of the hippocampus and surrounding tissue, diffusion MRI assessments of white matter microstructure, and innovative fMRI-based recordings of grid cell-like representations in entorhinal cortex to determine the impact of endocrine aging on navigation circuitry at mesoscopic and macroscopic scales. In Aim 3, we will situate navigation abilities in midlife within the context of aging across the adult lifespan. By testing our behavioral paradigms across adulthood (ages 18-80), we will chart sex-based trajectories of navigation behavior, pinpointing aspects of navigation that decline with age – and identifying those that are spared – as a benchmark for future AD studies.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

This award will provide support for the attendees and invited speakers for the twenty fourth Annual Symposium of the NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellows, to be held in conjunction with the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January 2026, in Phoenix, AZ. The purpose of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships (AAPF) Program is to support integrated research and education activities at the postdoctoral level to better prepare its fellows for positions of distinction and leadership in the scientific community. The Annual Symposium provides a forum for the Fellows to discuss their research and education projects while increasing their visibility within the astronomy and astrophysics community. The Symposium represents a key component of the AAPF Program and is a very effective mechanism to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and experience that the Fellows have acquired through their postdoctoral training. As with previous symposia in this series, the 2026 AAPF Symposium will promote interactions among astronomers with diverse research interests and backgrounds. By creating a forum in which discussions can occur across traditional research boundaries, the Symposium will provide Fellows the opportunity to gain new insights and pursue interdisciplinary collaborations. The Symposium will also provide a venue for discussing major issues that are important to early-career astronomers. In addition, the Symposium will (1) provide a forum to discuss integrated research and education activities, (2) facilitate collaborations between Fellows on both research and education, and (3) provide greater exposure for the Fellows and the AAPF Program within the astronomical community. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY This project aims to understand how mixtures of charged polymers—called ‘complex coacervates’ can form microscopic droplets with unique properties, such as the ability to encapsulate and deliver drugs or act as adhesives. These materials are increasingly important for applications, such as in personal care products, but the fundamental science of how and why they form remains unclear. This research uses a powerful instrumental approach in which a single molecule of a negatively charged polymer is stretched using a magnetic field, and then exposed to positively charged molecules in solution. This setup allows researchers to directly observe how the molecule responds to its environment, including when it folds into a droplet-like state, helping to uncover the precise conditions under which coacervation occurs. The project also develops new instruments that combine force measurements with 3D fluorescence imaging, providing a rare view of droplet formation at the molecular level. In parallel, the team will build theoretical models and computer simulations to interpret the results. This research serves the national interest by enhancing scientific knowledge about biomaterials, including a range of natural polymers used in technology. This scientific impact is joined by direct support of graduate and undergraduate student training, which will help guarantee a well-trained national STEM workforce. The project further strengthens ties between academic and national laboratories. TECHNICAL SUMMARY This project seeks to develop a mechanistic understanding of complex coacervation through single-molecule magnetic tweezer (MT) manipulation of a tethered polyanion interacting with free polycations in solution. By applying mechanical tension to the polyanion, the system can probe phase separation as a function of force, enabling direct measurement of coacervation transitions. The central hypothesis is that the force-dependent collapse of the polymer into a condensed phase encodes quantitative information about coacervate thermodynamics, including equilibrium conditions, kinetics, and configurational dynamics. Three aims structure the work: (1) development of MT-based instrumentation with active thermal stabilization and confocal fluorescence capabilities, (2) the systematic study of coacervation in biomaterials-relevant systems, including hyaluronic acid and single-stranded RNA interacting with various classes of polycations (polymeric, peptide, and protein), and (3) the development of a theoretical and simulation framework incorporating chain tension into coacervation phase diagrams. Simulations are conducted using coarse-grained molecular dynamics models that incorporate discrete ion effects. The work will reveal the role of polymer configuration, ionic strength, temperature, and polycation architecture in determining phase behavior, and seeks to establish a new physical framework for understanding tension-modulated complex coacervation. This project will provide direct support of graduate and undergraduate student training, which will help guarantee a well-trained national STEM workforce. The project further strengthens ties between academic and national laboratories. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry, Dr. Read de Alaniz of the University of California Santa Barbara will explore new ways to use light to control materials. This project will focus on developing new photoresponsive molecules that changes their shape, color, and molecular properties when exposed to visible light, including sunlight. These molecules, known as photoswitches, will be designed to work in water and solid materials, making them useful in medical technology, underwater robotics, and smart devices. Unlike many current systems that require harmful ultraviolet (UV) light, these new materials will respond to safer and more accessible visible light. This could lead to new kinds of soft robotics or self-healing materials that work under water or inside the body. In addition to these technological advances, the project will provide training opportunities for students at all levels through hands-on research and outreach programs. Graduate students will gain experience across chemistry and materials science, preparing them for careers in science and engineering, while also engaging in educational efforts that inspire the next generation of scientists. This research will involve the design and synthesis of a new class of donor–acceptor Stenhouse adduct (DASA)-based photoswitches with enhanced stability and switching ability in polar protic environments. In particular, the work will develop water-compatible DASAs and investigate their reversible structural behavior, which could allow for self-healing systems. The team will also create a modular platform to integrate these photoswitches into liquid crystal elastomers, enabling visible light-triggered actuation in solid-state materials, including underwater environments. The broader goal is to expand our fundamental understand of the relationship between molecular structure and responsive behavior to build next-generation materials that can change shape, repair themselves, or perform mechanical tasks in response to light, without the need for external wiring or power sources. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-08

The extracellular matrix is a critical component of all tissues and required for tissue repair, and discoveries of elements within this matrix has led to advances in our understanding and development of therapeutics for wound repair. Of these elements are matrix-bound nanovesicles (MBVs), a newly discovered type of extracellular vesicle embedded within the extracellular matrix. As a type of extracellular vesicle, MBVs are nanoparticles secreted by cells that carry unique cargo within a lipid-bilayer decorated with surface markers to directly transport functional cargo to cells. To date, MBVs have been isolated from decellularized tissues (heart, bladder, intestine, others) as well as the extracellular matrix produced by cells in vitro. MBVs are distinctly different from other extracellular vesicle types and have demonstrated cargo enriched in organ and tissue development factors. As a potentially critical component of the extracellular matrix, and thus wound repair, we seek to explore fundamental questions regarding MBVs that have yet to be answered: (1) Are MBVs a component of all extracellular matrices and are MBVs required for extracellular matrix formation? (2) How does MBV cell origin influence tissue-specific wound repair? To answer these questions, we use 3D collagen biomaterials and human mesenchymal stem cells to study and replicate human extracellular matrix function and repair. To answer our first question, we utilize super-resolution microscopy to visualize extracellular matrix production and determine localization of MBVs to extracellular matrix components. We will also modulate extracellular vesicle production to determine whether MBV production impacts a cell’s ability to form an extracellular matrix. To answer our second question, we will isolate MBVs from various cell types and sexes and examine their cargo and role in stem cell differentiation to determine whether MBV cell origin ultimately changes cell lineage commitment. We then will design biomaterials patterned with MBVs to examine a cell’s ability to sense different extracellular vesicle populations in the extracellular matrix. Ultimately, this proposal will improve our understanding of MBVs, a critically understudied component within the extracellular matrix. In the long-term, answers to these questions will uncover the importance of MBVs in wound repair and this information can be used to advance wound repair practices as well as foundational research in how alterations in MBV production may contribute to cancer and disease. The projects within this proposal will serve as a foundation for my lab’s long-term goals to understand how MBVs and other EVs influence tissue repair, disease, and homeostasis. Projects within this proposal are connected to broader goals to engage diverse groups of scientists. We will (1) include and recruit diverse personnel and perspectives by partnering with existing research training programs on campus, (2) increase research exposure to underrepresented minorities through community outreach, and (3) enhance student career opportunities by prioritizing student publications and presentations and organize workshops that intersect Art and Science to both connect with the local community and train students in science communication.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

Variability in winds and sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific produces the cycle of El Niño and La Niña events. These events produce both powerful storms and droughts, but their cycling is irregular and difficult to predict. The isotopic composition of oxygen preserved in fossil corals is one of the best tools scientists have for understanding how El Niño and La Niña have changed in the past. The composition is influenced by temperature but also by the salinity of seawater. Their respective influences must be separated to understand the magnitude of past El Niño and La Niña events and their impacts on the global water cycle. The proposed research combines analysis of rain and seawater, climate models, and fossil coral data to address this scientific question. The researchers will create a detailed map, or “isoscape,” showing how oxygen isotope values in seawater and rainfall vary across the modern tropical Pacific during El Niño and La Niña events. This map will be coupled with simulations from an ocean model. As a result of this work, scientists will have a more comprehensive understanding of how the intensity of past El Niño and La Niña events are recorded in coral oxygen isotope values. The proposed research will advance understanding of how El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related hydrologic anomalies may be inferred from oxygen isotope (delta-18O) values in tropical Pacific seawater. The researchers will utilize samples from long-running seawater and precipitation collection sites across the tropical Pacific and create a new isotope-enabled ocean reanalysis product for the Pacific basin at high spatial resolution. This combination will allow, for the first time, a direct assessment of the simultaneous isotopic anomalies associated with ENSO phases across multiple sites. The results will enable researchers to quantify the contributions of ocean circulation, atmospheric moisture balance, and precipitation delta-18O to seawater delta-18O values during different phases of ENSO. Results will also quantify seawater delta-18O and temperature influences on coral delta-18O values and reveal whether coral records of seawater delta-18O indicate stronger ENSO-related hydroclimate variability in recent decades, which is critical to inform planning for the impacts of ENSO events. The temporal continuity of the dataset, capturing ENSO phases across the basin, will enhance the community’s ability to interpret paleoclimate information of past tropical Pacific climate change. The project will support training for a graduate student, a postdoctoral scientist, and high school students. A new educational module on stable isotopes and the water cycle will be developed for 6th grade students. This module will involve hands-on learning and stable isotope analysis of local water samples, with assessment based on pre- and post-tests to measure educational outcomes and student understanding. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-08

Project Summary To perceive and interact with a complex and changing environment, animals use visual inputs to build an internal model of their local space. Early visual regions one or two synapses from the retina represent object locations in a retinotopic reference frame preserving the relative topography of retinal photoreceptors. Significant cortical processing is required to transform these object representations to an egocentric reference frame found in association cortex, in which object locations are mapped relative to the animal’s head or body. The neural circuitry underlying this critical transformation is not well understood, especially under conditions of active visual sampling. Computational models have proposed that egocentric object location can be calculated by integrating retinotopic location and gaze orientation in a multi-layer artificial neural network. This model makes testable predictions about the neuron response types that would be expected in the intermediate steps of reference frame transformation. In this proposal, I will use two-photon calcium imaging to record the activity of large populations of cortical neurons as mice locomote within a chamber containing a salient visual object. By measuring eye movements and the location of the object relative to the animal, I will develop an analysis approach for distinguishing retinotopic and egocentric object vector tuning in large populations of cortical neurons spanning visuoparietal cortex. I will first map the distribution of reference frame coding between primary visual cortex (V1) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) to determine which neural populations compute this transformation (Aim 1). To determine how retinotopic position and eye position signals are integrated within single neurons which show joint coding for multiple behavioral variables, I will record the functional calcium activity of dendritic spines in animals with sparse calcium indicator expression (Aim 2). Together, these results will reveal the biological implementations underlying reference frame transformation in the mammalian cortex. In understanding this canonical computation, we will better understand how visual deficits contribute to deficits in spatial perception and navigation.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY The defects present in engineering metals and alloys are pivotal in controlling properties such as mechanical strength and toughness. Properties such as these are crucial in fueling advanced technologies. Yet, alloy design principles and frameworks that target specific materials phases seldom treat the defects as objects for design themselves. Extending the fundamental thermodynamic, kinetic, and structural principles widely used to design bulk materials to the defects within these materials would enable more purposeful engineering of new materials with improved properties. To address this goal, this project will synthesize, characterize, and simulate the thermodynamics and kinetics of nanostructured metallic alloys containing a large quantity of interfacial defects known as grain boundaries. By encouraging specific chemical and structural environments at these defects, local phase transitions will be studied with the goal of promoting excellent thermal stability and ultimately mechanical behavior. This research aims to expand the scientific underpinnings of nucleation from nanoscale confined arrangements for bulk metallic systems where classical nucleation theories are not appropriate. A primary goal is to also use the insights gained from this research to advance the emerging paradigm of defect phases and their intentional design, which requires new theories on the thermodynamics and kinetics of small confined systems, as well as new approaches to defect-aware materials design. This project also supports outreach to K-12 populations in the Santa Barbara, CA and Baltimore, MD communities through local school and art museum engagement in addition to engagement with older adults using STEM-based programming to help combat social isolation and loneliness. TECHNICAL SUMMARY Amorphous complexions, also known as defect phases, are analogous to bulk amorphous phases but restricted to a thin nanoscale film along grain boundaries. Such microstructural features are particularly useful interfacial states since they imbue nanocrystalline materials with thermal stability at very high temperatures. Interestingly, these features are considered to be a major weakness of these otherwise promising materials. A fundamental advantage of amorphous complexions as designer interfaces is that their disordered structure is the preferred local equilibrium state upon undergoing a pre-melting event. However, the kinetics of these phase transitions localized to defects are not well understood, since their signatures are challenging to measure and depend strongly on the nature of the abutting crystals that surround the resulting confined structures. The proposed work will use alloy design of nanocrystalline metals to target these pre-melting transitions, produce thermally-stable, nanoscale-confined disordered interfacial states, and quantify the kinetics of these transitions. These regions are the starting point for solidification pathways with microstructures not accessible through conventional alloy synthesis and processing routes. State-of-the-art experimental approaches including ultrafast calorimetry, materials synthesis in both thin film and bulk forms, and in-situ scanning/transmission electron microscopy will be complemented with computations of phase equilibria and kinetics using atomistic and kinetic simulation approaches based on machine-learned interatomic force fields. The insights gained on the kinetics of nanoscale complexions having varying degrees of order are expected to inform frameworks for predicting the behavior of confined interfacial states of matter and guide alloy design strategies with intentional populations of targeted defects. This project also supports outreach to K-12 populations in the Santa Barbara, CA and Baltimore, MD communities through local school and art museum engagement in addition to engagement with older adults using STEM-based programming to help combat social isolation and loneliness. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

The BioPACIFIC MIP (Biomaterials, Polymers and Advanced Constructs from Integrated Chemistry Materials Innovation Platform), located at the University of California's (UC) Santa Barbara and Los Angeles campuses, is a research platform dedicated to scalable, high-throughput, and data-driven development of new bio-based materials with levels of performance better than available through standard manufacturing workflows. The MIP offers state-of-the-art robotic systems, other cutting-edge tools, easy-to-access databases, and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, which enable researchers to rapidly and reproducibly make novel materials. An interdisciplinary team of faculty and researchers provides education and hands-on training to users from both academia and industry, and participants gain access to world-class instrumentation and expertise. By giving students, researchers, and companies the chance to learn and make discoveries, BioPACIFIC MIP helps turn scientific ideas into novel materials and supports their translation to commercial products through startups and industry partnerships. The discovery and development of advanced biomaterials with novel properties is the central focus of the BioPACIFIC MIP. This goal is realized through the integration of synthetic biology, chemistry, and materials science that enables rapid and scalable discovery, screening, and scale-up of high-performance, bio-based materials with precise control over structure and function. Engineered organisms produce high-functionality monomers that support material circularity and degradability, while high-throughput synthetic chemistry enables sequence-defined polymers and advanced architectures. These synthetic workflows feed into Materials Genome Initiative-based loops that combine hierarchical computation, machine learning and AI-driven simulation, and in-line and ex-situ characterization to explore vast design landscapes. This approach enables inverse design of high-performance, stimuli-responsive, and bio-derived polymers, while revealing key structure–property relationships that govern material assembly, degradation, and function. Critically, this positions the MIP to support a national biomaterials innovation strategy and advances U.S. leadership in biotechnology and biomanufacturing. 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 · 2025-07

As computing demands increase, particularly with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), understanding which resulting hardware waste poses the greatest threats to human and ecological health is essential for sustainable design. Currently, computer system designers lack quantitative tools to assess the toxicity impact of their design choices. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration, the research team will develop SysTox, a novel data-driven framework that quantifies the toxicity impact of system design choices. This approach serves the national interest by advancing computing technology, reducing harmful e-waste, and providing a foundation for responsible technological advancement. The project will develop methodologies to analyze computing systems at the component level, identifying the elemental composition of various components and assessing their impacts in the waste stream. The research team will create new datasets through experimental measurements, develop models to quantify toxicity impacts, and establish an optimization framework that can guide computer hardware designers in making less toxic design choices while maintaining performance. The resulting framework will enable computer system engineers to make quantitative tradeoffs between performance, efficiency, and footprint, transforming how architectures and systems are designed across scales from microprocessors to data centers. 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 · 2025-07

This project supports seven PIs, one postdoctoral fellow, five graduate students, and two undergraduate students from the five U.S. universities to study how the availability of marine nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate may have fueled the expansion of eukaryotes (organisms with nuclei in their cells), transformed their ecological roles, and eventually revolutionized the marine ecosystem during the Tonian Period (1000–720 million years ago). This research will help scientists to better understand the ecological resilience of the marine ecosystem in the present and future. The project takes advantage of unique and complementary geologic records from two continents, leverages available collections and resources, and brings together an array of research expertise. It offers opportunities for the training of a globally engaged STEM workforce, as well as public outreach activities engaging national (geo)parks. This project will test the hypothesis that increasing nutrient availability in Tonian oceans drove the diversification and ecological rise of eukaryotes, which in turn transformed the scope of biodiversity from a prokaryote-dominated world to one teeming with eukaryotes. The researchers will systematically collect and integrate paleontological, geochemical, sedimentological, and stratigraphic data from early Tonian strata in North China and late Tonian strata in the Grand Canyon of Arizona. The data will be integrated with global compilations and an Earth system model to reconstruct nutrient availability, eukaryote taxonomic and functional biodiversity, and marine geochemical cycles to test the hypothesis stated above. The intellectual merit of the project lies in its potential to illuminate the complex feedbacks among nutrient availability, functional biodiversity, and biodiversity dynamics in a major transition in Earth history. The broader impacts of the project will catalyze multidisciplinary research, create synergies between the National Park System and research institutions, foster informal geoscience education, and prepare the next-generation of STEM workforce. This project is funded by the BIO/DEB Biodiversity of a Changing Planet (BoCP) Program and the GEO/EAR Life and Environments through Time (LET) Program. 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 · 2025-07

Quantum simulation offers exciting opportunities to explore complex phenomena that are too difficult for traditional computers to handle, such as how materials might exhibit superconductivity at high temperatures or the behavior of fundamental particles and forces. Advancements in quantum simulation could transform fields like materials science, drug discovery, and fundamental physics. However, current quantum computers, known as Noisy-Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, face challenges with errors and limited computing power. This project aims to overcome these obstacles by improving NISQ devices using a technique called Quantum Pulse Processing. This approach integrates advanced control techniques with algorithm design to minimize noise and enhance the efficiency of quantum simulations, paving the way for applications across physics, chemistry, and engineering. This research will contribute novel tools and frameworks that significantly enhance NISQ devices’ ability to address computational tasks beyond classical reach, bridging digital and analog quantum methods, and supporting the development of a quantum-ready workforce through open-source tools and educational resources. By fostering scientific progress in quantum technology, this work supports the National Science Foundation’s mission and strengthens the nation’s leadership in this transformative field. The project leverages Quantum Signal Processing (QSP) principles, extending them to a quantum pulse-level control framework to facilitate more flexible and efficient quantum programming. By integrating pulse-level control optimization into quantum simulation, this research aims to create a hybrid framework that combines the programmability of gate-based methods with the efficiency of analog pulse-level approaches. Key research directions include developing scalable multi-qubit control protocols to mitigate analog errors, creating robust hybrid digital-analog simulation algorithms that improve programmability and error resilience, and implementing scalable characterization methods for quantum control. Additionally, engineered dissipation methods will be employed to improve simulation fidelity against realistic noise, especially for simulating intricate physical phenomena like high-temperature superconductivity. Validation and deployment will be conducted through collaborative experimentation with academic and industry partners, with algorithms tested on diverse quantum platforms, including superconducting qubits, ion traps, and neutral atoms. 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 · 2025-07

This project develops a model to explain why people differ in how they judge public events such as rallies, marches, and other gatherings. It proposes that three processes jointly determine whether someone supports or condemns a public event. How someone judges the event depends on how they relate to its participants, whether its aims align with their values and beliefs, and whether it conflicts with their preferences for order and stability. This model helps explain the often-divided response to public events and helps predict when public events change public opinion. Building on social psychological theories, this project tests whether alliance-, cause-, and order-related mechanisms explain how observers respond to collective action. A series of studies tests the theoretical foundations and practical implications of this model. In carefully designed experiments, this research tests whether the three mechanisms make distinct causal contributions to explaining how observers judge public events. Combining geocoded archival and survey data, this work tests whether the three mechanisms accurately predict responses to real-world events, investigating why a public event sometimes intensifies support for, or opposition to, causes associated with that event. This research equips citizens with a better understanding of how others respond to public events and, in this way, can help foster a more informed and productive discourse around public events. 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 · 2025-07

This award provides support for US-based students and early-career researchers to participate the conference "Arithmetic cycles, Modular forms, and L-functions" that will take place at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques (CRM) in Montréal, August 18-22, 2025. The scientific program of the conference will revolve around recent advances in Number Theory and Arithmetic Geometry. A focus will be on novel uses of p-adic analytic methods to the study of algebraic problems, such as the construction of rational points on elliptic curves (a problem at the core of Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, one of the Millenium Prize Problems by the Clay Mathematics Institute) and the construction of class fields of totally real fields (a salient case of Hilbert’s 12th problem from his 1900 ICM address). With the novel use of p-adic methods as an overarching theme, the scientific program of the conference will revolve around the latest advancements in some of the deepest and most exciting directions in Number Theory and Arithmetic Geometry, including: arithmetic cycles and special values of L-functions, and their link with Iwasawa theory, with new applications to the Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture and the Bloch–Kato conjectures; Stark’s conjectures, with a focus on its p-adic analogues and its elliptic analogues; and the emerging p-adic Kudla program and its role in an eventual analogue for totally real fields of the classical theory of Complex Multiplication. Conference webpage: https://www.eventcreate.com/e/darmonfest This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-07

Project summary All host-adapted Bordetella species encode large filamentous hemagglutinin-like adhesins termed FhaL. Global expression studies indicate that fhaL is a virulence-activated gene, and FhaL peptides are detected in the secretome of B. pertussis cells cultured under pathogenic growth conditions. Although the FhaL expression profile suggests a function during host colonization, the activity of this putative adhesin has not been examined experimentally. We find that FhaL has a remarkably similar domain architecture as antibacterial CdiA effector proteins, which deliver C-terminal toxin domains into neighboring bacteria to inhibit target-cell growth. We propose the FhaL uses a similar delivery mechanism to translocate putative effector domains into eukaryotic host cells. FhaL carries four cargo modules, each composed of C80 cysteine peptidase and putative effector domains. The peptidase domains are homologous to auto-proteolytic domains found in MARTX toxins, suggesting that FhaL releases it effector domains through auto-processing after translocation into the host cell cytosol. FhaL effector domains share between 25% and 45% pair-wise identity with each other, but are not homologous to any other protein of known function. AlphaFold2 modeling indicates that the effector domains adopt similar folds with distant structural homology to esterases and hydrolases. This project will determine whether FhaL acts as a contact-dependent effector delivery system and test whether the effector domains act as toxic hydrolases to disrupt host cell physiology.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-07

Termites are highly abundant and impactful social insects found across more than half of the Earth’s land surface, mainly in tropical and subtropical regions. They play a major role in decomposing up to 60% of plant litter and fallen wood in these areas. During this process, termites rely on a partnership with microorganisms in their guts to help break down organic matter. In the process, some termites can also produce substantial amounts of methane that can be released into the atmosphere. There is still much uncertainty about how much methane termites release worldwide due to a lack of understanding of the processes that determine termite methane production and emission. The goals of this project are to understand the differences in methane production rate across termite species and how that relates to the microorganisms in their guts, and to estimate total methane emissions from termites across large areas using field measurements and remote sensing data. The fieldwork focuses on termites in the tropical savannas and forests of Odzala-Kokoua National Park, home to an exceptionally wide variety of termite species. The results from this project could greatly improve understanding of how much methane termites produce and how it happens, from individual species to whole colonies and larger areas, helping to fill important gaps in knowledge of termites' role in contributing to atmospheric methane. The project will train early-career scientists and engage K-12 students and the public through field, education, and museum programs in the United States and beyond, enhancing public understanding of insect ecology and their impact on the environment. Researchers will conduct field surveys to assess termite populations across tropical savannas and forests in Odzala-Kokoua National Park. An incubation method will measure methane production rates across termite species, considering variations in castes, nesting behaviors, and feeding groups, followed by DNA isolation and sequencing to characterize the methanogen community in termite symbiotic systems. A mass balance approach will determine the oxidation rates of termite-produced methane across different colonies, while laboratory incubations and metagenomic analyses will assess methanotrophic activities and communities within the colonies. Field measurements of colony-level methane emissions will be integrated with high-resolution, drone-based, LiDAR remote sensing to develop algorithms for upscaling termite methane emissions to landscape scales. The data collected will be used to address: 1) How do methane production rates vary across termite species, and what are the underlying mechanisms for these variations? 2) What are the oxidation rates of termite-produced methane within colonies and surrounding soils, and what are the mechanisms driving these processes? 3) How much methane is emitted by termites across tropical savanna and forest landscapes? This project has the potential to transform knowledge of the rates and underlying processes of termite methane production and emissions, from individual species to colonies to landscapes, filling crucial knowledge gaps and advancing understanding of this overlooked yet important contribution of termites to global atmospheric methane cycling. 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 · 2025-07

The UC Santa Barbara Data Storage Harnessing Open Environment (DataSHORE), is a comprehensive campus-wide data storage infrastructure that addresses critical challenges in computing-intensive research: increasing data volume, accelerating data velocity, and the need for enhanced data visibility. DataSHORE implements a tiered storage system with over 10 petabytes of raw storage capacity, delivering more than 5 petabytes of usable storage for scientific applications. The system enhances campus research capabilities by integrating with the National Research Platform through 100 Gbps network upgrades, facilitating rapid data transfer within campus and with external collaborators. DataSHORE serves as both a host and provider for the Open Science Data Federation (OSDF), allocating 25% of its capacity to this national network. This dual role enables UC Santa Barbara researchers to share their datasets nationally while also providing the campus community with efficient access to external scientific data resources through the OSDF's distributed architecture. DataSHORE employs innovative approaches to data management, including intelligent data migration between storage tiers based on usage patterns, automated assessment of data quality and FAIRness (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), and integration with existing campus cyberinfrastructure. The project includes a structured training program to develop researcher skills in data management practices throughout the entire research lifecycle. This infrastructure supports diverse scientific domains including epigenomics, atmospheric science, ecology, forest modeling, and materials science. By creating a centralized, high-performance storage solution with built-in data management capabilities, DataSHORE democratizes access to advanced cyberinfrastructure, fosters cross-institutional collaboration, and accelerates scientific discovery through improved data handling from collection to publication. 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 · 2025-07

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are a key mechanism for decarbonizing the grid by complementing and time-shifting the inherent uncertainty of weather-contingent variable renewable energy assets. The rapid build out of BESS capacity is reshaping the power grid, adding a new class of energy resources with multiple flexibilities. This project will provide new tools for designing efficient market policies that maximize the benefits of BESS and fairly incentivize private BESS operators to provide valuable grid services, underpinning its stable daily operations. The resulting insights will support an efficient and sustainable grid that is resilient, secure and prevents predatory behavior. The project will develop new stochastic modeling frameworks for management of BESS, addressing short-term operation of a single BESS, BESS joint bidding for day-ahead and intra-day ancillary service provision and energy trading markets, and the aggregate behavior of competitive price-making BESS. Using the lens of stochastic games, the PIs will characterize mean-field and N-player equilibria for a market with many BESS acting as non-cooperative players. An integral part of this project is to construct and study numeric algorithms for intra-day BESS management that take into account the operating-scale uncertainty in grids with high renewable penetration. Research activities are grounded in scalable algorithmic development and will be tested on realistic-scale simulators, offering tech-to-market potential and new tools to grid operators. The envisioned novel mathematical frameworks will cross-pollinate methods from quantitative finance and data-driven stochastic control into energy systems analysis. 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 · 2025-06

NONTECHNICAL SUMMARY Advances in quantum technologies and in our understanding of fundamental quantum phenomena are increasingly driven by synergies between two key areas of theoretical science. The first, quantum information theory, explores how quantum mechanics can enhance the storage, transmission, and processing of information, while the second, quantum many-body physics, investigates the collective behavior that can emerge in systems of many interacting quantum particles. Important developments in both fields often involve a deepening understanding of quantum entanglement, a correlation between particles which classical physics is unable to describe. Recent breakthroughs in both disciplines—new techniques for protecting quantum information and fresh insights into how complex quantum systems evolve—present an opportunity for renewed interdisciplinary focus. This project will aim to discover and characterize new phases of quantum matter that emerge from the synergy of these developments, and that may offer novel ways of storing and protecting information. Unlike traditional phases of matter, which are characterized by how particles are arranged or locally-correlated, these phases are defined by the way that their collective quantum entanglement is organized. This research has the potential to both advance an understanding of fundamental phenomena and enable the development of future quantum technologies. This research will be combined with the training of undergraduate and graduate student researchers in quantum science, an area of high national priority. The PI will partner with the Transfer Student Center (TSC) at UCSB in order to provide a pedagogical lecture series annually, with the goal of recruiting undergraduate transfer students to participate in the research. This initiative will provide students the necessary skills to begin academic research or to participate in industry efforts in quantum science. TECHNICAL SUMMARY This research project will use tools from the study of random quantum circuit evolution and from the theory of quantum codes, in order to (i) characterize novel zero-temperature phases of quantum matter which are intimately related to recently-discovered quantum low-depth parity-check codes, (ii) elucidate the universal entanglement properties of near-equilibrium, mixed-states of quantum many-body systems, and (iii) develop an understanding of regimes of far-from-equilibrium quantum many-body evolution which naturally act as emergent quantum codes. This project will advance our understanding of universal phenomena in quantum matter and strategies for quantum error-correction by bridging developments in the theory of quantum codes and quantum many-body dynamics. Quantum error-correction as a dynamical process will be used as a new paradigm in order to understand the entanglement properties of near-equilibrium mixed-states of quantum matter, and to identify universal phenomena that demarcate phases of mixed many-body states. Studies of far-from-equilibrium quantum dynamics will be used to identify error-correcting phases of matter in which open quantum dynamics acts as a robust, emergent quantum code even in the absence of feedback. Deep connections between random quantum dynamics and statistical mechanics will be used to uncover emergent quantum codes in quantum many-body evolution with measurements in higher spatial dimensions. This research will be combined with the training of undergraduate and graduate student researchers in quantum science, an area of high national priority. The PI will partner with the Transfer Student Center at UCSB in order to provide a pedagogical lecture series, with the goal of recruiting undergraduate transfer students to participate in the proposed work. This initiative will provide students the necessary skills to begin academic research or to participate in industry efforts in quantum science. 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

This I-Corps project is based on the development of an interactive social robot, called a socialbot, that interacts and communicates with older adults facing cognitive decline. Currently, family caregivers lack structured, easy-to-use tools that prompt meaningful memory-sharing activities and enhance emotional well-being. This technology is designed to record, retrieve, and discuss personal memories to improve the quality of interactions. This digital platform technology provides caregivers with the ability to engage emotionally with older adults, stimulate memory recall, and ease caregiving challenges. In addition, this platform may offer a scalable and adaptable service to individual caregivers, senior living communities, and dementia care programs. The goal is to address dementia care needs, potentially delaying the need for institutional care, strengthening family relationships, and significantly improving the quality of life for older adults and their families. This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of a conversational socialbot technology for use in reminiscence therapy. Reminiscence therapy is a psychosocial intervention that stimulates long-term memory and emotional well-being among older adults. It has demonstrated benefits in improving social engagement and life satisfaction by fostering reflection on personal experiences and memories. This technology incorporates advancements in proactive, multi-turn conversational artificial intelligence (AI), integrated with knowledge graph-driven management of personalized multimedia content (photos, audio, and videos). Unlike traditional conversational systems limited by passive interactions and short-term memory, this technology leverages long-context AI models to dynamically retrieve and organize meaningful content, delivering personalized, sustained, and emotionally engaging conversations. Users benefit from improved social interaction, enhanced emotional well-being, and sustained cognitive engagement, highlighting a substantial advancement in AI-driven healthcare solutions. The goal is to meet caregivers’ needs and support older adults’ emotional health and cognitive engagement. 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.