Boston College

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-07

Preparing communities and the future engineering workforce to address societal challenges requires educational experiences that highlight the complex, interconnected nature of environmental and social systems–core elements of the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) framework. Adding in McGowan and Bell's place-based framework, this Design & Development Research project will link learning outcomes from the EOP framework to a multi-city environmental research program through (i) a hyper-local rainfall sensor network, developed by undergraduate students and installed by middle school students in participating schools and clubs, (ii) an associated curriculum for middle school students, and (iii) a research collaborative involving data collection by middle school students, aimed at developing student interest in and pathways to engineering, while emphasizing urban resilience and flood preparedness in their communities. By addressing spatial and temporal gaps in rainfall data needed for flood forecasting, real-time response to weather emergencies, and resilient urban development, the sensor network program aims to motivate students to engage with and develop an interest in engineering by recognizing how collaborative engineering solutions support human well-being, starting with their local communities. The multi-city network will connect middle school and undergraduate students across three cities in two states, fostering collaboration and emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary engineering solutions to challenges that have social, environmental, regional, and hyper-localized implications. Curricular materials will be shared publicly, allowing additional sites to join the research network, which will expand the educational program as well as the range or density of rainfall data collection sites. With this expanded data collection coverage, the network will also be better positioned to answer important questions regarding hyperlocal rainfall patterns and distribution. Moreover, students will develop engineering ways of thinking through sharing their stories around flooding while practicing engineering design. This project's overarching goal is to investigate how localized educational experiences and engagement with a multi-city research network influence students' interest in interdisciplinary engineering pathways, and their understanding of the complexity of urban environmental challenges. Through partnerships with education centers in three cities, the project team will collaborate with middle school educators and undergraduate engineering students to codesign a low-cost rain gauge sensor kit and curriculum that highlights the complex interconnectedness of engineered and natural systems within urban communities. The team will then work with middle school students to implement the curriculum, build and deploy rainfall sensors, analyze data in a multi-city research collaborative, and share processed data through a public dashboard. Through a mixed methods approach, the team will assess how participation in a localized informal education experience impacts student interest in engineering and related pathways. The project's narrative inquiry approach will build knowledge about what role stories play in how students conceptualize what engineers do in designing and supporting urban environments. Through observation of the research collaborative, the team will build knowledge regarding how and in what ways the collection of environmental data in the context of an interdisciplinary, multi-city collaboration contributes to students’ conceptions of engineering. The program will also provide students the opportunity to engage with Internet of Things sensors as a documented and practical approach for collecting localized environmental data in urban spaces. Work with these sensors and the data they collect will provide participants with important experience in microelectronics and artificial intelligence. The project's focus on urban spaces will highlight for audiences – both younger and older, student and public – specific challenges to collecting data in urban communities and developing realistic solutions to them. This project is co-funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2026 · 2026-05

The AI-Facilitated Partner Communication for PrEP study aims to enhance HIV prevention among women by empowering them with skills to discuss pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with male sexual partners. Existing PrEP interventions rarely address the complex barriers to partner communication that influence PrEP uptake. This R34 proposal aims to develop and pilot a Virtual Practice Environment (VPE) using large language models (LLMs) to simulate realistic conversations that allow women to practice PrEP communication strategies in a supportive, risk-free setting. This study offers an innovative, scalable approach to strengthening PrEP implementation efforts by addressing partner-level barriers.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2026 · 2026-05

Project Summary Cannabis use among pregnant women has increased more than 60% over the past decade. Up to 15% of women use cannabis prior to pregnancy and 6% prenatally, with disparities by socio-demographics, mental health symptoms, and polysubstance use. The cannabis policy context has been evolving rapidly with 24 states and DC having legalized recreational cannabis. Significant gaps remain in understanding the effects of legalization on prenatal cannabis use and spillover effects on other substances, birth outcomes, and provider assessment of use as well as variations in policy effects by demographic and higher-risk strata. The overarching goals of the study are toexamine the effects of state recreational cannabis laws on disparities in women's use of cannabis, tobacco, and alcohol (referred to as substance use) during pregnancy as well as health care providers' assessment of prenatal substance use. We will evaluate the 2016-2023 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), the only state-representative data on prenatal cannabis use, which asks new mothers in 25 states and DC (15 have legalized cannabis) about their substance use and providers' assessment of use. Differences in state cannabis laws linked to monthly PRAMS data creates a natural experiment, which can be rigorously evaluated. This project has two Specific Aims. Aim 1 will evaluate the effects of state recreational cannabis laws on women's substance use preconception, prenatally, and postpartum as well as the downstream effects on birth outcomes. Aim 2 will evaluate the effects of state laws on women's self-reports of health care providers' assessment of prenatal substance use. Across Aims 1 and 2, the project will assess the overall effects of recreational cannabis legalization as well as differential effects of state laws by demographic (race/ethnicity, education, age) and higher-risk (mental health symptoms, polysubstance use) strata. The cannabis policy landscape is evolving rapidly. Study findings will (a) fill critical gaps in understanding the unintended consequences of emerging recreational cannabis laws on disparities in prenatal substance use, birth outcomes, and providers' assessment of prenatal use; and (b) inform public health responses in states with current cannabis laws or states contemplating legislation and clinical practice, including assessment of prenatal substance use, with the ultimate aim to improve the health of vulnerable mothers and infants.

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-01

In this project funded by the Chemistry Division, Professors Jia Niu and X. Peter Zhang of the Department of Chemistry at Boston College in the United States is collaborating with Professor Julien Nicolas at University Paris-Saclay/CNRS in France, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), to develop a sustainable method to make biodegradable plastics. A key focus of this research is controlling the three-dimensional orientation of the building blocks, also known as the stereochemistry, of the plastic molecules. Each of these building blocks can have two mirror-image stereochemistries that are not interchangeable, and collectively the stereochemistry of all building blocks in these plastics can dramatically affect how they behave as materials, such as their strength, at what temperature they melt, or how easily they break down. Traditional methods for controlling the building block stereochemistries in plastics often require harsh conditions and/or rare metal elements. This project develops a new strategy that employs earth-abundant cobalt element to guide how building blocks of a plastic molecule are arranged during the reaction in which it forms. If successful, the technology developed in this project could be used to produce functional plastics with stereochemistry-determined properties for delivering drug molecules to the targeted sites or packaging materials that can be broken down in the natural environment. The project also includes U.S. and France student exchanges and bilingual science education programs that give students hands-on trainings in sustainable chemistry, helping to train a globally minded scientific workforce. This project aims to develop cobalt-based metalloradical catalysis (MRC) that leverages cobalt-bound organic radicals to control both the activity and stereochemistry of radical polymerization across a broad range of monomers, a long-standing challenge in polymer chemistry. Specifically, the research will answer the following fundamental questions: (1) Can metalloradical catalysis be used to achieve stereocontrolled radical polymerization of acyclic vinyl monomers, and how do different cobalt catalyst designs influence the resulting polymer tacticity? (2) Is it possible to extend this stereocontrol to radical ring-opening polymerization and copolymerization of cyclic vinyl monomers, enabling the synthesis of degradable polymers with tailored properties? (3) Can the inherent chirality of stereoregular polymers be harnessed to drive tacticity-induced self-assembly (TISA), and how does it influence the morphology and function of polymer-based drug delivery systems? By integrating experimental and computational approaches, this work will deepen mechanistic understanding of stereocontrol in radical polymerization and establish a broadly applicable, catalyst-controlled platform for producing tacticity-controlled degradable vinyl polymers. The use of earth-abundant cobalt not only advances sustainable catalysis in polymer synthesis but also opens new pathways for reducing plastic waste. 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 · 2025-11

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the world, and is changing how people learn, work, and connect. From healthcare and transportation, to education and public services, AI systems are shaping how people make decisions and are influencing everyday experiences. As these technologies become more integrated into daily life, it is essential that engineers are prepared not only to build them, but also to understand and anticipate their broader societal impacts. This project will support the development of new teaching strategies that will help engineering students engage with the ethical, social, and human dimensions of AI. By designing and testing new ways of teaching that help students connect their technical education with real-world impact, the project will support the development of engineers who are thoughtful, responsible, and prepared to contribute to the public good. This work aligns with growing national efforts to strengthen the AI workforce and ensure that students and educators are prepared to thrive in a rapidly evolving digital society. In particular, it supports priorities outlined in recent federal initiatives that call for expanded education, teacher training, and ethical awareness in the field of AI. This project will also address the goals of the National Science Foundation’s Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (NSF-RIEF) program by training a faculty member new to engineering education research to build the skills and collaborations needed to study and improve how engineers are taught about AI. This project will develop, implement, and study a novel approach to AI education grounded in Human-Centered Algorithm Design (HCAD). HCAD integrates technical, ethical, and social considerations into the process of designing algorithmic systems. The project will be carried out in three phases: (1) the development of modular instructional materials suitable for integration into both introductory and advanced undergraduate engineering courses; (2) the implementation of these materials in courses at Boston College; and (3) the use of design-based research (DBR) methods to iteratively study and refine the curriculum. The research will examine how students understand and apply HCAD concepts, how their perceptions of engineering and AI evolve, and how different elements of the curriculum influence engagement. Mixed-methods data collection will include surveys, interviews, classroom observations, and analysis of student work. Findings will contribute to the growing body of knowledge on engineering education, AI instruction, and pedagogical design for integrated STEM learning. Outcomes will include publicly available curricular materials, empirical evidence on how students engage with human-centered design approaches in technical contexts such as when building AI-based algorithmic systems, and guidance for adapting the HCAD framework to other institutions with varying missions, sizes, and student populations. In addition, the project will support the PI’s growth as a scholar in engineering education research by providing mentored experience in research design, qualitative and quantitative methods, and dissemination. Through these efforts, the project aims to improve the quality and reach of AI education and help shape a generation of engineers who are equipped to design technologies that responsibly serve society. 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 · 2025-10

Non-technical description Next-generation low-power electronics, wireless technologies, and the Internet of Things (IoT) require diode devices that can operate efficiently at high frequencies, with low power input and minimal energy loss—capabilities that remain challenging for conventional diode systems. This project focuses on a new class of materials called quantum diodic magnets (QuDiM), which host “quantum dipoles”—dipolar distributions of quantum wavefunction properties that enable current rectification, where electric current flows more easily in one direction than the other, a defining characteristic of diode function. Unlike traditional diode materials, QuDiM systems can operate at very high frequencies and low power with minimal energy loss. Importantly, their performance is resilient to impurities and thermal fluctuations. This intrinsic robustness reduces the need for ultra-clean materials, simplifies device design, and makes these systems potentially suitable for diverse environments. To accelerate progress in this emerging field, the research will build an integrated discovery pipeline linking theory, computation, synthesis, and experimental characterization. In parallel, this project will promote interdisciplinary education and open science by developing teaching modules that introduce students to computational, data-driven, and AI-based approaches in quantum materials research. Technical description This project aims to design, synthesize, characterize, and benchmark quantum diodic magnets (QuDiM)—a class of quantum magnetic materials that exhibit intrinsic nonreciprocal transport, enabling direction-dependent conductivity for electrical and microwave rectification. This emerging diode technology is rooted in geometric quantum properties, such as Berry curvature and quantum metric dipoles. Unlike conventional diodes, QuDiM materials can achieve efficient high-frequency rectification in the ultralow-power regime—a performance space previously inaccessible with traditional mechanisms. Crucially, their nonreciprocal response is dissipationless, remaining robust against impurity scattering and electron-phonon interactions. This intrinsic resilience enables functionality at elevated temperatures, including above room temperature, while reducing the need for high-purity materials and simplifying device and circuit design. The development of such quantum dipole-enabled materials remains in its early stages. To accelerate progress, the project brings together an interdisciplinary and international team with expertise in quantum theory, high-throughput computation, machine learning, multi-route chemical synthesis, and advanced experimental characterization. A co-design framework integrates theoretical modeling, computational screening, and experimental realization through iterative feedback between design and measurement. Automation and AI-driven strategies will further accelerate the discovery and optimization of QuDiM systems, with the overarching goal of establishing a robust materials platform for next-generation low-power electronic and wireless technologies. 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 · 2025-09

Modified Project Summary/Abstract Section The mental health experiences of Black autistic youth (Black-AY) have been severely understudied and are often unaddressed, particularly concerning their experiences with depression and depressive symptoms. Black youth, in general, are at an increased risk of experiencing depression while navigating challenges related to being autistic. Recent studies indicate that Black-AY are significantly more likely to report depressive symptoms and frequently encounter difficulties with essential social communication skills necessary for effectively expressing their mental health needs. These findings have led us to develop an informed mobile health (mHealth) tool to support Black-AY in communicating about depression and effectively seeking mental health support. The Asking for Help program (A4H) utilizes simulated conversations and depression literacy content to enhance help-seeking behaviors through improved social communication and depression literacy for Black-AY. The proposed study employs a user-centered mixed-methods design, incorporating a convergent parallel mixed-methods methodology with a user-centered approach to 1) evaluate the acceptability, usability, and feasibility of Asking for Help; 2) modify and refine A4H to optimize its effectiveness for Black-AY; and 3) apply a quasi-experimental one-group pre-test post-test design to assess A4H's efficacy in enhancing participants’ understanding and knowledge about depression, mental health communication, self-efficacy, anxiety, and overall mental health help-seeking attitudes. The findings will expand scholarly knowledge of the depression experiences and mental health help-seeking behaviors of Black autistic youth by developing a program intended to significantly impact their mental health by offering relevant resources and personalized care that will help these youth thrive and achieve mental wellness.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Scientific sensemaking, such as using data to reason and develop explanations about phenomena, is core to learning and doing science. Oral and written language, visual and numerical representations, physical models, and other forms of communication are vital to scientific sensemaking, yet research has not yet fully explored how science curricula can be customized to account for the unique communicative repertoires of individual learners within elementary science classes. This project will address this important gap in practice by developing a suite of tools that elementary teachers can use to customize existing open-source, standards-aligned science curricula, such that these curricula are better able to support students with a range of communicative strengths, including multilingualism. Specifically, the project team will partner with elementary educators to co-develop customization tools to accompany peer-reviewed, open-source science education curricula. These customization tools will serve as the basis for professional learning modules on how to support learners who speak one or more languages, in developing and using their full communicative repertoires while engaging in scientific sensemaking, as guided by the curricula. Subsequent research will explore whether and how the professional learning experiences influence participating teachers' beliefs, preparedness, instructional practice and curricular customizations. The resulting empirically based professional learning modules and customization tools will be disseminated widely to achieve national impacts in science learning for elementary students. In this multisite Design and Development project, researchers and elementary teachers will co-design standards-aligned curricular customization tools that support scientific sensemaking among third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students with varying communicative strengths. Design-based research will explore how the co-design process constrains or enables new beliefs and instructional practices among 24 elementary teachers. The resulting curricular customization tools may include tools for evaluating existing language opportunities, such as linguistic resources that are currently used for sensemaking; tools for enhancing sensemaking displays, such that they include a broader array of representations; and records of classroom customizations that illustrate how customizations can be enacted across a range of elementary classes. In the second phase of the project, these customization tools will be shared with a larger set of elementary educators in the context of research-aligned professional learning experiences. Mixed methods research will explore whether and how these educators' beliefs, preparedness, instructional practices, and curricular customizations shift as they participate in the professional learning. Specifically, the research team will analyze teacher surveys, video recordings from the professional learning sessions and classroom observations, and artifacts from the educators' curricular customizations. The resulting empirical research will advance knowledge regarding how teacher professional learning, and associated materials, can be designed to better account for the unique compositions of elementary classrooms across the nation. This project is supported by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Since June 2022, 14 states have banned nearly all elective pregnancy terminations, and even prior to this time, many states had implemented laws that made reproductive healthcare more difficult to access. Previous research has documented that these policies reduce terminations and increase births; however, less is known about how policies which restrict pregnancy terminations impact other reproductive health outcomes such as choice of contraception, quality of prenatal care, and severe maternal morbidities (SMM), and potential mechanisms through which policy environments impact these outcomes. We propose using the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) patient claims data on diagnoses, prescriptions, and contact with the healthcare system to quantify the effects on disparities in birth outcomes, SMM, and prenatal patient care before and after federal and state reproductive health policy changes in 2022. This study has two specific aims. Aim 1 tests how state-wide reproductive health policies prior to June 2022 impact geographic disparities on these five outcomes: 1) contraceptive use, 2) fertility, 3) SMM, 4) distance between patient residence and provider and use of telehealth, and 5) patient contact with doctors during pregnancy. Aim 2 then extends these analyses to the Post-June 2022 period, exploring how state-wide policies change access to reproductive healthcare providers and the impacts on these five outcomes. We plan to test this by using state by year changes in legislation and geographic proximity to clinics to identify the causal impacts of these policies. We then test potential mechanisms for the changes in SMM to evaluate whether they are attributable to demographic changes in the women who give birth or whether they are attributable to changes in provider access and prenatal care. Because HCCI data includes a large sample of patients along with granular geographic information, we will be able to link patient outcomes to data on clinic locations or state-level legislation and explore within-state disparities in outcomes between rural and urban areas, high- and low-income areas, and areas with higher and lower racial/ethnic minority populations. Finally, we will be able to observe the geographic location of the patient and of the provider separately, along with whether care was provided via telemedicine, allowing us to document and evaluate changes in geographic access to reproductive health providers. Together, these analyses will provide a better understanding of the overall impacts of a reproductive health policy environment that is currently in flux across the United States. Our study will fill critical gaps in understanding how policies directly impact women’s reproductive health care decisions and the growing maternal morbidity public health crisis.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Computational thinking (CT) is a way of solving problems by breaking them down into smaller parts and creating step-by-step solutions or algorithms. There is a critical need to embed CT in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses beyond computer science to reflect the increasingly computational nature of STEM and to prepare students for future careers. This project will investigate how recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) can support CT development within an innovative biology curriculum in which students design and program a robotic arm controlled by their own muscle activity. Specifically, the project will focus on how AI tools can assist students in designing algorithms and translating them into computer programs. In response to the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the project will also inspire and prepare students to participate in the microelectronics industry, where there is a national need to promote the domestic production of microchips. By interacting with electronic circuits that control the robotic arm and engaging with a microchip simulation, students will have a rich opportunity to learn about the function and utility of microchips. Overall, the project will directly enhance the STEM learning of 20 high school teachers and 500 students. Recent developments in generative AI provide an exciting yet underexplored opportunity to promote CT education. This project will design innovative AI tools to support CT instruction and employ a rigorous research design to investigate their impact on students' algorithmic thinking. Relatedly, it will develop curricular materials to support AI prompting and explore how student prompting evolves over time. The project will also provide a methodological contribution by establishing validity evidence for an AI prompting tool for high school students. Further, the project will develop a new approach to microelectronics learning, situated within the engineering design process. While most prior work has focused on university students, this project will investigate how the approach impacts high school students. Finally, the project will generate new knowledge on how to prepare and support teachers in fostering CT, AI prompting, and engineering design among their students. To achieve these goals, the project will employ a mixed-methods approach consisting of surveys, interviews, and analysis of user data. AI tools, curriculum materials, and research findings will be disseminated through STEM Resource Finder--an online platform with over 1.4 million users--as well as through workshops for pre- and in-service teachers, conference presentations, and research publications. This project is co-funded by NSF's DRK-12 and ITEST programs. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. The Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers. 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 the support of the Chemical Catalysis program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Gonghu Li of the University of New Hampshire, Professor Jier Huang of Boston College and Professor Anatoly Frenkel of Stony Brook University are studying key characteristics of catalysts that promote efficient conversion of carbon dioxide to energy-rich fuels using light. The catalysts will be prepared by placing isolated metal ions on a polymer that absorbs sunlight and generates electrons that convert carbon dioxide to fuels. The catalyst structures will be investigated using advanced spectroscopic techniques and machine learning-assisted data analysis. This research will contribute to the development of innovative catalysts for recycling carbon dioxide. With a strong focus on fundamental catalysis research, this project also provides a versatile platform for training students in the STEM fields. With the support of the Chemical Catalysis program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Gonghu Li of the University of New Hampshire, Professor Jier Huang of Boston College and Professor Anatoly Frenkel of Stony Brook University are studying photocatalysts featuring atomically dispersed surface metal sites. The researchers with complementary expertise collaborate to investigate photocatalytic activity descriptors of single cobalt sites on graphitic carbon nitride. A series of photocatalysts with tunable charge separation and transfer properties will be synthesized. The correlation of structural/electronic and charge transfer descriptors with photocatalytic performance will be systematically examined by using a suite of advanced, real-time spectroscopic techniques including in situ/operando X-ray absorption fine structure, time resolved optical transient absorption and X-ray transient absorption spectroscopies. Machine learning will be employed for descriptor extraction from spectroscopies and their relationships with photocatalytic activity. Results obtained from this work will lead to the discovery of key descriptors for photocatalytic activities of well-defined metal sites on semiconductor support, and thus provide new insights on developing robust and economically sustainable photocatalysts. This collaborative project focuses on fundamental research in catalysis, and provides a versatile platform for training students in the STEM fields. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The opioid epidemic is a public health crisis that has devastated families and communities across the United States. For people who experience addiction, enrollment in treatment programs is a cornerstone of the recovery process. Yet workers employed in residential addiction treatment facilities—many of whom are in recovery themselves—report unsustainable workloads, low pay, vicarious trauma, workplace violence, and lack of organizational support. High turnover rates in these facilities contribute to a projected national provider shortfall of 47% by 2036, exacerbating the opioid crisis by contributing to long wait times for treatment and reduced care continuity. The central premise of this study is that addressing stressful working conditions within residential addiction treatment centers will improve workforce retention and patient care, with effects mediated by improved worker wellbeing. The project is a partnership between the research team at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, and Wellbeing, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (BSAS), and community-based addiction treatment stakeholders. The proposed R61/R33 project will implement the Worker Input and Strategy Program (WISP), an evidence-based, participatory organizational intervention, in residential addiction treatment facilities in Massachusetts. WISP provides facilities with training, an intervention toolkit, and technical assistance to implement a continual improvement process in which a worker-manager committee identifies stressful working conditions (e.g., lack of career progression, vicarious trauma), and then develops and implements action plans to address these high-priority manager and worker concerns; these intervention activities are supported by a WISP stipend and a facility learning collaborative across facilities. The project will be conducted in two phases. The R61 phase will focus on adapting WISP to fit the specific needs of residential addiction treatment facilities; this includes developing a comprehensive WISP toolkit and piloting the intervention in three diverse facilities to evaluate intervention feasibility and acceptability. The R33 phase will involve a parallel two-arm cluster- randomized Hybrid II Effectiveness-Implementation study designed to evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of the WISP intervention in 40 residential treatment facilities employing approximately 680 workers. By improving the wellbeing, and thus retention, of workers in residential addiction treatment facilities, the project aims to enhance the quality of patient care and reduce the societal burden of substance addiction. By generating evidence for both intervention effectiveness and implementation, this project is expected to develop effective, sustainable strategies that can be scaled to other levels of care and other states. The ultimate goal of the project is to create a robust, stable, and thriving workforce capable of providing effective and compassionate care to the growing population seeking addiction treatment, thereby contributing to better health outcomes and reducing illness and disability associated with substance addiction. This study is part of the NIH’s Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative to speed scientific solutions to the national opioid public health crisis. The NIH HEAL Initiative bolsters research across NIH to improve treatment for opioid misuse and addiction.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-09

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Catalytic Radical Processes for Stereoselective Chemical Synthesis Homolytic one-electron radical chemistry, complementing heterolytic two-electron ionic chemistry in terms of reactivity and selectivity, has recently garnered significant traction in organic synthesis. It encompasses fundamental reactions like radical addition, radical substitution, atom abstraction, and radical scission, while offering appealing attributes. These include fast reaction rates under mild, neutral conditions across a variety of solvents, including water, and a reduced sensitivity to the electronic and steric properties of substrates, allowing for tolerance of common functional groups. Additionally, neutral radical species naturally engage in homolytic cascade reactions, enabling the rapid assembly of complex molecular structures in a single operation. However, the full synthetic potential of radical reactions has been constrained by the longstanding challenges in controlling reactivity and selectivity, largely due to their diverse and often indiscriminate nature, which frequently leads to a complex mixture of products. Particularly, achieving enantioselectivity in radical reactions has been exceptionally difficult, owing to the easy inversion at prochiral faces of the trivalent radical intermediates. To address these inherent challenges and fully harness the potential of radical chemistry in organic synthesis, our laboratory's research has been focused on establishing metalloradical catalysis (MRC) as a comprehensive framework to guide the development of general approaches for controlling the reactivity and stereoselectivity of homolytic radical reactions. MRC harnesses metal-centered radicals in open-shell metal complexes as one-electron catalysts for the homolytic activation of substrates. This activation process generates metal-supported organic radicals as pivotal intermediates, directing both the reaction pathway and the stereochemical outcome of subsequent catalytic radical processes. In contrast to the traditional metal catalysis, MRC operates via one-electron chemistry, employing stepwise radical mechanisms. Over the next five years, guided by MRC principles, our research program aims to develop innovative metalloradical systems for catalytic radical processes with applications in stereoselective chemical synthesis. We plan to leverage D2-symmetric chiral amidoporphyrins, characterized by their tunable electronic, steric, and chiral properties. The focus will be on utilizing cobalt(II) complexes of these porphyrin ligands as chiral metalloradical catalysts. These catalysts will be pivotal in advancing enantioselective C–H alkylation and amination reactions, as well as in addressing challenging issues in various radical cyclization reactions. Our studies are expected to lead to development of Co(II)-based catalytic radical processes for stereoselective alkene cyclization and C–H functionalization. These processes are anticipated to be broadly applicable to practical synthesis of biologically significant natural products and pharmaceutically relevant small molecules.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-09

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The objectives of this proposal are to: (A) identify how patterns of social engagement change in the final five years of life, and (B) explore the roles of these changes in shaping well-being and quality-of-life in the years prior to death, as well as end-of-life health care quality, among the older adult population in the United States. Social engagement is a well-established determinant of health, well-being, and mortality, and includes both interaction with close, intimate social ties as well as broader participation in social activities. Prior research demonstrates that patterns of social engagement change throughout later life in response to changes in health and other life course transitions. However, these patterns are relatively understudied during the final years of life, when cognitive and physical health declines may limit social engagement, and yet, when well-being may especially benefit from social engagement. To accomplish these objectives, we will draw on secondary survey data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), an annual, nationally-representative longitudinal study of Medicare recipients. First, we will use growth curve models to accomplish our aim of estimating how personal social networks and participation in various social activities (e.g., volunteering, organized group activities) each change during the final five years of life. Second, we will use multiple regression and cross-lagged panel models to accomplish our aim of identifying how various forms of social engagement are associated with quality of life in the five years prior to death. Our focus on quality of life will include healthcare in the last month of life, and physical function, cognitive function, and psychological well-being in the five years prior to death. We will pay particular attention to how changes in social engagement vary across older adults with and without dementia and physical functional impairment, for whom social engagement may be particularly difficult to maintain, but for whom maintaining high levels of social engagement might greatly benefit end-of-life experiences. We expect that the findings from this study will inform the potential for social interventions to enhance quality of life at the end of the life course, as a particularly vulnerable period for both health and social well-being. The number of older adults in the United States who will die with dementia is projected to more than double in the next three decades, highlighting the urgent need to understand the social contexts of end-of-life experiences that are unique to this population. As the United States ranks below many peer countries in quality of end-of-life care, this proposal will draw much needed attention to social factors outside of the healthcare system that may be considered in efforts to improve end-of-life experiences for older adults, their family members, and their care providers.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

This award supports participation of US based mathematicians in the workshop "Ventotene International Workshops VII: Higher dimensional hyperbolic geometry", which will take place from September 8-13, 2025 in Ventotene, Italy. In light of recent major advances in higher dimensional hyperbolic geometry, the main goal of the conference is to have a timely meeting of researchers to educate participants on these advances and discuss new directions. The conference will help educate early career mathematicians on these advances and help bring them to the forefront of this active research area. The majority of funding will support students and participants with recent Ph.D.s. The workshop will consist of three mini-courses on different aspects of higher dimensional hyperbolic geometry:, 1) Sphere Packings, Reflection Groups, and Arithmetic by Alex Kontorovich (Rutgers University), 2) Coxeter polytopes by Bruno Martelli (University of Pisa) and 3) Arithmeticity, superrigidity, and totally geodesic submanifolds by Nick Miller (University of Oklahoma). The workshop will also feature research talks and informal discussions and a lightning talk session for junior researchers. Participants will include leading U.S. and European researchers from the different areas related to the topic of the workshop, as well as younger researchers, both graduate students and postdocs. The lecture series will provide an opportunity for the researchers to educate each other and the workshop participants about techniques and recent advances in the area. By the end of the workshop, the participants are expected to be able to draw enough parallels between the different techniques to be able to put them to use and open new directions of research stemming from the interaction among the topics. The organizing committee will encourage and support broad and diverse participation. The workshop website is at:https://www.ventoteneinternationalworkshops.net 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 last deglaciation occurred from approximately 20,000 to 11,700 years ago when rising atmospheric temperatures caused Earth’s main ice sheets to melt. Vast amounts of water from the vanishing Laurentide Ice Sheet flowed through the Mississippi River system into the marine environment. The mixing of fresh meltwater with saline ocean water on such a mass scale triggered abrupt changes in regional climate, ocean circulation, and ecosystems. This project seeks to understand how environmental systems responded to these freshwater inputs on seasonal and century timescales. By improving our understanding of the short- and long-term effects of past ice sheet melt, the research will help scientists and the public anticipate the potential consequences of modern ice sheet melting and freshwater input on marine ecosystems. The project will support student research and training and engage broad audiences through public-facing data visualizations and educational outreach. This research will develop a refined and detailed understanding of climatic and oceanographic changes across Earth’s last deglaciation due to the meltwater released from the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The project will generate new high-resolution reconstructions of ocean-atmospheric and biogeochemical variability from strategically located marine sediment cores (already collected) and integrate these with existing paleoclimate data. The cores derive from the Garrison Basin offshore Texas, where deposited sediment captures meltwater pulses with minimal influence from the Loop Current. The team will focus on characterizing the spatial extent, timing, and frequency of freshwater intrusions into the marine environment via the Mississippi River outflow and evaluate their influence on ocean stratification and regional climate. Specific emphasis will be placed on resolving both seasonal and century-scale dynamics by combining stable isotope, trace metal, and microfossil analyses with climate model simulations of the last deglaciation. The results will clarify critical feedbacks between freshwater forcing, ocean circulation, and marine ecosystem structure during periods of rapid ice sheet retreat, offering valuable analogs for ongoing and future global shifts. 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

Intercalation materials, which allow ions to move in and out of a solid structure, are central to how lithium- and sodium-ion batteries store energy. Advancing this chemistry can lead to longer-lasting batteries and more reliable energy storage systems. However, current materials—mostly transition metal oxides and sulfides—can degrade over time as structural changes and reactions with the electrolyte reduce cycle life and performance. This research addresses these limitations by targeting dissolution issues that typically lead to capacity loss and instability during cycling. By developing new materials that are more stable and capable of storing more charge, this work aims to improve both battery lifespan and energy storage capacity. It also supports the use of sodium, a more abundant and cost-effective alternative to lithium, and relies on domestically available materials, helping reduce dependence on critical minerals like lithium. These advances could accelerate the development of sustainable, high-performance battery technologies for future energy systems. The project will provide outreach programs for grades 8–12 to inspire young students and help develop the future STEM workforce essential for ongoing innovation. This project aims to develop novel transition metal sulfochlorides as a new class of intercalation materials for lithium- and sodium-ion batteries. This study hypothesizes that by controlling the formation of transition metal complexes upon dissolution, these limitations from material dissolution can be overcome. The central hypothesis is that substitution of sulfur ligands with chloride will enhance the redox activity of the transition metals while suppressing that of the sulfide ligands, which are known to drive irreversible structural and chemical transformations. To evaluate this hypothesis, the project will address the synthesis and characterization of disordered rock salt sulfochlorides, elucidate the mechanisms governing their solubility in liquid electrolytes, and design optimal electrolytes that perform well under electrochemical operating conditions. To address the tendency of sulfochlorides to dissolve in liquid electrolytes, the chemical landscape governing the dissolution process will be systematically mapped. By varying conducting salts, solvents, and using additives, the ion-ion and solvent-ion interactions responsible for forming soluble adducts will be identified. The detailed characterization of solubility and electrochemical behavior is expected to yield valuable insights into solid-state chemistry. 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 · 2025-09

Chemical Synthesis of Biologically Significant Polysaccharides via Living Polymerization Polysaccharides are ubiquitous in biology and play indispensable roles in a variety of biological processes, such as energy storage and utilization, structural support and protection of cells, lubrication, signal transduction, and immune modulation. Owing to these crucial bioactivities, polysaccharides are a promising class of biomaterials. Polysaccharides extracted from natural sources are often highly heterogeneous and structurally complex, creating a significant barrier for establishing an understanding of structure-function relationships of polysaccharides and their utilization in various applications. While recent advances in stepwise glycan assembly techniques have enabled researchers to access chemically defined complex glycans, these procedures are often labor-intensive, resource-demanding, and scale-limited. In this proposal, we aim to develop a chemical synthesis platform for the facile and scalable synthesis of a variety of biologically significant polysaccharides via living cationic ring-opening polymerization. These polysaccharides include linear and branched glucan, mannan, arabinan, arabinomannan, poly-N-acetylglucosamine, and polyglucuronic acid. Our published prior works have shown that scalable synthesis of polysaccharides that possess native monosaccharide repeating units and glycosidic linkages, precisely controlled molecular weight, dispersity, chain-end groups, and chain architectures can be facilely achieved via living polymerization (Nat. Chem. 2023, 15, 1276-1284; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, 146, 7963-7970). These promising results provided strong support to the feasibility of this project, allowing us to pursue all three of its distinct aims. In Aim 1, we will probe the mechanistic features of the living cationic ring- opening polymerization of 1,6-anhydrosugars and conduct mechanism-guided development of reaction conditions (e.g., catalysts, co-catalysts, chain transfer agents, etc.) toward enhanced reactivities and stereospecificity. In Aim 2, we develop substrate-controlled living cationic ring-opening polymerization to generate a variety of biologically significant polysaccharides with stereospecific glycosidic linkages, well- controlled molecular weights, and defined chain-end groups. In Aim 3, we will demonstrate the utility of the polysaccharides generated from living polymerization as immune modulatory biomaterials. We will investigate the receptor-dependent uptake of the polysaccharide-conjugated nanocarriers and the selective activation of immune cells derived from human primary monocytes. Taken together, the proposed research aims to greatly expand the toolkit for the chemical synthesis of polysaccharides and empower researchers to access tailor-made polysaccharides in sufficient scales for applications in biomaterials science and immune engineering.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

This integrated research and educational project will yield fundamental knowledge on how wound healing is regulated by cell growth and its contribution to an animal’s defense against infection. The project will train and instruct graduate and undergraduate students in both the laboratory and classroom. Students will gain hands-on research experience, applying an interdisciplinary approach utilizing principles of cell biology, genetics, and microbiology. Undergraduate students (up to 120 per year) enrolled in an annual Introduction to Genetic course at Boston College will learn and apply quantitative analysis skills in how to conduct, score, and identify mutants from a genetic screen, revealing previously unknown regulators of cell growth and wound healing. The identification of genes that regulate wound healing will provide a pipeline to discover novel therapeutic targets to improve human health and prevent disease. The scientific and educational discoveries from this project will be published and shared with the general public as a model for how to enhance scientific communication, discovery, and rigor in the next-generation of STEM researchers in the biological sciences. Wound healing requires either cell division or cell growth. Cells can grow orders of magnitude by becoming polyploid, which is due to the more than doubling of a cell’s diploid genome. Polyploid cells often arise under conditions of stress to adapt to abiotic and biotic stressors, including tissue injury. During wound healing, polyploidy has been found to be advantageous as it allows healing in the presence of genotoxic stress and restores tissue mechanics in animal models. Injury is also known to introduce bacteria and other microorganisms. However, it remains unknown how the innate immune response interplays with polyploid cell growth to defend against infection. Using the fruit fly as a model, production of antimicrobial peptides was found to be upregulated in the wound-induced polyploid cells. In addition, a serine protease in the conserved (Toll) innate immune signaling pathway was found to be required for polyploid cell growth. Therefore, the following aims will be addressed: (1) to determine how polyploidy activates the innate immune response, (2) to determine how serine proteases in the innate immune pathway regulate polyploidy, and (3) to identify other transcription factors that initiate and control the extent of polyploidy post injury. These aims will integrate with the instruction and mentorship of students at Boston College, providing training in how interdisciplinary approaches can spur scientific discoveries. In doing so, this study will be the first to elucidate how polyploidy and innate immunity are intertwined to regulate wound closure, inflammation, and the biotic stress of microbial infection. 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 primary goal of this project is to recover, calibrate, and analyze oxygen data from an array of moorings in the Labrador and Irminger Seas in the North Atlantic Ocean. The subpolar North Atlantic Ocean is important to global oxygen and carbon dioxide cycling as it has the largest water column inventories of anthropogenic, meaning human-produced, carbon in the world oceans. To date, observations have been too sparse to fully understand what controls dissolved gas pathways into the ocean interior in this region. The new oxygen observations will help characterize these pathways, will allow extrapolation from oxygen to carbon cycling, and will help examine the mechanisms that make surface waters sink and mix as they move into the deep ocean This project will advance our knowledge of how the uptake of oxygen and carbon by the ocean might be changing and how these changes are related to circulation changes in the North Atlantic Ocean that are key to regulating climatic conditions on the adjacent continents as well as globally. The subpolar North Atlantic is known to be a globally significant gateway for carbon dioxide and oxygen into the deep ocean. At the same time, climate models are unable to reproduce the observed global patterns of oxygen change, hindered largely by a dearth of year-round oxygen observations that target pathways into the interior North Atlantic and their dynamics. This project seeks a better understanding of these ventilation pathways through the analysis of an unprecedented six-year moored oxygen time series that has been added to the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP) mooring array deployed across the Labrador and Irminger Seas. Part of the project is to recover the oxygen sensors from this array on an OSNAP cruise that is planned for 2026 and to calibrate the oxygen data using water sample data from the cruise. The scientific analysis of the data is then organized into three main areas: 1) an investigation into the coupling between ventilation and overturning for dissolved oxygen and inorganic carbon, 2) quantification of the contribution of direct air-sea exchange within boundary currents to overall ventilation and examination of its sensitivity to freshwater anomalies along the boundary, and 3) characterization of overflow water transformation from the Irminger to the Labrador Sea and identification of sources of Denmark Straight Overflow Water oxygen variability. It is hypothesized that the convection in the Labrador Sea contributes significantly to ventilation though it does not contribute to overturning strength and variability. The data analysis focuses on interannual variability of the ventilation processes in the North Atlantic Ocean during a time of emerging impact of freshwater on deep convection. 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 research project develops new ways to model the US economy by using the assumption that economic decision makers learn by experience over time about underlying optimal decision rules. Individuals and organizations are faced with complex real world economic decisions and the best decision may not be immediately obvious. Many macroeconomic models assume that these decision makers have full information and always make decisions that best advance their interests. In contrast, this project models economic decision makers by using artificial intelligence in a model of learning through experience, and incorporates this new framework in classic economic cost-benefit tradeoffs. The new framework provides more realistic economic models that can better approximate the actual behavior of people and firms. These models can provide new insights into how U.S. government fiscal and monetary decisions can achieve desired economic outcomes. The project’s starting point is the observation that people and firms in real life typically learn in two ways about optimal behavior. The first one is reasoning: through introspective, abstract deliberations, economic units can better figure out their optimal course of action. The second one is accumulated experiences: the realized outcomes of past actions can update the perceived benefit of these past decisions. These two sources of information are conceptually distinct but limited, as experiences are observed only along the actual path taken by economic participants, while abstract thinking is a scarce cognitive resource. This research project develops a new interdisciplinary framework to learning through both reasoning and experience. There are three main components to the project. The first component develops the theoretical foundations of the framework and studies its deep fundamental properties, both in the short-run and the long-run. Learning can occur through cognition, which is costly, but beneficial in reducing decision makers' uncertainty about the best course of action. Decision makers trade off that benefit and cost of engaging cognitive resources, giving rise to constrained-optimal, or “resource-rational” choice of reasoning. These participants also update beliefs about optimal behavior based on the experienced flow utility each period. Critically, the effective precision of both reasoning and experiences in informing behavior is endogenous, as a function of the participant's beginning of period prior beliefs which evolve dynamically. This research advances the interest in bounded rationality within economics with novel methods that are rigorously grounded in established cognitive science findings. At the same time, the research also introduces several conceptual innovations to Reinforcement Learning literature, primarily by grounding the proposed learning theory in the constrained-optimal framework familiar to economists. In the second and third projects, the research team evaluates specific applications of the new bounded rationality theory in both household and firm settings. In the second project, the team studies the consumption-savings behavior in a rich model with participant heterogeneity, incomplete markets, consumption of durable and non-durable goods, and potentially investment in liquid and illiquid assets. In the last project, the team evaluates firm and investment dynamics, incorporating fixed costs of investment, endogenous entry and exit, and borrowing constraints. These two projects explore how the proposed learning friction could fundamentally alter economic literature's understanding of both demand and supply blocks, while providing novel and rich implications for decision making. 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 Nup358 (RanBP2) is a major component of the nuclear pore complex (NPC). Nup358 comprises four RAN- binding domains (RBD1-4) interspersed among several unique domains. The long filaments that extend from the nuclear pore rim into the cytoplasm are Nup358 multimers, and HIV-1 capsids bind to Nup358 via its C-terminal cyclophilin-homology domain (CHD). Importantly, this interaction is nearly identical to the binding of HIV-1 capsids to cyclophilin A (CypA), which is known to affect sensitivity to other capsid-interacting restriction factors, including restriction factors such as TRIM5a and TRIMCyp. Our comparative analysis of different primate lentiviruses, and capsid interactions with Nup358 homologs from reservoir and spillover hosts, revealed a previously unknown effect of the fourth RAN-binding domain (RBD4) on specificity of the CHD. Thus, the RBD4 and CHD work together as a single functional unit, or didomain. Preliminary experiments indicate that RBD4-dependent interactions between the CHD and capsids affect viral nuclear import and infectivity. The most striking example involves emergence of HIV-2, which had to adapt to differences between the Nup358 homologs of sooty mangabeys (the reservoir host) and humans (the spillover host). Finally, we found that the capsid-CHD interaction is more conserved than previously reported, which is compelling evidence that this interaction contributes to optimal fitness of HIV-1 and related lentiviruses, such as HIV-2 and the simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) of old-world monkeys. For this project, we will employ a powerful strategy that includes comparative analyses of HIV-1, HIV-2 and the other SIVs (and their respective hosts). Our research plan involves complementary use of virological, biochemical and structural (CryoEM/ET) approaches to establish the molecular level details of the interactions between lentivirus capsids and the RBD4-CHD didomain of Nup358, and how this contributes to viral replication. Specifically, we seek to understand how the RBD4-CHD didomain contributes to nuclear docking, nuclear transport and replication of HIV-1 (AIM 1), how the RBD4 governs specificity of capsid interactions with the RBD4-CHD didomain (AIM 2), and what effect these interactions have on overlapping interactions with cyclophilin A (CypA) and TRIM5a (AIM 3).

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-08

Project Summary Apicomplexan parasites have major impacts on human health e.g. Plasmodium falciparum causes malaria whereas Toxoplasma gondii causes opportunistic infections. The pathology of all apicomplexan-caused diseases resides in lytic replication cycles and/or the ensuing immune response. Lytic replication requires parasite invasion of an appropriate host cell, which is an essential step for their successful infection. Apicomplexa harbor a constellation of apically localized cytoskeletal and secretory organelles dedicated to host cell invasion. Biogenesis of and protein targeting to the three secretory organelles (micronemes, rhoptries, dense granules) relies on the secretory pathway, but so do other organelles like the apicoplast and the inner membrane complex (IMC). To correctly target vesicles and proteins to each of these destinations the parasite employs, like all eukaryotes, the ‘classic’ endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi apparatus, relying on Rab GTPases and SNARE proteins. However, in the diversified, latter half of trafficking, the Apicomplexa have repurposed aspects of the endosomal pathway, which is still mired with questions. In this proposal, the research team proposes to probe into the function of two peroxisome derived proteins, Pex4 and Pex22, that are universally conserved across Apicomplexa (most Apicomplexa completely lost all other peroxisome genes). Moreover, Pex4 and 22 are essential in the pathogenic stages of P. falciparum and T. gondii, while humans actually lost these two peroxisome genes. Pex4 is an E2 ubiquitin-conjugating (UBC) enzyme in complex with Pex22 that functions as a membrane anchor. In peroxisomes, they mediate cargo receptor recycling for the import of fully folded, co- factor bound proteins (complexes) from the cytoplasm. Clearly, this defines a unique set of proteins. However, the orthologous cargo receptor (Pex5) is missing in Apicomplexa and it is unclear on which organelle or set of proteins Pex4/22 act. The research team proposes to address these questions in T. gondii tachyzoites, for which powerful genetic and cell biological tools to dissect the secretory pathway are available. Presented preliminary data put Pex4/22 in the secretory way and depletion shows severe impacts on parasite fitness. The presented research plan will define the exact nature of where the Pex4/22 complex resides and how it acts. Conditional knock-downs will be paired with available compartment-specific markers to determine localization and functionality in the secretory pathway, while genetic complementation with mutant alleles will assess whether enzymatic activity and/or complex membrane anchoring is required. Furthermore, to identify the molecular context of the Pex4/22 process, TurboID complemented by organelle purification plus mass spectrometry will be performed. A sub-set of prioritized candidates will be experimentally validated to cement the nature and mechanism of the Pex4/22 complex in the apicomplexan secretory pathway. It is anticipated that Pex4/22 uniquely cater to an as yet unknown aspect of apicomplexan biology, and that the discoveries will write new chapters in both apicomplexan AND peroxisome biology.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

This project focuses on an area of mathematics called low-dimensional topology, which concerns the study of shapes and spaces in three and four dimensions. The physical universe is modeled on such a space, and indeed many of the tools mathematicians use to study these spaces come from physics. One of these tools, called instanton Floer homology, comes from an area called gauge theory and is related to Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism. Another, Heegaard Floer homology, comes from an area called symplectic geometry and is related to classical mechanics. Although these tools come from disparate areas of mathematics and physics, they share striking similarities. One of the PI's central aims is to unify these and other Floer-theoretic tools in ways that explain these similarities, and to use this unification to discover new features of spaces in dimensions three and four. This project will also support the mathematical community through the PI's mentorship of graduate students at Boston College, his organization of the Boston Graduate Topology Seminar, and his work on new problem lists in low-dimensional topology. Several of the most prominent Floer-theoretic invariants of 3-manifolds seem to encode the same information, indicating deep connections between fields like symplectic geometry and gauge theory. The PI aims to unify these invariants in the spirit of Eilenberg and Steenrod’s axiomatization of ordinary homology in the 1950’s. His proposal contains two distinct lines of attack. One of these, the so-called monopole category, will also yield the first cut-and-paste approach to the Seiberg--Witten invariants of closed 4-manifolds. In a more purely topological direction, the PI will use Floer theory in a novel way to study the rich theories of Heegaard splittings and smooth 4-manifold trisections. Finally, the PI will use recent breakthroughs relating the Floer homology of knots with the fixed point dynamics of surface diffeomorphisms to address important open problems in Dehn surgery, like the cabling conjecture and the classification of knots with elliptic surgeries, and to study the question of which knots are detected by their 4-dimensional traces. 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. Jia Niu of Boston College is developing a new class of sugar-based polymers called pseudo-polysaccharides. These materials are inspired by natural polysaccharides—like cellulose and starch—but will be made with modifications not naturally found to impart new functions using synthetic techniques that allow for greater control over their structure and properties. The project will focus on designing sugar-based building blocks that are affordable and easy to produce, and then assembling them into polymers with precise control over their size and functional groups. These new polymers could lead to more sustainable plastics and advanced materials for medicine. In addition to the scientific goals, the project will include an outreach program called “Polymers and You,” developed in partnership with Housing Families, a nonprofit organization in Malden, MA. This initiative will offer educational workshops and research opportunities to middle school-aged youth in the Greater Boston area, including those who are homeless, helping to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. This research will establish a synthetic platform for accessing precision pseudo-polysaccharides, an emerging class of polysaccharide-like polymers consisting of monosaccharide repeating units and non-native linkages in the backbone, through the design and polymerization of sugar-based monomers. The project will enhance our fundamental understanding of synthesizing polysaccharide-based polymers by exploring three distinct polymerization strategies. The first strategy is focused on the radical ring-opening and cascade polymerizations of cyclic ketene acetals and exomethylene-monosaccharides, as well as their copolymerization with vinyl monomers. The second strategy will leverage stereoselective cationic ring-opening polymerization of cyclic thionocarbonates and thionocarbamates to enable the synthesis of stereoregular thiocarbonate-linked pseudo-polysaccharides and their copolymers with vinyl monomers. The third strategy explores anionic polymerization of sugar-derived lactones to construct ester-linked pseudo-polysaccharides. Each approach will be used to investigate how sugar structure, protecting groups, and heteroatom incorporation influence monomer reactivity, polymer architecture, and stereoselectivity. The resulting polymers will feature well-defined molecular weights, narrow dispersities, and tunable chain-end functionalities. The insights gained from this work will not only enable the scalable and well-controlled synthesis of pseudo-polysaccharides but also provide generalizable principles for designing sustainable, recyclable, and functional polymeric materials. 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.