University Of Rhode Island

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-08

This award supports a new Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site at the University of Rhode Island (URI) focused on emerging frontiers in biomaterials, biomedical engineering, and biology (BBB@URI). The program will support ten undergraduate students for ten weeks of mentored summer research each year. BBB@URI will provide students the opportunity to engage in cutting-edge research with faculty who have demonstrated success in training undergraduates, while building skills in science communication, research self-efficacy, and professional development to prepare them for graduate study and careers in biotechnology, pharmaceutics, and the broader STEM workforce. The program will be open to everyone, but place particular emphasis on recruiting students from primarily undergraduate institutions, two-year colleges, and minority-serving institutions, prioritizing those who have had limited prior access to research opportunities. A holistic selection process will look beyond GPA and institutional prestige to identify students with strong potential, drive, and capacity for a transformational research experience. The BBB@URI program will provide REU participants the opportunity to work closely with faculty mentors on projects related to biomaterials, biomedical engineering, and biology. The proposed research projects are designed to scale with each student's developing competency, enabling meaningful and lasting contributions to ongoing faculty research efforts. Students will develop science communication skills through a structured sequence of workshops, background presentations, and a final poster presentation at the statewide Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. Students will participate in professional development activities covering responsible conduct of research, individual development planning, graduate school preparation, and career pathways in STEM, alongside cohort-building experiences through the RI Summer Undergraduate Research Consortium. A rigorous evaluation plan using validated instruments measures student gains in research skills, self-efficacy, STEM identity, and sense of belonging, with longitudinal follow-up tracking outcomes for up to five years post-program to ensure continuous improvement and advance the broader evidence base for high-impact undergraduate research training. 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 2026 · 2026-07

With support from the Chemical Synthesis Program in the Chemistry Section, Professor Daniel N. Huh of the University of Rhode Island will develop a new class of molecule-based quantum compounds, known as molecular qubits, using group 4 metals (titanium (Ti), zirconium (Zr), and hafnium (Hf)) and rare-earth elements to advance quantum information science. By controlling the electronic structure of these metals, this project seeks to understand and mitigate electron spin decoherence in molecular inorganic complexes. Over the project period, systematic variations in metal identity and ligand environment will be used to elucidate how molecular structure governs quantum coherence in low-valent group 4 and lanthanide systems. In parallel, the program places an emphasis on education and outreach by developing accessible quantum science resources for the Rare Earth Research Conference (RERC) Summer School, contributing open-source teaching materials through the Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource (VIPEr), creating classroom-ready modules for K-8 teachers in Rhode Island, and providing hands-on research and mentoring opportunities for high-school students through ACS Project SEED. Together, these efforts integrate fundamental research with workforce development to broaden participation and understanding in quantum science. This research seeks to establish general design principles for molecule-based quantum systems by controlling how electronic structure influences spin coherence and relaxation. The program will investigate low-valent metal complexes and tune ligand platforms for quantum behavior, focusing on how coordination environment, symmetry, and periodic trends impact spin dynamics. Comparative studies across related metal systems will be used to identify how changes in electronic structure affect spin coherence, while complementary ligand architectures will provide additional control over relaxation pathways. In parallel, ligand encapsulation strategies will be explored to access alternative orbital contributions and further enhance coherence lifetimes. Together, these efforts aim to advance a broadly applicable framework for designing molecular systems with improved quantum performance. 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 2026 · 2026-06

Biofilms are collections of bacteria that adhere to surfaces. They pose serious challenges in manufacturing, food safety, and medical practice. This CAREER project will explore how magnetic nanoparticles could weaken biofilms and prevent their growth. The team will use magnetic fields to push magnetic nanoparticles into a biofilm, make the nanoparticles rotate, or make them heat up inside the biofilm. The team will analyze how each of these actions affect the biofilm’s health by measuring how many bacteria survive the nanoparticle treatment. Anticipating that properties of the biofilm may affect results, the team will conduct experiments for a set of biofilms that vary in viscosity and chemical composition. The results will help clarify how forces and heat generated by the magnetic nanoparticles weaken biofilms. The methods explored in this project could prove useful to treat infectious diseases, to prevent foodborne outbreaks, or to minimize damage in pipes. The results will also help identify antimicrobial mechanisms of other nanoparticles. The team will integrate a hands-on training pipeline to introduce students to the challenges that biofilms pose across industries. This CAREER project will help understand the nanoscale interactions between magnetic nanoparticles and bacterial biofilms. The research team will experimentally study the effects of magnetic nanoparticles on biofilms under different regimes of magnetic actuation: static magnetic field gradients leading to magnetic nanoparticle penetration through the biofilm, low frequency rotating magnetic fields leading to localized shear forces acting within the biofilm matrix, and high frequency alternating magnetic fields leading to localized heating, a process known as magnetic hyperthermia. Each of these magnetic actuation regimes presents a different mode of action that must be understood. To understand these modes of action, the research team will analyze a diverse set of biofilms for their composition and physicochemical properties and relate these properties to bacterial viability and biofilm morphology after treatment. The team will elucidate what biofilm physical properties affect the magnetic nanoparticle biocidal action, and what aspects of magnetic nanoparticle treatment must be tuned to biofilm properties to achieve maximal biofilm removal. An experiential training pipeline to introduce engineers to the challenges of biofilms across industries will be developed, through the integration of education activities for students from high school to graduate level. Overall, this project addresses a knowledge and education gap in engineering novel antimicrobials. Biofilms are ubiquitous on Earth and cause problems across diverse industries due to their resistance to physical or chemical challenges. The magnetic nanoparticle-enabled antimicrobial methods can be translated to treatments against antibiotic-resistant bacteria in healthcare, to prevent spoilage in the food industry, or to avoid fouling in difficult-to-reach pipelines. 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 2026 · 2026-05

The control and attenuation of low-frequency sound waves remain a longstanding challenge in many engineering fields. Because low-frequency acoustic waves have large wavelengths, conventional materials often require thick and heavy structures to achieve meaningful sound reduction. Developing lightweight and effective approaches for controlling low-frequency sound therefore remains an important scientific and technological challenge. This project explores a new class of acoustic materials that use microscopic bubbles trapped within carefully designed structures. When exposed to sound waves, these bubbles resonate and dissipate acoustic energy, enabling efficient attenuation of low-frequency sound without relying on large mass or thickness. The research will advance fundamental understanding of acoustic wave–bubble interactions and establish design principles for bubble-based acoustic metamaterials. The resulting knowledge may enable new strategies for controlling sound in engineered environments, directly contributing to the national interest by reducing noise pollution and advancing underwater acoustic technologies. The project also integrates research with education by involving undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary training at the intersection of acoustics, materials, and microengineering. Outreach activities will introduce K–12 students and educators to wave physics and emerging materials technologies, helping expand the workforce in science and engineering. This CAREER project investigates the physics and engineering of acoustic metamaterials formed by structurally trapped bubbles embedded in designed microcavity structures. Bubble-based acoustic metamaterials represent a new class of lightweight fluidic metamaterials that exploit strong bubble resonance and energy dissipation. The research aims to establish a physics-based framework for understanding and designing bubble-based acoustic damping systems. The project will develop theoretical and computational models to describe bubble resonance, nonlinear oscillations, bubble–bubble coupling, and multiple scattering in periodic bubble arrays. Experimental studies will fabricate engineered microstructures that trap and stabilize gas bubbles with controlled geometry and spacing, enabling systematic investigation of how cavity design governs acoustic resonance and attenuation. Measurements of bubble dynamics and acoustic transmission will validate theoretical predictions and establish design principles for bubble-based acoustic metamaterials. The research will also investigate environmental robustness and stability under varying temperature, pressure, and fluid conditions and explore scalable fabrication strategies. The resulting framework will enable new approaches for designing lightweight metamaterials capable of efficient low-frequency acoustic damping. 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

Abstract: Natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are considered the solution to infectious diseases and the antibiotic inefficiency caused by bacterial resistance. Among natural AMPs, human beta defensin type 3 (hBD-3) is unique that it has a broader spectrum of and stronger antimicrobial activities against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria than other hBDs. It is believed that hBD-3 kills bacteria by directly disrupting bacterial lipid membranes, although its functional mechanism in molecular detail is unclear yet. However, the functional mechanism of human beta defensin type 2 (hBD-2) is known, which has a very similar secondary structure to hBD-3. To design novel drugs based on hBD-3, it is important to find out its functional mechanism. To fill this knowledge gap, we propose to conduct a comparative study investigating the binding structures of hBD-2 and hBD-3 with different explicit model bacterial lipid membranes using both solid-state NMR and molecular dynamics simulation methods, and evaluate the biological activity of hBDs through activity assays. The hypothesis is that the binding structure of hBD with lipids and its interaction with key molecules in the membranes determine its antibacterial mechanism. This project will help uncover the mysteries associated with hBD-3 disrupting bacterial cell membranes. Our methods applied will also pave the way for researching the mechanisms of other AMPs that disrupt bacterial lipid membranes.

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-03

Many researchers across a myriad of scientific domains generate and analyze data. In order to make this data reproducible and reusable, it is important to also include metadata describing the context for the data. However, most current schemas for reading and writing metadata are optimized for machine use rather than directly accessible to citizens or scientists who are not expert programmers or data technicians. This project involves developing a toolset and a language, MEDFORD, that provides an easy and accessible structured approach for researchers who are not expert programmers to create metadata in a form that is easily human readable and writable. This metadata is then structured enough to be easily translated into popular metadata standards and included in databases that are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). The MEDFORD language and supporting toolbox will be tested for usability with scientists, students, and members of the general public across several scientific domains, including marine biologists studying coral reefs, and biologists studying the animal hosts of tick-borne diseases. The involvement of scientific experts in the collection and analysis of the metadata than accompanies the complex scientific data is crucial; however, many of the recommended practices and processes focused on making these data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable), as well as replicable and reproducible, can be cumbersome and difficult to implement, particularly for users that are not experts in computer science. This project posits that increasing the widespread community adoption of processes around efficient, robust, trustworthy, and FAIR data and metadata will require a new focus on making these data easily human-readable, writable, and correctable, in addition to all the valuable past effort that continues to go into making them easy for machines and database systems to ingest, validate, and parse. Thus it is focusing on a critical but under-served piece of the problem of frictionless FAIR data and metadata collection for science. The proposed solution involves inserting an intermediate layer between unstructured human annotation and existing machine-parsable metadata standards - the MEDFORD language and parser. Further development of the MEDFORD language will be informed by principled user studies in scientific communities with different needs. 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 · 2026-02

SUMMARY Mitochondrial dysfunction (MD) resulting from mtDNA mutations has been implicated in a broad spectrum of human pathologies, including mitochondrial diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, metabolic syndromes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. In addition, mtDNA mutations by contributing to mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and cellular senescence are suspected to play a significant role in aging processes and age- related diseases. Differently from the nuclear genome, which is present as a single copy per cell, many mtDNA molecules (1000-10000 copies) co-exist in the same cell depending on the tissue and the energetic status of the cell. This can generate a phenomenon known as heteroplasmy, which describes the scenario when two or more mtDNA variants coexist within the same cell. New mutations represent a very low percentage of the total number of mtDNA molecules and are relatively harmless until they clonally expand and reach a critical threshold level that results in mitochondrial dysfunction compromising cellular homeostasis. mtDNA mutations and deletions can either be inherited through the maternal lineage (germline mutations) or sporadically occur in cells during or after development (somatic mutations). In both scenarios, their fate can differ depending on the tissue, with some losing the mutations and others retaining and expanding them to levels that cause MD and result in a disease state. However, the overall mechanisms that regulate cellular mtDNA mutations heteroplasmy have not been elucidated yet. This research proposal will investigate mtDNA regulation across several tissues. Using new genetic approaches and a mouse model that accumulates mtDNA mutations in a spatial and temporal controlled manner, this study aims to understand the mechanisms by which different tissues accumulate and clear mtDNA mutations, the effects of exercise and calorie restriction on these processes, and the impact of the timing of mutation-onset on aging. The proposal outlines three specific aims: (1) basal tissue-specific clearance of mtDNA mutations and its response to lifestyle interventions, (2) basal tissue-specific accumulation of mtDNA mutations and its response to lifestyle interventions, and (3) determining the effects of post-embryonic somatic mtDNA mutations on aging phenotypes. By addressing these aims, this research seeks to uncover the regulation of mtDNA mutations and develop targeted interventions to mitigate age-related diseases and enhance overall healthspan.

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-01

Lagomorphs (rabbits, hares, and pikas) are an important group for the functioning of ecosystems with a high number of species in need of conservation. This project expands upon an ongoing conservation program focused on the vulnerable New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis), a rabbit dependent upon young forest in the Northeast United States. The research aims to increase the number of rabbits born in a captive breeding program in zoos and determine the personalities related to their survival and breeding success after being released into the wild at mainland and island sites. Islands provide a relatively safe place to create insurance populations that will become additional sources of rabbits to repopulate dwindling mainland populations. The project will coordinate and integrate the activities of state biologists, federal biologists, zoo professionals, and academics to ensure research results are directly translated into conservation actions that can be sustainable long-term. Preserving biodiversity improves the health of the ecosystem, which has positive benefits to humans and their societies. Educational activities about this work and its impact will be available to the millions of public visitors of the two conservation partner zoos. Over the last century, zoos have greatly increased their involvement in the conservation of wildlife. However, breeding rare species can be extremely difficult in a zoo setting. To improve the productivity of the New England cottontail breeding program, behavioral and molecular mate choice mechanisms will be investigated in the context of animal personality to predict more productive pairings. Minimally-invasive methods for assessing current and historical pregnancy status of females using fur and whiskers will be developed to improve the efficiency of the breeding program and to evaluate post-release success of released individuals. The personality traits of individuals and their physiological correlates will be investigated to determine which behavioral and physiological phenotypes are best suited for release sites with varying risk factors (e.g., mainland or island). Taken together, these data will directly inform the zoos’ breeding programs to screen founders, determine pairings, and produce individuals that will ultimately be better able to survive and reproduce in the wild. These efforts will be critical, as the release of captive-bred animals will be an essential conservation strategy to repopulate managed habitats in this species with limited dispersal abilities. Our project will be a model system for how to populate a difficult to breed species and promote a paradigm shift of islands in North America as a production source of animals for translocations rather than just a refugium. This project is jointly funded by the Divisions of Environmental Biology and Integrative Organismal Systems through the Partnership to Advance Conservation Science and Practice 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 · 2025-10

The NSF ECR Building Capacity of STEM Education Research (BCSER) program contributes to the NSF mission 42 U.S. Code Chapter 16 by building the US workforce undertaking STEM education research. The BCSER Individual Investigator Development in STEM Education Research (IID) track supports individual investigators who are new to STEM education research to develop foundational skills and gain practical experience to advance STEM education knowledge through mentored professional development and pilot research activities. STEM education research generates the knowledge, theories, and understandings on which viable strategies for improving STEM education and workforce outcomes are based. This project will advance knowledge on the impact of supportive validation on the major and career self-efficacy of first-year college students in STEM in addition to expanding the skills of the PI in mixed methods research. This BCSER IID project will allow the PI to develop foundational skills and gain practical experience in designing and implementing cutting edge STEM education research using innovative methods and tools. The project will assist the PI to develop new expertise in mixed methods research and data analyses of STEM education research data under the guidance of experienced experts in engineering education. 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

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Over one million people receive treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) annually. Community re-entry following potentially residential AUD treatment is a critically high-risk period for suicide, with residential AUD treatment reflecting a final attempt for help prior to suicide.Most people also return to alcohol use within 30 days of discharge, with acute use of alcohol being a foremost risk factor for suicide. Therefore, determining the causal timing of the proximal relation between acute use of alcohol and suicide risk during community re-entry has high significance for preventing suicide. There is also a need to identify psychological mechanisms underlying the association between acute use of alcohol and suicide risk to inform preventative interventions. The proposed study will assess time-varying, longitudinal changes in acute use of alcohol and suicide risk during community re-entry. This will inform evidence-based digital tools to detect and intervene on suicide risk. Thisstudy significantly advancesresearch by using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and a transdermal alcohol sensor (BACtrack Skyn) to test temporal and proximal relations between alcohol use and suicide risk, as well as underlying psychological mechanisms, in the 30 days immediately following residential AUD treatment (N=300). Suicide risk fluctuates substantially—even within timescales of hours. Thus, studies of acuteuse of alcohol and suicide riskrequire methods that can track experiences closely over time, rather than relying on retrospective or cross-sectional assessments. Ecological monitoring tools can accurately record suicide risk in daily life, proximally to when it occurs. Transdermal alcohol sensors passively collect clinically relevant and unique information on acute use of alcohol not otherwise available through self-report. Yet, no research has applied these methods to study the relation between acute use of alcohol and suicide risk. Aim 1 examines aspects of sensor-derived alcohol use (i.e., intoxication, volume, and pace) in relation to EMA-derived suicide ideation. Aim 2 tests underlying psychological mechanisms (i.e., psychological distress, impulsivity, and cognitive constriction) in the momentary relations between aspects of sensor-derived alcohol use and EMA-derived suicidal ideation. Aim 3 elucidates whether risk derived from sensor-derived alcohol use in daily life during community re-entry will predict suicidal behavior at 6-month follow up above and beyond subjective measures of alcohol use collected from clinical measures at baseline and with EMA during re-entry. The proposed research fills important gaps regarding time-sensitive proximal predictors and underlying mechanisms of alcohol-related suicide during the high-risk and understudied period of community re-entry. This work is important, timely, and innovative. Developing evidence-based tools to monitor, detect, and intervene on suicide risk during community re-entry has high significance for preventing suicide.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

With the support of the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Jason Dwyer and his research team at the University of Rhode Island will develop new tools and approaches to better understand how to fabricate and use a powerful new class of nanopore sensors. Nanopore devices are commercially available for single-molecule DNA sensing that supports a wide range of health-related applications such as personalized medicine. They are being developed for identifying proteins to enable earlier detection of disease, alongside other medical purposes. Nanopore devices are also useful for a wide range of other functions such as desalination and high-density molecular data storage readout. Developing better understanding of how to construct and exploit nanopores will thus pay dividends across these various domains of technology and human health. The work will focus on understanding and exploiting nanopore surface coatings. It will begin with elucidating fundamental molecular-level mechanisms of how the chemical properties of the coatings affect nanopore performance. It will then extend to investigating how to more reliably and easily recognize the various chemical building blocks of proteins, as a prelude to more elaborate protein identification applications. Student training will be a vital part of this effort, with an emphasis on broadly transferable skill development spanning from fundamental research planning to technical skill development to project management. The technological implications of the work allow for workforce training opportunities that bridge academia and industry. A new apparatus and approach—a nanopore scanner—will be designed and built to streamline the in-depth assessment of the effect of nanopore surface coating on nanopore conductance—a core metric of performance, on molecular transport—a foundation of most nanopore sensing approaches, and on nanopore signal characteristics. The work will be distinguished by using a curated set of nanopore surface coatings designed to support more comprehensive, systematic, and improved mechanistic understanding of the connection between nanopore surface coatings and nanopore performance. The nanopore scanner will be central to carrying out the systematic studies designed to dissect the coating’s microscopic contributions to the nanopore-solution interface that dictate the nanopore conductance, transport, and sensing. A close examination of electroosmosis, a core mechanism to transport neutral, or locally neutral, species in nanopore sensing will be central to the proposed work because it connects molecular transport to nanopore surface coatings. Selected peptide targets will provide both molecular diversity and biological import for connecting the studies here to future applications of both broad health and technological relevance. 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 Abstract: Quantum computing is making rapid progress toward the goal of a fault tolerant computer. This advance can be attributed to the breakthroughs in gate fidelities and coherence times, placing quantum computation on the threshold of practicality. However, all qubits are subject to loss of information and remediating that loss is the key to advancing this goal, where the error correction threshold has been exceeded, environmental effects have been mitigated, and errors do not spread. Moreover, the supply of a skilled quantum workforce is falling behind demand, and projections suggest that this deficit needs tobe addressed. The University of Rhode Island (URI) and the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute (a collaboration among University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University) are collaborating to improve the robustness of qubits, while also addressing the need for quantum workforce development. Technical Abstract: A current leading contender for quantum computing is the superconducting qubit. “Parasitic” two-level-system (TLS) defects, which limit coherence times of superconducting qubits, are among the main hurdles in the quest for fault tolerance. A fuller understanding of the mechanisms that couple the TLS to the qubit and the resulting coupling of TLS to the environment could result in a mitigation of the decoherence. There is also significant knowledge to be gained from the understanding of TLS in amorphous materials. The methodology behind this research is to vary the growth parameters of key constituent elements of the state-of-the-art superconducting qubits, such as transmons and fluxoniums. The newly built superconductor deposition tool at the Petersen Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering is a 3-chamber high vacuum thin film deposition system which includes surface analysis tools, in a unique setup. The chamber allows for high-temperature sputter deposition of superconducting layers of NbN, NbTiN and Ta, which are used a base layers for microwave resonators, transmon pads and ground planes. Most of the work on the characterization of TLS and loss mechanisms does not require full qubit measurements but can be performed through a combination of surface science and microwave characterization techniques. In the later stages of the project, optimized thin superconducting layers, substrates, and capping layers are used as the basis for qubit devices, where direct comparison of coherence times can be performed. Through this grant the institutions are creating programs that make major scientific advancements, enhance research and curricular reform at all collaborating institutions, and incentivize students to pursue studies in quantum information science and engineering. 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 aims to produce efficient and accurate statistical methodology that can be applied in practice without strong assumptions about data. In many industrial and scientific applications, current statistical analyses often require an adequate model for data, which can often be uncertain and practically difficult to choose. This situation can be problematic, though, because any conclusions drawn from a mistaken model may be unreliable or misleading. As a remedy, a direct benefit of this project is to provide alternative statistical tools for complex data that are valid without the dangers of model choice or other stringent conditions about data. This research would therefore advance data-based inference in subject areas such as environmetrics, economics, finance, geology, astronomy, etc., which encounter different types of data and where model-free statistical methods can play an important role in data analysis. The project will also support the professional development of students through training in data science and modern, computer-intensive statistical methods. This project particularly aims to produce “bridged” resampling methods for complex data, in the sense of connecting and combining separate approaches for resampling (or re-using) data, in order to achieve better and more accurate statistical inference. Some of the problems to be addressed include the investigation and development of blended bootstrap techniques as a novel and general strategy for merging the strengths of subsampling and bootstrap, as two philosophically distinct resampling approaches for data. Further research goals involve the development of more versatile and effective empirical likelihood and bootstrap methods for time series and spatial data based on combining different types of empirical likelihood for dependent data (i.e., data-transformations and data-blocking) with new bootstrap schemes. These formulations of bridged resampling intend statistical methodology that has wide applicability and favorable performance under mild conditions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NIH Research Projects · FY 2025 · 2025-08

With this proposal, we aim to bring together predoctoral graduate students and faculty from across the University of Rhode Island (URI) who specialize in biology, human health, neuroscience, and biomedical engineering into a transdisciplinary training program in Biomedical Sciences and Bioengineering (BSBE). URI faculty includes experts in basic and applied biomedical sciences with renowned research programs that impact all aspects of human health, focusing on microbial pathogenesis, DNA repair, neurodegenerative diseases, drug delivery, wearable technologies, the brain-machine interface, movement disorders, and addictive behaviors. This training program will serve as a bridge between the Colleges of the Environment and Life Sciences (CELS), Engineering (COE) and Health Sciences (CHS), whose missions include integrating scientific discovery, education, and real-life applications to create a strong transdisciplinary training program. Trainees from the Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Program (INP) require related skill sets and are focused on human health, and they will be included in the proposed program. Many preceptor faculty members have affiliations with both an academic college and the INP. With this new collaborative predoctoral training program at URI, we will provide broad health-related training and career-enhancing professional development activities for Ph.D.-level graduate students in Biomedical Sciences and Bioengineering with applications for real-world health settings. We will leverage our cross-college efforts to improve collaborations among our pool of trainees in predoctoral programs and in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and we will engage with local university partners to improve biomedical training, including RI-INBRE (Rhode Island IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence). With the new structure of the umbrella training program in Biomedical Science and Bioengineering, we will focus on developing a cohort of future biomedical scientists by delivering in-depth research and scientific training, providing a rigorous and supportive experience that promotes leadership, fosters independence, and provides professional development opportunities to enhance individuals’ career paths, whether they be bench- or translational-scientists. This training program will have a significant impact on workforce development and the scientific economy in Rhode Island, where URI is the only public university in the state offering Ph.D. level training.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-08

Bacteria use a variety of cellular pathways to survive environmental stress, viral (phage) infection, and exposure to antibiotic compounds. One protective mechanism is through the action of toxin-antitoxin systems, which help bacteria withstand these pressures by making a toxin that slows the bacterium’s growth until conditions improve. In order to understand how bacteria induce a toxin-antitoxin system to activate the toxin and survive stress, this project will focus on determining how protein maintenance factors, including chaperone proteins and proteases, mediate antitoxin removal. In addition to benefits from better understanding of bacterial responses to stress for use in biotechnology and possible medical understanding, this work will train students in cell and molecular biology research to prepare them for future careers in the science and biomedical engineering field. The project will also provide a platform to disseminate information to the scientific community through lectures, laboratories, and a seminar series in synthetic biology. Toxin-antitoxin systems in bacteria comprise modular genetic elements in which the encoded toxin inhibits bacterial growth, but toxin activity is regulated by an encoded cognate antitoxin. Functionally acting as regulatory switches, TA systems are poised to activate upon exposure to stress. TA system activation occurs as free toxin becomes uncomplexed from the neutralizing antitoxin, but the mechanism by which this occurs in the cell is not understood. This project will use the model Type 2 TA system MqsRA to elucidate the mechanism of toxin activation in Escherichia coli in response to stress, and will determine the role of proteases, ribosomes, and ribosome-associated chaperones in toxin activation. The project aims will: (1) Identify recognition determinants for proteolytic degradation and determine if Lon and ClpXP recognize overlapping regions of MqsA antitoxin; (2) Determine the role of cochaperones, including SecB, in turnover, and; (3) Evaluate translation-coupled degradation as a new paradigm for TA activation by means of isolation of ribosome nascent chain (RNC) complexes, mass spectrometry, and in vitro translation. The use of reconstituted proteolysis systems and traceable fluorescent fusion proteins will uncover recognition principles underlying antitoxin turnover and assess the contributions of a variety of cellular factors and cochaperones on toxin activation. This combination of biochemical, proteomics, and genetic techniques provides an innovative approach to understand cellular responses to stress, protein synthesis, and quality-control systems. This project is jointly funded by the NSF/BIO/MCB Cell Dynamics & Function Program and the NSF/BIO/MCB Division. 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

Modern cloud applications, such as those involving artificial intelligence, have become increasingly memory intensive. These applications often require large amounts of memory to achieve high performance. Due to its poor scaling properties, traditional dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) has become a bottleneck and a major infrastructure cost in clouds, where DRAM is virtualized to serve applications running in virtual machines (VMs). To address the DRAM scalability issue, emerging and future memory (EFM) such as Compute Express Link (CXL)-based memory has demonstrated high potential. EFM will encompass heterogeneous memory with multiple memory tiers and distinct characteristics such as cost and volatility. Traditional memory virtualization was primarily designed for virtualizing homogeneous volatile DRAM. It will incur high overhead, lack mechanisms for reducing cloud memory costs, and offer limited usability when used for virtualizing EFM. This CAREER project will redefine memory virtualization for EFM, aiming to significantly reduce cloud memory costs, while offering high performance and usability for modern cloud applications. This project incorporates innovative techniques to minimize virtualized EFM address translation overhead, virtualize slow memory as fast memory in EFM virtualization, and improve VM live migration performance. The success of this CAREER project is expected to enable data centers utilizing current and future cloud systems to achieve high performance, low cost, and high usability, fundamentally changing virtualization management for increasingly large-scale memory systems. Although this project is designed for virtualizing EFM, its concepts, ideas, and techniques can be widely applied to improve various system infrastructures. This project also involves extensive education plans to teach emerging cloud computing technologies to both college and K-12 students by collaborating with local schools. Ultimately, this research will advance next-generation cloud computing by enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, boosting performance, and improving usability, benefiting a broad spectrum of cloud workloads, such as artificial intelligence, databases, and data analytics. 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 University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF) in collaboration with the University of Washington (UW) and University of Rhode Island (URI) propose to pilot a Shared Unified Research Fleet IT Support (SURF-IT) program for the US Academic Research Fleet (ARF). SURF-IT aims to establish a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to deliver essential IT and cybersecurity support to the ARF. By leveraging shared resources among UAF, UW, and URI, SURF-IT proposes to provide cost-effective, centralized technical services. This initiative will enhance operational efficiency, ensure robust cyberinfrastructure, and address the gap in dedicated IT support within the ARF. Oceanographic research vessels in the ARF provide at-sea laboratories that support scientists, engineers, post-doctoral scholars, graduate and undergraduate students as well as technicians and teachers as they pursue fundamental research in the marine environment. The principal impact of the present proposal is under Merit Review Criterion 2 of the Proposal Guidelines (NSF 23-525). It will provide fundamental support for cybersecurity and cyberinfrastructure to technicians, science, and crew for NSF-funded oceanographic research projects (which individually undergo separate review by the relevant research program of NSF). 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

In recent years, scientists made a groundbreaking discovery by detecting gravitational waves—subtle ripples in the fabric of space-time—produced by the collision of black holes and neutron stars. This achievement, which fulfilled a century-old prediction by Albert Einstein, has transformed astrophysics and earned a Nobel Prize. Gravitational waves carry critical information about the massive cosmic events that generate them, offering new insights into the origins of the universe and the fundamental forces that govern it. As the sensitivity of detectors continues to improve, these cosmic signals can be observed at Earth more frequently, potentially multiple times per day, though buried in noisy data. Extracting meaningful information from such data requires precise models of the signals and efficient computational methods for estimating the properties of the merging objects, such as their masses and rotational speeds. A key scientific challenge is to make these analyses faster and more computationally efficient to keep pace with the growing data volume. This project addresses that challenge by leveraging advanced deep learning techniques to enhance the speed and accuracy of gravitational wave analysis. In doing so, it supports rapid response to cosmic events, reinforces U.S. leadership in scientific discovery and technological innovation, and promotes national interests in space science and data-intensive research. Furthermore, the project will engage the public through outreach programs and provide technical training to students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, preparing them for careers requiring technical and computational skills. This award aims to significantly advance gravitational wave data analysis and modeling by developing neural network-based posterior estimation tools and waveform surrogate models. The work will focus on improving the efficiency of Bayesian inference for compact binary systems, particularly neutron star–black hole and low-mass black hole binaries, by extending neural posterior estimation methods. Simultaneously, it will build and validate efficient surrogate waveform models derived from numerical relativity simulations using deep learning architectures, with a focus on quantifying and minimizing systematic uncertainties. These innovations will be implemented in open-source software tools (Dingo, GWSurrogate) and are expected to substantially reduce computational costs while improving low-latency signal processing, directly benefiting the gravitational wave research community and beyond. 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 multidisciplinary, stakeholder-guided research incubator project will address the impacts and challenges of nano and micro scale plastics (NMPs) that threaten the health of global coastal ecosystems. The project will build physical and human capacity, while also prioritizing workforce development in this increasingly important field. The project will bolster Rhode Island’s workforce capacity via trained physical and social scientists as well as engineers to respond to various stressors such as NMPs. The research team will investigate the following questions: (Q1) What processes govern the transport and fate of NMPs within coastal ecosystems? (Q2) How do complex environmental conditions and sources combine to influence the distribution, organism loading, and food web dynamics of NMPs? (Q3) How can socially and scientifically informed approaches be designed to advise policy governing NMP impacts? The project unites four Rhode Island educational institutions through a collaboration among University of Rhode Island, Brown University, Rhode Island College, and Roger Williams University. The project will build Rhode Island’s research capacity through physical, human, and cyber infrastructure to monitor and characterize marine NMPs, to determine their fate and transport in aquatic ecosystems, and to identify use-inspired needs in the co-generation of knowledge. The project will employ experimental observations and machine learning enhanced models to become a global leader in informing policy regarding the impacts and mitigation of NMPs in coastal ecosystems. Through capital improvements to the Rhode Island research infrastructure (e.g. installment of advanced molecular spectroscopy equipment), the project will develop a network of instrumentation to conduct standardized analytical studies on NMP samples. Additionally, modeling of NMP transport throughout the coastal ecosystem as well as investigating NMP impacts in higher trophic organisms will be performed. A uniting Inter-Theme, known as the SIMCoast Boundary Organization, focuses on social science and the engagement of community partners and other stakeholders to interweave use-inspired perspectives in all project components. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Incubators for STEM Excellence (E-RISE). E-RISE supports the development of sustainable research infrastructure and capacity in EPSCoR jurisdictions through collaborative, hypothesis-driven, or problem-driven research and workforce development to improve competitiveness in selected STEM fields. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-07

For most of human history, astronomers have used light to study the cosmos. However, the discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015 has added a transformative new dimension to this pursuit, heralding a new era of multi-messenger astronomy. This approach combines observations made with gravitational waves and those made with light to provide more comprehensive insights into cosmic events than either messenger could yield on its own. The study of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in particular, which are highly energetic stellar death events, stands to gain immensely from this multifaceted approach as evidenced by the groundbreaking detection of the binary neutron star merger GW170817 and its association with GRB 170817A. This joint observation, which involved over seventy observatories spread across the globe and in space, demonstrated that at least some GRBs arise from the merger of two neutron stars. It also constrained the universe's expansion rate, tested the speed of gravity against the speed of light, contributed to identifying the source of heavy elements in the universe, and refined the neutron star equation of state. This project aims to further advance such multi-messenger studies of GRBs across a variety of observational timescales. The gravitational wave analyses of GRBs funded by this award will improve existing analysis pipelines across all observational timescales and develop novel search techniques targeting post-GRB remnant emission. Real-time searches in medium-latency will reinvigorate multi-messenger astronomy observing campaigns, while archival analyses will be expanded to better support additional observatories like the InterPlanetary Network and integrate new localization standards from the broader field. Central to the project is a novel cross-correlation analysis pipeline that targets long-lived gravitational transients that may be associated with the remnants that GRBs leave behind. Traditional analysis techniques, such as those used to detect prompt gravitational wave emission from GRBs, are not optimized for this regime, yet the central engines that power these remnants may hold the key to better understanding the exotic neutron-rich nuclear matter at their cores. This pipeline is poised to probe astrophysically-relevant distance scales and provide pathways to detection, and even parameter estimation, in a famously challenging regime. Each of these observational regimes faces unique challenges, and the project participants will liaise closely with collaborators from across the LIGO Scientific Collaboration to ensure that it does not strain the collaboration's limited computational resources. 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 Childhood obesity remains highly prevalent in the United States and is a major contributor to chronic disease. Evidence suggests that obesity in childhood persists into adulthood, predisposing children to cardio-metabolic diseases. Despite national efforts to expand prevention and treatment, racially/ethnically diverse children and those from low-income households have not benefitted equally from such efforts. Children require coordinated and frequent care for weight management, but multiple socioeconomic and geographic barriers, exist for children living in low-income households and perpetuate health disparities. Better solutions are needed to improve access to care and ongoing participation that impact health outcomes. Telehealth is an approach that can improve access, participation, and mitigate barriers, though simply using it is not sufficient to promote equitable access; other barriers may be introduced and result in inequities. The key question is: how can we modify in-person pediatric weight management programs for telehealth to be equitable? The goal of this mixed methods study is to examine telehealth approaches for childhood obesity to understand multi-level factors that impact access and participation in care and adapt a pediatric weight management program for telehealth. For this mentored career development application, we propose leveraging Connect for Health, a study funded by NHLBI and Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) that is implementing an in-person pediatric weight management program. Guided by implementation science frameworks, we will analyze electronic health record (EHR) data of current telehealth approaches, conduct qualitative interviews, develop targeted telehealth adaptations to Connect for Health, and pilot test the optimized telehealth program. My overarching hypothesis is stakeholder- informed telehealth adaptations will result in equitable access to the Connect for Health pediatric weight management program. As a clinician-scientist, the long-term goal of my research is to optimize pediatric health care delivery by improving health outcomes and access to care through implementation science. I have assembled a mentorship team with expertise in childhood obesity, health equity, and implementation science. Along with my research and training plan, I will develop skills in advanced quantitative analyses, mixed methods design, and implementation science that will enable me to achieve my career goals.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-07

Quantum information processing harnesses the principles of quantum mechanics to perform computation, communication, and sensing tasks with unprecedented capabilities beyond any classical devices. Investing in quantum information research is crucial for the US economic and national security. Trapped ions are one of the leading platforms of quantum information processors. This CAREER award project will investigate a new technique, called phonon modulation, for improving the performance of trapped-ion quantum information processors. Development in this research will advance the progress of quantum information science and technology. This CAREER award project will also establish an quantum education program accessible to all STEM majors in my institution for developing quantum workforces and organize an outreach program to local high-school students for raising quantum awareness. Trapped ions are one of the pristine platforms for quantum information processing. Most of the applications rely on the ability to generate controllable interactions between the internal qubits (spins) of the ions mediated by the external collective motion (phonon modes), often using lasers or microwave currents that generate magnetic field gradients. However, it is a key challenge in this field to enhance the interactions as much as possible without compromising the qubits. In the research part of the CAREER award project, the Principal Investigator (PI) will study modulation of the phonon modes in trapped ions as a new tool for enhancing the effective spin-spin interactions through the explorations of 1) novel protocols with parametric amplification, 2) numerical and analytical approaches for spin-motion interactions with phonon modulation, and 3) hybrid protocols of phonon modulation with pulse shaping techniques. In the education part, the PI will 1) advance in-depth education in quantum information science via course transformations and inclusive community building, 2) teach STEM students a first quantum information science course integrating innovation & entrepreneurship, and 3) organize a Quantum Summer Camp for local high-school students. The results of this CAREER award project will advance the field of trapped ions and related quantum technologies, build capacity and expand the talent pool of quantum workforce, and benefit broader communities beyond the PI’s institution. 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 · 2025-06

PROJECT SUMMARY Motor Control is a pivotal discipline exploring how the central nervous system (CNS) enables humans and also animals to execute motor behaviors. The Progress in Motor Control (PMC) Conference is a premier international platform for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue in movement studies. Now in its fifteenth iteration (PMC XV), the conference will be hosted by the University of Rhode Island in conjunction with the International Society of Motor Control. The event will take place at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston (RI), from June 30 to July 2, 2025, offering attendees opportunities for intellectual exchange amidst the scenic backdrop of Newport, known for its rich maritime heritage. PMC XV will bring together researchers, educators, and practitioners to integrate insights from Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics, Computational Neuroscience, Bioengineering and Rehabilitation Science. It will feature sessions addressing foundational and translational research in motor control, with themes including: • Theories of Motor Control and Learning: Models and adaptive strategies for individuals with motor disorders or injuries. • Neural Control of Movement: Mechanisms underlying planning, execution, and coordination of voluntary and involuntary actions. • Advances in Rehabilitation Neuroscience: Bridging experimental neuroscience with clinical applications to improve outcomes for individuals with motor dysfunctions. The conference will host 35 invited speakers. These experts will present on topics ranging from computational frameworks to real-world applications in motor control. Networking opportunities and community-building activities will include sailing, Newport tours, and a formal dinner, fostering collaboration among participants. PMC XV will also support the development of emerging scholars, offering travel grants to pre- and postdoctoral trainees to promote accessibility and diversity (10 students). Special efforts will ensure inclusivity for underrepresented groups, including minorities, women, and individuals with disabilities. Several networking events will also be organized in order to maximize opportunities for students and young investigators to interact with established researchers and to involve minorities and women and individuals with disability in this event. The growing need for translational approaches that can benefit individuals with motor disorders highlight the relevance of this proposal.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Part 1: Non-technical summary Trait differences between males and females are widespread across the animal kingdom. Because these traits often lead to trade-offs that affect reproductive success and survival, understanding them is a fundamental question in biology. Leopard seals are large predators in the Southern Ocean and an extreme example of female-biased dimorphism in mammals, where females are the larger than males. Yet, the effects of these size differences are unknown. This project will investigate the causes and consequences of female-biased dimorphism in leopard seals and will generate new data on the life history, reproductive physiology, and breeding biology of this important and enigmatic polar predator. This information is critical for understanding leopard seals' past, present, and future—from how the species evolved to predicting their resilience in an era of unprecedented environmental change. The project also has a strong education component. It aims to increase the participation of people from historically excluded groups in polar biology by training, mentoring, and supporting two postdocs, two grad students, and 25+ undergraduates. It will also engage students and the public in scientific research through outreach activities at local, national, and international scales. Part 2: Technical summary Trait differences can lead to important trade-offs that affect biological processes at multiple scales, from intraspecific differences in fitness to species-level life history strategies. Leopard seals exhibit an extreme form of female-biased size dimorphism. However, for solitary, wide-ranging polar species like leopard seals, it is difficult to study their life history and reproductive biology. As a result, it is unknown how leopard seals' size dimorphism relates to other aspects of their biology. The goal of this project is to examine fitness trade-offs associated with female-biased dimorphism in leopard seals. Specifically, this study will (1) assess differences in male and female morphology and life history, (2) compare reproductive physiology between males and females, (3) investigate their breeding behavior and reproductive activities, and (4) conduct a cross-clade synthesis of female-biased dimorphism in mammals. The team will analyze existing specimens from biological collections and conduct field efforts to generate novel, complementary data. This information is critical for understanding how leopard seals evolved to survive and persist in the Southern Ocean. The research aligns with NSF's Strategic Vision for Investments in Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research and supports ongoing efforts to create and utilize open polar research software, as well as data and sample reuse in polar research. This work relies on strong collaborations across academia, non-profits, and government institutions worldwide, and the results will be broadly shared with global audiences. This project also aims to increase the participation and retention of people from historically excluded groups in polar research. Specifically, the goals are to (1) recruit and train a diverse, inclusive, and supportive research team, (2) lead a research-intensive undergrad course (SEAL Lab), and (3) provide grad students and postdocs with hands-on leadership and mentoring experiences. The project will engage students and the public in polar research, as students will conduct research in museum, field, and lab-based settings. 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.