California Polytechnic State University Foundation

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-07

This Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) award supports research that aims to improve healthcare facility planning by incorporating how people actually travel to and use healthcare services, enabling more effective and data-driven decision-making. Access to quality healthcare is essential for improving health outcomes and strengthening communities, yet many populations still face barriers such as distance, limited service availability, affordability and other social and structural constraints. These barriers can delay treatment and reduce care effectiveness, highlighting the importance of how healthcare services are planned and distributed. However, traditional planning approaches often rely on where services are located relative to the population and may not fully reflect how people choose and access care in practice. This project develops new methods that combine emerging human mobility data with optimization models to capture how mobility patterns influence healthcare facility choices. The research will analyze differences between expected and actual patterns of healthcare use, develop models to represent how individuals select healthcare facilities, and design improved planning approaches that account for these behaviors. The project will also support student training through hands-on experiences in mobility data analytics and optimization, and will disseminate tools and educational materials to broaden impact. This project supports healthcare access decision-making by integrating mobility behaviors modeling with facility location optimization. First, exploratory data analysis will examine differences between potential and realized access using network theory. Next, a probabilistic behavioral model, grounded in discrete choice theory, will be developed to capture both access constraints and preferences, while revealing latent facility choices and decision-making processes. Finally, mobility-aware facility location models will be formulated by relaxing the nearest-facility assumption. Efficient and scalable solution algorithms will be developed to ensure computational tractability by exploiting structural properties of the behavioral models. The proposed models will be validated across multiple geographic regions and benchmarked against traditional approaches. Ultimately, this project will provide insights to support the optimization of healthcare accessibility and service provision through the lens of human mobility behavior. 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 · 2026-04

Low back pain is the most common cause of disability worldwide and leads to missed workdays and high healthcare costs. It is often treated after pain begins, using methods like medication and surgery. These treatments do not relieve pain in all patients, and surgery can reduce mobility of the spine. Low back pain is especially common in jobs that require repeated bending, twisting, and lifting. Wearable devices that monitor posture can help researchers measure real-world movement patterns and identify risk factors linked to back pain and disability. However, current wearable devices can miss important high-risk postures, such as bending and twisting at the same time, and they often cannot tell whether someone is bending at the back versus using a safer strategy such as squatting. This Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) project will develop and test a lightweight, tape-based wearable device designed to capture these differences during real-world activities. The long-term goal is to reduce back pain-related disability by supporting safer work practices and better prevention strategies. The project could lead to new, easy-to-wear healthcare technologies for studying pain. The project will also train undergraduate and graduate students through hands-on “learn by doing” experiences in wearable device design, biomechanics testing, and research in local communities. Overall, this project will lead to new healthcare technologies and biomechanics knowledge that could help mitigate back pain. Measuring the impacts of multi-plane postures on spinal loading during everyday activities is challenging. Current sensors cannot distinguish between low-body postures. Laboratory motion capture is too complex for studying spinal motion in real world settings. The goal of this project is to explore new spine-mounted wearable technologies to study the biomechanical drivers of low back pain during common tasks. The project will fuse inertial measurements units (IMUs) and resistive flex sensors into a comfortable system modeled after athletic tape. IMUs will estimate upper body orientation and thin flex sensors will measure changes in back curvature during movement. The device will combine the signals from both sensors to estimate forward bending, lateral bending, and twisting angles. Gold-standard motion capture data will be used to train a supervised machine learning model to map sensor outputs to ground truth angles and classify postures. The system will be validated in 30 adults performing a range of postures. A field pilot study will be conducted to evaluate all-day wear, usability, and device performance during real-world tasks. The pilot study will also explore the link between time spent in risky postures and self-reported back pain. This project will generate important datasets needed to connect real-world posture exposures to biomechanical loading and back pain. 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 · 2026-03

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need. A total of scholars pursuing Associate degrees from Allan Hancock College and Cuesta College, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science and Engineering will receive scholarships averaging $13,000 for up to five years at each institution. Scholars will receive faculty co-mentoring across institutions and the project will build strong scholar cohorts through connection and networking opportunities. Additional activities for scholars include strengths coaching, internships, and student research. The overall goal of this Track 3 project is to increase STEM degree completion of academically talented, low-income undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. There is a significant national need to grow the STEM workforce and nurture key talent that will ensure economic competitiveness and provide domestic leadership across critical sectors. This project directly speaks to this need by supporting STEM student success, which will strengthen the workforce in Engineering and Computer Science and other key areas of need. The project will be assessed by an experienced evaluator that will examine factors that contribute to successful transfer and the sustainability of institutional change. The data generated will contribute to the knowledge base regarding effective strategies to support talented, low-income students in STEM. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of academically talented, low-income students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-09

In topology, a smooth manifold is an object with the local appearance of familiar, flat space which may have interesting global properties. The surface of a ball or donut are typical examples of two-dimensional smooth manifolds. Contact manifolds carry additional geometric structure which make them especially useful for modeling physical phenomena. The unifying goal of this research project is to apply ideas from Morse theory, a powerful tool used in the study of smooth manifolds, to contact manifolds. This project will help to clarify the foundations of higher-dimensional contact topology, opening the door to further breakthroughs in this quickly developing field. In lower dimensions, software will be developed which carries out data science-style computations for knots in contact manifolds, and this software will be used to generate datasets which lead to further investigation. Importantly, the project will involve undergraduate students in meaningful mathematical research. This project has two parts, each falling under the general theme of Morse theory in contact topology. The first goal is to rigorously establish the bypass-bifurcation correspondence in higher dimensions. Contact topology in dimension 3 has seen enormous progress in the last quarter century, the vast majority of it through the use of convex surface theory. A fundamental tool in that dimension is the bypass, which discretizes the failure of convexity for 1-parameter families of surfaces. Honda and Huang have recently introduced bypasses in all dimensions as part of a more general convex hypersurface theory. This project aims to clarify the nature of bypasses and their ability to capture the failure of convexity in higher dimensions. The second part of this project focuses on computational tools for persistent Legendrian contact homology, an invariant of diagrams of Legendrian knots. This invariant computes the persistent homology of the Chekanov-Eliashberg DGA and presents a linearized version of this homology in the form of a barcode. In collaboration with undergraduate mentees, the Principal Investigator will develop and disseminate software which automates the computation of this invariant. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-07

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing molecular bioscience education through implementing evidence-based teaching practices, and developing personalized, adaptable educational resources that improve student engagement, workforce readiness, and faculty teaching capacity in data science. Harnessing the magnitude of existing and potential data, and appropriately contextualizing it are crucial for advancing research and innovation within molecular biosciences. Students in this field require comprehensive training in both technical and durable data science skills, especially in understanding the cascading impacts of decisions made when interpreting data in complex ways, partially due to the prevalence of "black box" approaches that require greater scrutiny. Addressing this gap in content requires targeted educational initiatives that focus on both technical proficiency and contextual application of data science skills while accounting for external factors impacting student success. This initiative introduces the use of learner personas to develop multimodal, best-practice-informed educational materials tailored to student and faculty needs. Ultimately, these resources foster improved understanding, engagement, and application of data science in molecular biosciences. The primary goal of this project is to improve molecular bioscience education by developing learner-centered, data science–infused curricula, supporting faculty development, and strengthening students' preparation for a data-driven workforce. The project implements learner personas to tailor instruction, enhance student engagement, and support student centered teaching practices across diverse institutional contexts. A central component, the Molecular Data Education Hub (MDE-Hub), hosts open-access modular curricular resources, instructional guides, and case studies grounded in real-world molecular bioscience research. Faculty professional development workshops provide training in technical data science competencies and strategies for integrating data science into existing courses and curricula, while fostering a sustainable network of educators. A comprehensive evaluation plan examines the effectiveness of these curricular materials and professional development activities in improving student learning outcomes, faculty practices, and broader instructional impact. Through collaborative partnerships with Research-1 and predominantly undergraduate institutions, the project ensures that outcomes are scalable, providing long-term benefits for both molecular biosciences educators and students in teaching and learning data science. Overall, this project addresses prevalent issues of training students and faculty in technical and durable data science methods and prepares a more competent and workforce-ready cohort of molecular bioscientists. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-03

Cold atomic gases are promising candidates for applications in quantum computing and precision sensors, owing to their wave-like, coherent nature exhibited at low temperatures. Fully-coherent samples, so-called “quantum gases”, are achieved when cooled to near absolute zero, but this is technically challenging. Recent work, though, has demonstrated that internal quantum coherence can persist even in thermal gases whose temperatures are well above those required to create a quantum gas. The first goal of this project is to determine the limiting conditions for which quantum coherence is preserved in these thermal gases. As such, it will probe the boundary between the classical and quantum regimes and may aid in the development of low-cost quantum technologies. The second goal is to investigate such a gas as it transitions from a thermal cloud to a quantum gas. Depending on the conditions of the experiment, the quantum properties can be either suppressed or enhanced, affecting the complexity of computations and the precision of measurements. The third goal of this project is to integrate quantum science research into undergraduate education. If successful, this will provide a model to make quantum science research more accessible to undergraduate-only institutions, providing enhanced learning opportunities to underrepresented groups in physics. The experimental research program will measure ultracold atomic spinor gases with three main goals. The first goal of the project is to determine the maximum temperature for a Bose thermal gas to exhibit coherent spin-changing collisions. All-optical trapping of spinor gases will be utilized to probe the spinor dynamics of samples as a function of temperature. A thermal gas will be coherently prepared with the desired initial spin state, and the resulting population oscillations will be measured through absorption imaging of the magnetic sublevels. Second, the project will investigate coherent spin-changing collisions in the temperature regime as a thermal gas transitions to a Bose-Einstein condensate. Although the limiting cases are well-understood, there is currently no theoretical model to describe this intermediate regime. It has been argued that spin-locking between the thermal and Bose-condensed components, for example, can lead to either an enhancement or suppression of the coherence of the thermal cloud. The loss of coherence limits the complexity of computation in quantum information systems and the precision of measurements. Experimental studies will provide needed measurements to develop accurate theoretical models. Third, the project will integrate education and research in quantum physics with reduced technical requirements suitable for primarily undergraduate institutions, providing enhanced learning opportunities for underrepresented groups. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-10

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving teaching and learning in introductory physics courses for non-STEM majors. The nation's economic prosperity depends more and more on cultivating a well-educated, diverse STEM workforce and a scientifically literate public. Yet less than 20% of bachelor's degrees are awarded in STEM fields. Non-STEM majors often take general education (GE) courses aimed at increasing the appreciation of STEM rather than teaching specific STEM knowledge and skills. These courses often leave out the inquiry-based approaches and experimental investigations that are important for developing STEM knowledge and skills. However, with recent advances in common technologies, it is possible to couple mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) with findings from education research about how students learn best, to provide both rich content and inquiry-based learning experiences for non-STEM majors. This project will pursue one example of that integration. Namely, the investigators will use mobile technology and research-based educational strategies to teach the physics of waves and quantum physics in a GE course on the Physics of Music, which uses the concepts found in music to teach quantum physics. Familiarity with the physics of waves and quantum physics is useful to students who pursue a variety of career paths. New, emerging technologies based on the principles of quantum physics are currently being developed and have the potential to revolutionize computing, information science, data security, high-speed communications, and navigation. It is important for students to develop a basic understanding of these principles. Mobile devices with multiple built-in sensors have the potential to deliver low-cost, high-quality educational content that allows users not only to learn about the world around them but also to interact with it. New educational approaches in physics, such as the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) approach, increase students' learning by having students discover physical principles the way a physicist does -- through hands-on, interactive experiences. The investigators will research and develop an interactive mobile application that integrates data acquisition tools, an e-text, e-learning modules, and the ISLE approach in a GE course to teach quantum physics through a topic of general interest, the physics of music. Both the physics of music and quantum physics are the physics of waves. Thus, students will learn the most important subject in modern physics through the underlying principles of music. The investigators aim to determine whether this method increases students' learning, critical thinking, scientific reasoning skills, and scientific literacy. This research has the potential to extend new learning tools beyond a traditional physics classroom setting, enabling high-quality physics education for larger audiences. The project will result in a new mobile app that contains an e-text and e-learning modules that can be implemented in a variety of educational settings. The NSF IUSE: EDU program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

A 2-day workshop in Paso Robles, California in November 2024 will bring together scientists, engineers, educators, and commercial suborbital vehicle operators. The goal is to explore the potential for reusable suborbital vehicles to enable innovative research on the upper atmosphere of the Earth (specifically, from 45 km to 110 km altitudes). This atmospheric region plays a crucial role in space weather, space climate, and atmospheric change but remains one of the least understood and most complex environments in our solar system. At the workshop, discussions will spur cross-disciplinary collaborations and open up new modes of investigation that can revolutionize our understanding of the upper atmosphere. The discussions will also identify innovative opportunities for hands-on student engagement with real space missions and STEM workforce training. The mesosphere lower thermosphere (MLT) region of the atmosphere is poorly sampled as it is too high for aircraft and balloons to access, yet too low for most orbital satellites and ground-based sensing techniques to adequately observe and collect in-situ data. Commercial reusable suborbital vehicles have the potential to offer frequent, lower-cost, in-situ sampling and direct observations of the MLT and significantly augment current balloons and sounding rocket studies. Discussion topics at the workshop will include: emerging science questions and future research needs in the mesosphere/thermosphere; next-generation suborbital vehicle capabilities and performance for aeronomy and atmospheric science; innovations in instrumentation, miniaturized sensors, and data systems for suborbital missions; and educational opportunities. The workshop is supported by the NSF Space Weather Research program with co-funding from the Aeronomy 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 2024 · 2024-09

Animal behavior may impact ecology in ways that have lasting effects on biological diversity. In sailfin molly fish, males either court females and allow them to choose whether to mate, or harass females by making sneak mating attempts. This study will address how this common behavioral feature of populations, the maintenance of alternative mating strategies, affects the communities with which they interact. This work addresses whether the frequency of each male type impacts females’ ability to feed on zooplankton. If sneakers are common, females may forage less because of harassment, which may increase zooplankton abundance and decrease the phytoplankton that zooplankton eat. In this case, courters may succeed in clear water because their displays are visible, whereas sneakers may have an advantage in turbid water because females cannot see them as easily. Thus, the hypothesized trophic cascade is predicted to make the water clearer, which may, in turn, favoring courting males. If the frequency of courters increases, females may forage more, reducing zooplankton, increasing phytoplankton, and increasing turbidity, and favoring sneaking males. This behavior-ecology feedback cycle may thereby preserve both male types while driving variation at the community level. The proposed work will foster student engagement by building inclusivity-focused collaboration involving multiple institutions and allowing for opportunities to gain meaningful skills in studying behavioral and community ecology. The impacts and outreach include quantifying the effects of hands-on research on student success and sense of belonging and disseminating information about the importance of “eco-evolutionary dynamics”, a process key to the maintenance of biological variation in natural populations, using work on a charismatic and familiar species. Participants will gain direct research and mentorship skills while interacting with peers and mentors from three institutions. The team will publish and present findings and engage in outreach and activities with local organizations committed to enhancing science literacy among the public. The primary goal of this study is to use an eco-evolutionary framework to investigate the effects of variation in mating on top-down ecological control. The study will use the sailfin molly (Poecilia latipinna), a poeciliid fish which exhibits size-dependent behavioral polymorphism: small males sneak copulations whereas large males court females. Females are the primary foragers in this system. The work specifically addresses whether mating harassment can perturb top-down ecological control by reducing female foraging rates. The experimental design employs mesocosms with differing morph frequencies to generate different levels of mating harassment. A higher frequency of sneakers is predicted to reduce top-down control, whereas a higher frequency of courters is predicted to increase top-down control. The subsequent effects on the trophic cascade may result in turbidity changes that generate fluctuating selection pressures alternately favoring courting and sneaking morphs, thereby maintaining the polymorphism. The proposed research will provide novel insights into how mating conflict shapes aquatic communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

Humans change the behavior of wildfires, storms, diseases, and other disturbances. Altered disturbances can cause vegetation to permanently shift between types, such as from forest to shrubland. However, it is difficult to predict which parts of a landscape are vulnerable to shifts. This research examines how interactions between fires and an emerging plant disease may shift coastal forests to shrublands in the western U.S. This work will identify where and why forests are vulnerable to permanent conversion to inform disease and fire management. The research team will apply findings through relationships with the public, managers, tribal communities, and policymakers. This work will create a network across diverse research institutions to mentor students from underrepresented groups. This project will also support an innovative course that integrates art and science and publicly share a dataset that spans two decades. Although persistent state shifts have been described in many systems, empirical work has largely focused on demonstrating state permanence, rather than determining environmental variation in where transitions are likely. This research integrates an 18-year monitoring network, shrub-tree competition experiments that manipulate soil nutrient dynamics and other resource availability, and epidemiological and forest dynamics models. This integrated approach will: 1) quantify the sensitivity of forest-to-shrubland transitions to repeated fire and disease disturbances; 2) identify biogeochemical and disturbance-related feedbacks that destabilize forests and stabilize shrublands; and 3) examine where and when state shifts may occur across heterogenous, rapidly changing landscapes. This work will quantify the likelihood of persistent state shifts using a focal system that comprises plant traits relevant to disturbance-prone systems globally: coast redwood and mixed evergreen forests impacted by an introduced oomycete pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum. To date, there has been limited experimental evidence that diseases can trigger stable state transitions, despite their acute effects on plant mortality, resource competition, and biogeochemical cycles. This research will generate experimental and simulation-based tests of state shifts mediated by disease, while expanding the scope of a valuable longitudinal dataset in a long-lived forest system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY Supported by the Division of Materials Research at the National Science Foundation, the acquisition of a Phenom Pharos G2 Field Emission Gun – Variable Pressure Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-VPSEM) will advance science and engineering research and teaching at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). This microscope will support faculty researchers at Cal Poly and beyond to examine material structures at the micro- and nano-level. This project includes many unique and transformative research activities that benefit from an FE-VPSEM. The FE-VPSEM allows for acquisition of structures with 2 nanometer resolution. The variable pressure aspect of the instrument permits characterization of samples that are either conductive (e.g. metals and semiconductors) or non-conductive (e.g. organic and mineral), broadening the range of applications. It includes a wide range of detectors. This suite of detectors provides qualitative (image) and analytical (chemical) data for a wide range of materials. This breadth of signals will allow the instrument to be a truly multi-user facility across four colleges at Cal Poly. The project brings together faculty and student researchers from diverse fields including engineering, physics, biology, chemistry, entomology, packaging and more. The project also includes research training at Cal Poly and community colleges on the central coast of California, facilitated by strong relationships with our partner institutions. TECHNICAL SUMMARY The research activities enabled by the FE-VPSEM are highly diverse including the study of carbon sequestration nanomaterials, nanoscale colloidal covalent organic frameworks, high entropy alloy design, wearable sensors, amphiphile self-assembly, nano-porous encapsulation, inorganic-organic core-shell nanowires, etc. For example, one group of researchers will characterize the nanostructures of colloidal synthesized covalent organic frameworks to examine their potential for gas separation applications. Other groups will explore the use of metal organic frameworks for carbon sequestration and the tailoring of microstructures of high entropy alloys. The FE-VPSEM will be essential in capturing secondary and backscatter electron images, as well as x-ray energy dispersive spectra, from the above materials. The FE-VPSEM will be heavily utilized to improve research training at Cal Poly and at our partner institutions including workshops, hands-on courses, summer outreach programs, and remote control by our partners. Having the FE-VPSEM on Cal Poly’s campus will broaden participation in STEM careers and research among individuals with diverse backgrounds. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-09

This project aims to serve the national interest by preparing community college students for careers in engineering through participation in evidence-based experiential learning opportunities. Currently, there is an increasing demand for engineers across many industries. One approach to meet this demand is to increase the diversity of the workforce by attracting and retaining diverse student populations that attend community colleges. This aligns with the NSF mission to cultivate a robust and diverse workforce that meet the evolving needs of industries that rely on engineering expertise. This project seeks to utilize an experiential learning approach to engage diverse and non-traditional student populations in real-world engineering activities with the goal of enhancing students' awareness and preparation for future engineering careers. By providing a supportive engineering pathway for community college students that includes opportunities to develop skills, engage in undergraduate research, and participate in internships, this project holds great potential to contribute to diversifying the engineering workforce. Ultimately, this project will advance knowledge on effective strategies for engaging underrepresented groups in engineering during their collegiate experience. This project aims to enhance the academic experience for community college engineering students by addressing gaps in persistence, engagement, and success rates while increasing enrollment of historically underrepresented students through the implementation of an engineering student ambassador program. The ambassador program has three primary goals: (1) create an engaging and supportive community for engineering students, (2) increase participation in the engineering program, and (3) provide students with the support and skills needed to succeed academically and professionally. The intellectual merit of this project is to advance understanding of the connection between experiential learning and community college students' awareness of real-world engineering applications. Experiential learning activities include seminars and workshops to develop and enhance engineering skills, outreach activities with real-world engineering projects, mentoring sessions with industry and academic engineering mentors, and a summer undergraduate research program at a four-year degree granting institution. The education research component of the project focuses on investigating: (1) the impact of participation in experiential learning activities on students understanding of engineering, and (2) students' pursuit of additional engineering opportunities contextualized by their programmatic experiences. Data collection and analysis involves both qualitative and quantitative methods, including surveys, document reviews, and statistical analysis. By disseminating programmatic information and research findings through conference presentations, journal publications, and open access online venues, the project aims to foster the broader impacts of attracting students from traditionally underrepresented groups and contributing to the advancement of inclusive engineering education and a diverse engineering workforce. The NSF IUSE: Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) Program seeks to accelerate the impact of and advance knowledge about emerging and evidence-based practices in undergraduate STEM education at two-year colleges. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

The United States significantly benefits from scientific innovation. The breadth of scientific innovation is fueled by the skills, knowledge, and experience (the human capital) of the people who make up the scientific workforce. To promote greater scientific creativity and innovation, science learning and training environments must function as contexts that invite, cultivate, and leverage the broadest and most unique knowledge, skills, and perspectives. Science faculty who lead academic research labs have an extensive influence over who participates in and produces scientific research. They directly shape the breadth of human capital that makes up the scientific workforce. Yet, we do not know whether faculty believe that all students can be an incredible asset to science because of their unique background and lived experiences. This project investigates whose knowledge, skills, and perspectives are discouraged and “left on the table” by faculty who hold certain expectations about who and what a scientist should be. This project will examine faculty science assimilation beliefs – the extent to which faculty expect students to assimilate to the normative science culture which benefits some students but not others, and the extent to which faculty perceive that the identity and background of students from racially marginalized and minoritized backgrounds is a limitation versus an asset to scientific innovation. The goal of this project is to collect data from a nationally representative sample of nearly two thousand faculty who lead academic research labs to answer three research questions: 1. What are the cognitive, behavioral, and motivational manifestations of faculty’s assimilation expectations for undergraduate research assistants, especially those from racially marginalized and minoritized backgrounds? 2. What is the underlying theoretical factor structure, reliability, and validity of a new measure of faculty science assimilation beliefs? 3. How prevalent (nationwide) are faculty science assimilation beliefs, and do these beliefs relate to important outcomes (e.g., diversity and robustness of research labs)? To answer these questions, this project draws on social psychological theories and mixed methods (e.g., qualitative interviews, psychometric analyses, quantitative multilevel analyses) to conceptualize, understand, and develop a valid measurement tool that assesses faculty science assimilation beliefs, and to examine the prevalence and influence of these beliefs among STEM faculty who train the next generation of scientists. The goal is to advance the theoretical and methodological tools necessary for understanding and intervening on science faculty’s assimilation expectations for the next generation of scientists in order to recruit and retain a diverse scientific workforce that reaches its full potential. This project is supported by NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the Universe and yet scientists do not know two of their key properties: their mass and whether they are their own antiparticle. Because of their abundance, even a tiny neutrino mass could have far-reaching consequences. Knowing if neutrinos are their own antiparticles informs why our universe has so much matter and very little antimatter, which in turn address why the familiar material reality surrounding us exists at all. It may also help scientists understand the very source of neutrino mass, which is currently a great mystery. Neutrinoless double beta decay is an as-yet-detected nuclear decay that is remarkably sensitive to these unknown neutrino properties; attempting to characterize this decay informs scientists about these core questions. With this project, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo undergraduate students and their faculty mentor will have the exciting opportunity to be involved the international CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) and CUPID (CUORE Upgrade with Particle Identification) experiments in the search for neutrinoless double beta decay. They will Learn by Doing, travel abroad, and work hands-on with these cutting-edge projects by helping to improve the detectors and analyze data. Undergraduate research opportunities such as this allow students to contribute to important science and generate formative experiences for early technical careers. This ultimately contributes to a competent and competitive US technical workforce and seeds a generation of future scientists. CUORE is a well-established bolometry experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay and other rare events in 130-Te. CUORE has been taking data since 2017 at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Assergi, Italy. It is an array of TeO_2 crystals used as cryogenic bolometers for the purpose of particle detection. CUPID is a next-generation experiment undergoing R&D; it fits well into the suite of future developments of the field by increasing sensitivity to rare events such as neutrinoless double beta decay. In particular, CUPID uses both the bolometric and scintillating properties of Li_2MoO_4 crystals to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in 100-Mo. Cal Poly students will assist in efforts to transition from CUORE and CUPID operations. Moreover, they will participate in data analysis and remote shifts for CUORE. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

The rocks that form the towering cliffs of Half Dome and spires of Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park are part of a giant body of granitic rocks called the Tuolumne Intrusive Suite (TIS). Previous research has found that the TIS magmas crystallized slowly beneath the surface over ~10 million years. These magmas increased in silica and decreased in age toward the center of the body. This project will test two competing models that describe the emplacement of the TIS in the upper crust. The first model suggests that the TIS formed by sequential emplacement of 3–5 large batches of magma that were physically mixed and chemically modified in the upper crust. A second model suggests that the TIS formed via emplacement of numerous smaller batches of magma that were chemically modified in the lower crust and did not mix in the upper crust. Resolution between these models has implications for how granitic bodies form in mountains like the Sierra Nevada. This project will also support undergraduate student research projects. Results of this work will also be shared in field trip guides to help Interpretive Rangers at Yosemite National Park communicate the geologic history of the TIS with park visitors. To test models for the emplacement of Tuolumne Intrusive Suite (TIS) magmas, this project builds upon preliminary geochronologic and geochemical results from zircon crystals extracted from modern stream sands. These analyses characterize the zircon geochemistry from each of the TIS units, yield evidence for the presence of older TIS zircon in younger TIS units and identify a change in zircon geochemistry between early and late TIS units. This work highlights the ability of zircons to track the magmatic evolution of granitic bodies, and provides a framework for this project which will investigate three first-order questions. 1) What is the volume of inherited zircon in the younger, interior portions of the TIS, and how does the volume of inherited zircon vary spatially? 2) What is the volume of inherited material in layered granitic rocks, and how do they form? 3) How does zircon geochemistry vary at the scale of individual crystals? To address these questions, this project will make new geochronologic and geochemical analyses of zircon extracted from granitic rocks collected across the TIS. Cumulatively, this line of questioning will place new constraints on the models for TIS magma emplacement. The first two questions will define the degree of physical and chemical mixing of TIS magmas in the upper crust, and thus constrain the relative size of individual TIS magma batches. The third question will help characterize the processes that created chemical differences in early and late TIS units, and thus place new constraints on the lower crust versus upper crustal location of TIS magma differentiation. Beyond these immediate scientific impacts, this project will prepare students for careers in the geosciences by supporting multiple undergraduate research projects. Results of this work will also be shared with Yosemite National Park staff on field trips developed to help Interpretive Rangers communicate the significance of the scientific debate around the TIS with park visitors. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Cal Poly Strong Field Quantum Electrodynamics Research at SLAC This award will enable Cal Poly to continue its research, teaching, and outreach activities in Strong Field Quantum Electrodynamics (SFQED). This award is intended to improve our understanding of quantum electrodynamics in conditions where strong electromagnetic fields exceed the critical field, or Schwinger limit (~1.3x1018Vm-1). Experimental research will be conducted at the Stanford National Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California, one of the world's leading accelerator facilities. The experiments involve colliding a high energy electron beam with a powerful laser pulse at SLAC's Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests-II (FACET-II). SFQED phenomena in nature will be explored as a result of these interactions. With this award, the FACET-II facilities at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will be used to enhance particle physics research, teaching, and outreach at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). It is intended that the proposed work will: i) participate in the SFQED collaboration (E-320) shifts and data collection at SLAC both remotely and in person; ii) simulate nonlinear Compton scattering and vacuum pair production for the E-320 collaboration; iii) integrate particle tracking from the beam-laser collision point to the beam detectors into the simulation code to facilitate detailed comparisons between simulations and experimental results; iv) install and commission the newly developed beam diagnostics developed during the previous grant cycle to measure nonlinear Compton scattering; v) Continue to design and develop a single positron calorimeter upgrade. Cal Poly undergraduate students will have the opportunity to gain research experience in SFQED and FACET-II operation during the summer at SLAC and during the academic year at the university as part of this research. The project provides the principal investigator and Cal Poly undergraduate students with an opportunity to push the intensity frontier in particle physics, which may reveal information about the composition of matter and space. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

An international team will investigate how an ancient community adapted their social relationships and subsistence strategies to overcome disappearing water resources and increasing economic pressures during a period of early state formation. The researchers seek to understand how communities come together to negotiate socially complex relationships in order to overcome outside pressures, such as adverse climate conditions and demand from regional trade networks. The archaeological framework will provide in-depth case studies that tell the story of how community members adapt their daily lives within these changing circumstances, and how their choices to collaborate or compete with the environment affect the trajectory of their survival. Settlement archaeology, in particular, gives insight through a detailed, intersectional record of how people constructed their built landscape through agriculture, animal husbandry, tool and craft production, and trade networks. Archaeological research offers a complimentary benefit of building modern community relationships, a top priority for this project, where neighboring stakeholders will be consulted in the development and interpretation of the research process. This project will center the relevancy of the research outputs by ensuring the full incorporation of modern community members’ voices through research-focused input meetings, ethnographic interviews about analogous current daily-life practices, and participation in archaeological interpretation outcomes. The researchers will undertake special effort to encourage the full participation of local women, who are often excluded in archaeological work. This will be achieved by building collaborative training resources produced by the international majority-women excavation team and archaeology undergraduate students from the grant's managing institution, a historically-women’s college. An international team of experts will analyze complementary lines of evidence: architectural developments, material culture production, pottery design and exchange, use of cultivated and wild plants, domesticated livestock and hunting, supported by geo- and hydro-archaeological models of environmental conditions. Interpretation will focus on the agency-based active resilience of ancient community members, rather than a passive adaptation to increasingly arid conditions in the region. The broader impact of this project will include open-access publication of the detailed archaeological and ecofact sequence data to allow for regional comparative studies. Collaboration with international societies will create shared approaches to community based participatory archaeology that can be successfully applied globally. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2024 · 2024-07

This project aims to serve the national interest by implementing and studying evidence-based teaching practices that promote equitable collaboration in undergraduate data science courses at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and California State University, Monterey Bay. There is rapidly growing demand for data scientists both nationally and globally. At the same time, many educational approaches that have been studied in computer science, mathematics, statistics, and other areas have not been explored in the interdisciplinary setting of data science. Creating classrooms where every student has the opportunity to learn effectively is integral to growing and sustaining a diverse data science workforce. Students' sense of belonging in their classrooms is directly associated with their likelihood of persisting in STEM, be it in their chosen disciplines or more broadly. Group work is one method of supporting engagement and sense of belonging in undergraduate classrooms. This project plans to investigate students' experiences when collaborating on pair programming tasks in the data science classroom, with a particular focus on students from populations that have historically been underrepresented in data science and broader STEM. Studies have shown that pair programming in computer science courses can either serve as a positive experience for students or can magnify imbalances in power or perceived authority. The project will iteratively design and test tools that will support positive pair programming experiences and improve student learning. The collaborating institutions provide a rich opportunity to study and refine pair programming practices in distinct contexts, as California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo is a predominantly white institution and California State University, Monterey Bay is a Hispanic-Serving Institution. The overarching goal of this project is to understand how small group experiences, specifically pair programming, can be designed to create engaging, inclusive, and effective learning opportunities for all students. There is minimal research on specific ways that instructors might foster equitable student collaborations in the data science classroom, and this project's knowledge generation efforts will address this critical gap. The project will use discourse analysis to investigate the conditions under which students are positioned with power and authority when collaborating with their peers on pair programming tasks in data science. A cross-case analysis will be used to explore project-developed pedagogies in a variety of classes within two demographically different institutions. Through these investigations, the project will identify positive, asset-centered narratives about students and create professional development materials to train educators to enact equitable, effective pair programming approaches for data science education. Each of these project goals should increase and strengthen the future data science workforce. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This project is also funded by the NSF Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program, which aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. 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.