UCR Research and Economic Development Newsletter:  August 20, 2013

Michael Pazzani

Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development

http://research.ucr.edu

Back Issues of Newsletter: http://or.ucr.edu/vcr/newsletters.aspx

Grant Opportunity Search: http://pivot.cos.com  

 


·         NSF Grants Conference

·         NEA: How Art Works

·         AFOSR Young  Investigator Program

·         DOD MURI

·         NSA and Research Funding

·         Results of UCR Collaborative Seed Grant Program

·         Red-Tailed Hawk


NSF Grants Conference

 

The first National Science Foundation Grants Conference of fiscal year 2014 will be held in Denver, CO, on October 21-22, 2013.  My office will sponsor a few faculty to attend. If you are interested in attending, please contact me.

 

Key representatives from the National Science Foundation as well as your colleagues - faculty, researchers and grant administrators - representing colleges and universities from around the US will participate.

 

This two-day conference is a must, especially for new faculty, researchers and administrators who want to gain key insight into a wide range of current issues at NSF including the state of current funding; new and current policies and procedures; and pertinent administrative issues. NSF program officers representing each NSF directorate will be on hand to provide up-to-date information about specific funding opportunities and answer your questions.

Highlights include:

 


NEA: How Art Works

 

In September 2012, the NEA's Research and Economic Development & Analysis published its five-year research agenda, supported by a system map and measurement model. Titled How Art Works, the report offers a framework for studying research topics critical to a broader public understanding of the arts' value and/or impact for individuals and communities.

 

The NEA's Research and Economic Development & Analysis will make awards to support research that investigates the value and/or impact of the arts, either as individual components within the U.S. arts ecology or as they interact with each other and/or with other domains of American life.

Details: http://arts.gov/grants/apply/Research/Grant-program-description.html

 

Deadline:  November 5, 2013.  NEA strongly recommends that you submit at least 10 days in advance of the deadline to give yourself ample time to resolve any problems that you might encounter.

 

Helen Magid (Helen.magid@ucr.edu) can assist faculty interested in applying for this program

 


 

AFOSR Young  Investigator Program

 

The Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) supports young scientists and engineers in Air Force relevant disciplines and is designed to promote innovative research in fields such as: energy, power and propulsion, materials interactions in extreme environments, aero-structure interactions and control, hierarchical design and characterization of materials, space architecture and protection, thermal control, mathematical, information and computer sciences, biology, behavioral sciences, plasma and quantum physics, theoretical and experimental physics, microwave and photonic systems, information and signal process, and materials-processing techniques. The awards foster creative basic research, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities to recognize Air Force mission and challenges in science and engineering.

 

Details: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=ac9c7db3985190172b1c6a9f7a344fa6&tab=core&_cview=1

 

Deadline:  Sept 15, 2013

 

 


DOD MURI

The Department of Defense has released ONRBAA13-022, Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative. This annual program makes awards of $1 million to $2.5 million to interdisciplinary, multi-institutional teams.

 

White papers (4 pp) are strongly recommended and are due October 15. Full proposals are due December 16. You are encouraged to consult with colleagues at other universities to form multi-institution teams and speak with a program officer before submitting your white paper.

(http://pivot.cos.com  provides a mechanism to search for faculty at UCR or other schools with certain expertise).

 

 

The topic areas this year are below.

 

The topics:

 

Army:

1. Attosecond Electron Dynamics

2. Force-Activated Synthetic Biology

3. Nonlinear Dynamics of Energy Hypersurfaces Governing Reaction Networks

4. Strongly Linked Multiscale Models for Predicting Novel Functional Materials

5. Multistep Catalysis

6. Innovation in Prokaryotic Evolution

7. Ultracold Molecular Ion Reactions

8. The Skin-Microbe Interactome

 

Air Force

9. Time-resolved quantum dynamics of complex systems

10. Computational Foundation of Mathematics and Information

11. Transport and Utilization of Energy Using Plasmon-induced Processes

12. Design Rules for Biobased and Bioinspired Materials

13. Control of Coherent Structures in Plasmas for Reconfigurable Metamaterial-Based Devices

14. Multifunctional Quantum Transduction of Photons, Electrons and Phonons

15. Control of Light Propagation through Metasurfaces

16. Goal-Driven, Multi-Source Algorithms for Complex Resilient Multi-Physics Systems

17. Security Theory of Nano-Scale Devices

 

Navy

18. Understanding Energy Harvesting Mechanisms in Polymer-Based Photovoltaics

19. Role of Bidirectional Computation in Visual Scene Analysis

20. Exploring the Atomic and Electronic Structure of Materials to Predict Functional Material Properties

21. Optical Computing

22. Quantum optomechanics

23. Air-Sea Interaction and RF Propagation in Maritime Atmospheric Boundary Layers

24. Hydrodynamics of Non-traditional Propulsion

 

The solicitation is available at http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html?keywords=MURI

 


NSA and Research Funding

 

Since NSA has been in the press recently, it’s worth noting that they also fund university research in mathematics.  The MSP supports self-directed, unclassified research in the areas of Algebra, Number Theory, Discrete Mathematics, Probability, and Statistics. The program does not support research in cryptology. The Research Grants program offers three types of grants: the Young Investigators Grant, the Standard Grant, and the Senior Investigators Grant. More details are available on the MSP proposal submission website. Investigators must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States. Proposals should be submitted electronically by October 15 . Questions about the program may be directed to MSPgrants@nsa.gov.

 

Details: http://www.nsa.gov/research/math_research/

 

 


Results of UCR Collaborative Seed Grant Program

I’m pleased to announce the results of the UCR Collaborative Seed Grant Program  (see http://research.ucr.edu/ord/funding/opportunities/collaborative-seed-grant-program.aspx for details)

I’d like to thank the anonymous faculty reviews who provided constructive feedback to me and the proposers.

The program provides funds to enable teams of UCR faculty to collaborate and publish before grant submission, making UCR more competitive for multi-investigator grants from external agencies.

By serving as a catalyst for UCR faculty to develop new multi-investigator, and/or multi-disciplinary teams, the program is intended to make UCR more competitive for center, program project grants, or similar large, multi-investigator research grants.  The Projects

A new competition will be announced in January.   The awards and amounts are below.

 

·         Aaron Seitz and Victor Zordan, The University of California Riverside Brain Game Center for Mental Fitness and Wellbeing, $70,000

 

·         Christian Lytle and Cindy Larive, Identification of absorbed fecal solutes by metabolomic profiling, $24,000

 

·         Yinsheng Wang and Jikui Song, RING Finger and Arsenite-induced Genomic Instability, $50,000

 

·         Kevin Esterling and Evangelos Christidis, The Role of, and Opportunities for, Online Social Media in Diabetes Care, $60,000

 

·         Khaleel Razak, Iryna Ethell and Devin Binder, Mechanisms and treatment of sensory deficits in Fragile X Syndrome, $60,000

 

·         Jiayu Liao and Michael Pirrung, Novel SUMOylation Inhibitor as in vivo Probe for Cancer Synthetic Lethality Treatment, $70,000

 

·         Richard Hooley, Quan Cheng and Yinsheng Wang, Synthetic Receptors as Selective Hosts and Transfection Agents in Living Cells, $45,000

 

·         Frances Sladek, James Borneman, Margarita Curras-Collazo, Tao Jiang and Chris Lytle, Dietary Effects on the Gut-Brain Axis, $70,000

 

·         David Kisailus and Cheryl Hayashi, Biologically Derived, Impact Resistant Composites for Energy and Health Applications, $70,000

 

·         Nicole Zur Nieden and Hideaki Tsutsui, Understanding biomechanics of pluripotent stem cells under controlled fluidic shear, $60,000

 

·         Thomas Morton, Leonard Mueller, Christopher Switzer and Ameae Walker, Binding to the i-Motif as a Strategy for Inhibiting Cancer Metastasis, $60,000

 

·         Ashok Mulchandani, Xin Ge, Manuela Martins-Green and James Borneman, TREATING DISEASES BY CONTROLLING BACTERIAL BIOFILMS, $60,000

 

·         David Jassby and Ian Wheeldon, Subsurface Carbon Mapping using Magnetotactic Bacteria, $36,000

 

·         Masaru Rao, Victor Rodgers and Kaustabh Ghosh, Rationally-Designed Surface Nanopatterning: A New Paradigm for Mitigating Adverse Physiological Responses to Coronary Stenting, $70,000

 

·         Katherine Borkovich, Cynthia Larive and Jason Stajich, High-throughput synthetic biology for natural products discovery, $65,000

 

·         Akua Asa-Awuku, Development of a Portable Environmental Chamber, $50,000

 

·         Umar Mohideen, I-Chueh Huang, Sarjeet Gill and Roya Zandi, Seed Funding for “Examining HIV Gag Mediated Vesicle Budding Under Physiological Biomimetic Conditions”, $45,000

 

·         Huinan Liu and Iryna Ethell, Engineering Biodegradable Conductive Magnesium-Polymer Composites for Neurogenesis, $70,000

 

·         Bradley White and Eamonn Keogh, Inexpensive, automated detection of Anopheles malaria mosquitoes in Africa, $45,000

 

·         Thomas Eulgem, Conserved roles of WRKY transcription factors within the plant immune transcriptional network, $40,000

 

·         Victor Rodgers and Dimitrios Morikis, Novel Device for Quantifying Complement Protein Interactions, $39,000

 

·         Edward Korzus and B. Glenn Stanley, A genetic approach for studying neural circuits, $40,000

 

The results of the Proof of Concept Fund will be announced next week. 


Red-Tailed Hawk

 

Here’s a photo of the red-tailed hawk taken at the UCR botanic gardens

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7112/7529235270_1f485fb57f_n.jpg

 

 

 

Michael Pazzani

Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development 

Professor,  Computer Science & Engineering

University of California, Riverside

200 University Office Building

Riverside, CA 92521

pazzani@ucr.edu

 

Assistant:  Toni Graham

Toni.Graham@ucr.edu 

951-827-4800