Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2024-05

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tp2FTt7zq3tdlq77vVkD_cVvXCzSkNuW/view?usp=sharing

Undergraduate research provides students a unique opportunity to learn necessary and important skills to research and innovate towards taking a leadership role in the society. As a student-centered research institution, NJIT is committed to providing opportunities for research participation beginning at the undergraduate level.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM: The NJIT Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Fellowship Program is a 10-week program that provides summer stipend support ($5,000 each) to undergraduate student awardees from all disciplines to pursue research under the guidance of a faculty advisor on a competitive basis. Eligible undergraduate students should apply online with their proposals following the instructions provided below. The program concludes with presentations at the NJIT International Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium on July 24-25, 2024. 

URI Fellowship Programs:

There are several fellowships available for the 2024 Provost Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) Summer Fellowship Program. Students have the ability to apply for consideration for up to two (2) fellowships. There are multiple fellowships available in each category.

• NJIT Provost URI Summer Fellowship - applications from any discipline will be accepted and considered.
• Hearst Foundation Fellowship - this fellowship welcomes applications focused on STEM topics. This fellowship is particularly focused on providing opportunities for EOP students as well as underrepresented students from low to moderate income backgrounds.
• Robert Sydney Needham Fellowship - this fellowship welcomes applications focused on STEM topics. 
• Ward Family Foundation Fellowship - this fellowship is limited to the fields of immunology, cell therapy, gene therapy, and related fields of biomedical research.
• PSEG Fellowship - this fellowship welcomes applications from whose majors are in civil and environmental engineering, power and energy systems. electrical and computer engineering technology, computer science, information systems, data science and cybersecurity.

Program Period: This 10-week program begins on May 20, 2024 and ends on July 25, 2024.

Application Deadlines: Application Deadlines: All application material, including the online application form, research proposal excluding the faculty letter of support are to be submitted online via supplied links (please see below) by 4:30 p.m. EST on February 19, 2024.

The faculty letters of support must be submitted for using the online link (please see below) by 4:30 PM EST on February 22, 2024.

For complete Call For Proposal announcement and submission requirements, please click here.

NSF: Partnership to Advance Conservation Science and Practice (PACSP); Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*); Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE); Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Supplemental Funding in Computer and Information Science and Engineering Growing;  Convergence Research (GCR); Algorithms for Threat Detection (ATD); Future Manufacturing (FM); Responsible Design, Development, and Deployment of Technologies (ReDDDoT); Expanding Capacity in Quantum Information Science and Engineering (ExpandQISE)

NIH: Transformative Research to Address Health Disparities and Advance Health Equity (U01); Stephen I. Katz Early Stage Investigator Research Project Grant (R01)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: Fiscal Year 2024 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Program; ERDC Broad Agency Announcement

Department of Energy: Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office FOA to Advance the National Clean Hydrogen Strategy; Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC); EXPRESS: 2024 Exploratory Research for Extreme Scale Science Small Innovative Projects in Solar: Concentrating Solar Power and Photovoltaics Data Reduction for Science

National Endowment of Humanities: Public Humanities Projects

Private Foundations: Travel Support for Mathematicians; Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program

The Pentagon is already testing tomorrow’s AI-powered swarm drones, ships:  Autonomous weapons are coming. Recent Pentagon breakthroughs in experimental aerial and naval craft are paving the way for low-cost attack drones and new tactics that feature AI in key roles. Navy and Air Force experiments also highlighted how the U.S. military might employ autonomous weapons differently than China or Russia.  The Navy, for example, brought swarms of air and sea drones to the annual Unitas exercise, where they collected and shared reconnaissance data that helped the multinational fleet detect, identify, and take out enemy craft more quickly. “We had an unmanned surface vessel and unmanned air vessel informing each other and then we actually had an international partner’s missiles on board, and we're able to shoot six high speed patrol boats coming at us. And we were six for six,” said Rear Adm. James Aiken, 4th Fleet commander, sharing new details about the July exercise at the Navy Surface Warfare symposium in Virginia recently. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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NTIA wants ‘the whole lifecycle of accountability’ to assess AI systems, agency head says: The head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said his agency is looking at how to create an auditing process to hold artificial intelligence systems accountable, as part of an effort to promote safe and ethical uses of the emerging technologies. During a Monday discussion at the Knight Foundation’s INFORMED 2024 conference, NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said “I think one of the things that we've seen is, like financial audits for the financial accounting system, there is going to be a role to play for audits in the AI ecosystem.” NTIA released a request for comment in April 2023 soliciting public feedback on how to mitigate the harms of AI, noting that it would use the input to help “draft and issue a report on AI accountability policy development, focusing especially on the AI assurance ecosystem.” The agency said it received more than 1,400 comments in response to its request. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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Bipartisan bill strives for ‘more nimble and meaningful’ federal contracting: A new bipartisan proposal seeks to simplify the federal contracting process — and potentially allow for more small businesses to work with the government — by reducing burdensome requirements and creating “a more nimble and meaningful bidding process and evaluation of proposals.” The Conforming Procedures for Federal Task and Delivery Order Contracts Act was introduced by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, on Jan. 19. The bill seeks “to streamline procedures for solicitation and the awarding of task and delivery order contracts for agencies” by shrinking “the procurement process for contractors bidding on work as well as for the government, ensuring necessary due diligence is done while allowing awards to be made faster and to a wider array of contractors, including small businesses.”

This includes reducing “duplication of documentation requirements for agencies” and applying some of the contracting measures that the Department of Defense “currently has in place to all federal agencies.” Ernst — the ranking member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee — said in a statement that “too much bureaucratic red tape stands in the way” when it comes to smaller companies effectively competing for federal contracts. “By making the award process faster and wider, Iowa’s small businesses and entrepreneurs can better compete and succeed,” she added, referencing the benefits the bill would have for her Hawkeye State constituents.  More information is posted on the NextGov website.