Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2024-22

Design and Delivery of Large Engineering Projects: An Ideas Forum

Please join the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering, Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering’s collaborative online ideas forum on the design and delivery of large engineering projects.

The forum will feature case experiences from engineering leaders who will discuss instances where large projects are impeded by other forces and provide perspectives on how to better engage with them. They will also consider implications for multinational projects and engineering education to prepare the workforce that will deal with design and deployment of megaprojects.

Agenda

Register Here

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Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship

Letters of Intent Due: 6 Sep 2024, 5 p.m.

The Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences or Chemical Instrumentation Award Program supports advanced research by postdoctoral scholars within the core areas of fundamental chemistry or the development and build of chemical instrumentation. Research must be innovative in method, speed or process, or represent new instrument technology. This fellowship will be a catalyst from "mentored yet independent" postdocs to outstanding, independent researchers in academic or industry/governmental labs.

The Fellowships will be in two tracks (applicants will choose one):

• Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences will allow chemists to pursue advanced research within the core areas of fundamental chemistry, such as chemical physics, chemical engineering, and chemistry of materials research. The fellowship is not intended to fund proposals that are supported by traditional NIH mechanisms in the fields of chemistry, chemical biology, biochemistry.
• Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Instrumentation will allow researchers in chemistry to conceptualize, develop and build instrumentation suitable to advanced research in chemistry, chemical physics, chemical engineering, and chemistry of materials science. Instrumentation projects must be suitable to the two-year fellowship timeframe, be driven by a need in the chemical sciences listed above, be innovative in method speed or process or represent a wholly new instrument for technical advancement in chemistry, and may potentially be used for future research in the broader scientific community.

The award amount is $224,000 over 2 years for salary, fringe benefits and research expenditures; instrumentation fellowships will receive an additional one-time amount of up to $200,000. Fellows receiving year 3 renewal award will receive additional $118,000.

NSF: Gen-4 Engineering Research Centers; EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement-Focused EPSCoR Collaborations Program (RII-FEC); Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE): Core Programs, Large Projects; Correctness for Scientific Computing Systems

NIH: Mentored Career Development Award to Promote Faculty Diversity in Biomedical Research (K01); Independent Scientist Award (Parent K02)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: DoD Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health, Translational Research Award; Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) Office-wide; DOD Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Idea Development Award

Department of Energy: Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives; Vision OPEN 2024; Fiscal Year 2025 Distinguished Early Career Program; Quantum Information Science Enabled Discovery (QuantISED 2.0); Photovoltaics Research and Development (PVRD) FOA 2024

NASA: Heliophysics U.S. Participating Investigator; Heliophysics: Living With a Star Science; Research Initiation Awards Artificial Intelligence Applications in Heliophysics Consortium in Biological Sciences

National Endowment of Humanities: Humanities Education Initiatives; Public Humanities Projects

DOD, VA need more data on how their toxic exposure tracking app is used, watchdog says: The Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs jointly launched a system in 2019 to enhance toxic exposure-related services for military personnel and veterans, but they are not fully tracking staff usage of the tool to ensure that performance expectations are being met, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released on Thursday.  The individual longitudinal exposure record, or ILER, is a web application that aggregates information from DOD and VA records on active duty personnel and veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxic chemicals.  VA’s Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Benefits Administration, in addition to the DOD, make the system available to employees to help expedite the processing of claims related to toxic exposure and provide a centralized system for related healthcare information.

GAO’s review found that VBA’s use of the tool substantially increased following enactment of the PACT Act in August 2022, which expanded access to benefits for veterans whose toxic exposure-related conditions were not previously covered by the department. VA officials announced earlier this week that 1 million claims had been granted under the law. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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NSF awards $36M to decarbonize computing: The National Science Foundation will be awarding $36 million in funding to three energy-efficient computing projects, part of a larger agency program aimed at reducing the carbon footprint created by modern computing needs. Announced on Thursday as part of the NSF’s Expeditions in Computing program, the three projects feature leading collaborators from academic institutions: Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Texas at Austin. Each project focuses on decarbonization efforts, or reducing the amount of carbon emissions generated through energy use required to fuel computer infrastructures. 

The project helmed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin will work to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to help optimize computing performance and reduce the energy consumption within cloud computing softwares.  Researchers at Harvard University will use the funding to support its Carbon Connect research initiative that aims to establish new standards for carbon accounting in the computing industry. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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NIST unveils strategic vision for AI safety work: The AI Safety Institute will work to establish artificial intelligence testing metrics and standards as detailed by a new guiding document. The U.S. Department of Commerce released a guiding document Tuesday for operations of its AI Safety Institute, run out of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The institute was created in November 2023 to support the mandates given to the Department of Commerce under President Joe Biden’s October 2023 executive order. The new Strategic Vision contains three focal goals: advance the science of AI safety; articulate, demonstrate and disseminate the practices of AI safety; and support institutions and entities coordinating AI safety protocols. “Safety breeds trust, trust provides confidence in adoption, and adoption accelerates innovation,” the Strategic Vision says. A key challenge the Strategic Vision aims to confront is the lack of global standards and testing metrics to effectively evaluate safety in AI systems. It also looks to bring more coordinated global effort to developing testing and validation metrics for AI systems, as well as asking for national laboratory and other federal agency participation. More information is posted on the NextGov website.