Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2024-33

Simons Foundation Announces New Simons Dissertation Fellowship in Mathematics

The Simons Foundation has announced the new Simons Dissertation Fellowship in Mathematics to provide research support to excellent graduate students in mathematics in the final years of their Ph.D. program. This program has been created to honor the work of our late co-founder, Jim Simons, and his commitment to supporting great students in the field of mathematics. The Simons Foundation is an in-perpetuity foundation committed to the founder’s vision of supporting mathematics and basic science.

Up to 40 dissertation fellowships will be awarded each year, providing $30,000 in general research support for the student and $2,000 in support for the student’s department, over the course of two years, to coincide with the fourth and fifth year of the student’s Ph.D. program.

To be eligible to apply, an applicant must be enrolled as full-time Ph.D. student in a Ph.D.-granting mathematics department at an institution in the United States and must be in their third year of study. Applicants must apply in the third year of the Ph.D. program. There are no citizenship requirements.

For fellowships starting September 1, 2025, the deadline to apply will be March 31, 2025 at 12 p.m. (noon) EDT. The request for applications (RFA) will open by November 1, 2024. For more information at that time, please contact Liz Roy, senior manager of programs and administration for Mathematics & Physical Sciences, at mps@simonsfoundation.org, or see the Funding Opportunities section of the foundation’s website.

NSF: Planning Grants to Create Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Ready Test Beds; NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

NIH: Revolutionizing Innovative, Visionary Environmental Health Research (RIVER) (R35); Tissue Chips in Space 2.0: Translational Multi-Organ Tissue Chip Systems for Drug Efficacy, Toxicity Testing, and Personalized Medicine in Human Health, Aging and Associated Diseases (UG3/UH3)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: NRL Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PFP); Machine learning and Optimization-guided Compilers for Heterogeneous Architectures (MOCHA); Department of Defense Research and Education Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI)

Department of Energy: Fiscal Year 2024 Vehicle Technologies Office Batteries Funding Opportunity Announcement; Offshore Wind National and Regional Research and Development; Smart Manufacturing Technologies for Material and Process Innovation

NASA: MUREP Earth System Science Research (MUREP ESSR)

National Endowment of Humanities: Spotlight on Humanities in Higher Education; Humanities Connections; Summer Stipends

Proposal for a federal cyber training institute study passes key Senate committee: A bipartisan bill requiring the National Cyber Director to look into the establishment of an institute to serve as a centralized resource for training cybersecurity feds got one step closer to becoming legislation when it advanced out of a key Senate committee last week. The potential of an institute, the law's backers say, is that it could provide early and mid-career feds up- and re-skilling training specific to their jobs. It could also potentially give HR employees training specific to hiring cybersecurity personnel. Those in entry-level positions would see special attention from any potential institute, per the bill, as would curriculum meant to help workers looking to jump to mid-career positions. The White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director would have 180 days to deliver a public plan for such an institute, including where it might be housed in the government and what resources, funding and authorities it would need. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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White House roadmap looks to guide emerging tech standardization: The Biden administration released a new roadmap to guide the implementation of emerging technology systems within the federal government on Friday in an effort to synchronize standards development with private industry partners.  The guidance is tailored to helping deploy the four key objectives introduced in the May 2023 National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology –– increasing investment; broadening participation; enhancing the workforce; and sustaining integrity and inclusivity –– and looks to offer concrete guidance for the government to work with the private sector in collaborating on standards development.

Based on a request for information and other stakeholder engagements, the roadmap lays out both short- and long-term efforts to implement the strategy’s provisions. Short-term actions the government plans on taking to begin standardization processes focus internally. These include identifying opportunities for pre-standardization research and development; tracking existing education grants and programs for emerging technology standards; and evaluating current international agreements and mechanisms for standards cooperation.

On the long-term side, the roadmap sets nine steps for the federal government to take: enhance coordination across the federal government; enhance coordination with the private sector; enhance coordination with foreign governments; recognize and incentivize federal agency engagement; provide strong and sustained funding for critical and emerging technology R&D and pre-standardization coordination; engage academia as a critical partner; enhance educational efforts; develop and sustain communications; and remove barriers to participation. These efforts focus on consolidating standardization efforts between agencies and bringing private sector partners into play as well.

The roadmap looks to standardize emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, digital identity infrastructure, semiconductors, telecommunications, and more. More information is posted on the NextGov website.