The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education* (ORISE) is soliciting applications for the Global Change Education Program (GCEP) Graduate Research Environmental Fellowship (GREF) and Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE). For information about GCEP-GREF and GCEP-SURE, and to access application forms and instructions click on the website, http://www.atmos.anl.gov/GCEP/ . The deadline for the submission of applications is 11:59:59 EST 31 December 2009; transcripts and Letters of Reference will be accepted via U.S. Mail, email or fax through 11 January 2010 (see contact information below).
BENEFITS: GREF---$1,500 monthly stipend, tuition and fees not to exceed $10,000 per academic year, and $1,200 academic research allowance per year. SURE--- $475 weekly, plus travel. SURE and GREF participants have the opportunity to participate in Orientation and End-of-Summer Workshop.
AREAS OF INTEREST: GCEP focuses on a number of technical areas, including atmospheric sciences, ecology, global carbon cycles, climatology, and terrestrial processes. GCEP is currently emphasizing research on aerosols, clouds, and their radiative effects as part of the efforts in atmospheric systems research, as well as, climate modeling within the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division.
CONTACT INFORMATION: For more information contact, Jeffrey Gaffney (jsgaffney@ualr.edu or 501/569.8840), Nancy Marley (namarley@ualr.edu or 501/569.8844), or Milton Constantin ( Milton.constantin@orau.org or 865/576.7009).
Send transcripts and Letters of Reference to: Milton J. Constantin, ORISE-SEP M.S.-36, P.O. Box 117, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-0117 or Email: Milton.constantin@orau.org or FAX: 865/241-9445
*The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), a U.S. Department of Energy Institute, is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities.
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) is seeking to fund environmental research and development proposals. SERDP is DoD’s environmental science and technology program, planned and executed in partnership with DOE and EPA. The Program invests across the broad spectrum of basic and applied research, as well as exploratory development. SERDP pursues solutions to DoD’s most intractable environmental problems. Advances in the understanding and management of DoD’s resources support the long-term sustainability of training and testing ranges and facilities. Innovative environmental technologies significantly reduce current and future environmental liabilities.
Proposals responding to focused Statements of Need (SON) in the following areas are requested:
Proposals responding to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 SONs will be selected through a competitive process. Separate solicitations are available to federal and non-federal proposers. The SONs and detailed instructions for federal and private sector proposers are available on the SERDP web site.
The Core SERDP Solicitation provides funding in varying amounts for multi-year projects. For the Core Solicitation, pre-proposals from the non-federal sector are due by Thursday, January 7, 2010.
SERDP also will be funding environmental research and development through the SERDP Exploratory Development (SEED) Solicitation. The SEED Solicitation is designed to provide a limited amount of funding (not to exceed $150,000) for projects up to one year in duration to investigate innovative approaches that entail high technical risk and/or require supporting data to provide risk reduction or proof of concept. All SEED proposals are due by Thursday, March 11, 2010.
The Department of Energy recently announced major funding for 37 ambitious research projects - including some that could allow intermittent energy sources like wind and solar to provide a steady flow of power, or use bacteria to produce automotive fuel from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
This is the first round of projects funded under ARPA-E. ARPA-E was originally established under the America Competes Act of 2007. In April of this year, President Obama announced $400 million in initial funding for ARPA-E through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. ARPA-E's mission is to develop nimble, creative and inventive approaches to transform the global energy landscape while advancing America's technology leadership. Inspired by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ARPA-E was created to support high risk, high reward energy research that can provide transformative new solutions for climate change and energy security.
In announcing the selections, Secretary Chu said: “After World War II, America was the unrivaled leader in basic and applied sciences. It was this leadership that led to enormous technological advances. ARPA-E is a crucial part of the new effort by the U.S. to spur the next Industrial Revolution in clean energy technologies, creating thousands of new jobs and helping cut carbon pollution.”
The grants will go to projects with lead researchers in 17 states. Of the lead recipients, 43% are small businesses, 35% are educational institutions, and 19% are large corporations. In supporting these teams, ARPA-E seeks to bring together America's brightest energy innovators to pioneer a low cost, secure, and low carbon energy future for the nation.
The 37 selected projects, which are receiving an average of approximately $4 million each, span the energy sector, including potentially transformative innovations in energy storage, biofuels, carbon capture, renewable power, building efficiency, vehicles, and other energy technology areas. The project selections can be found at http://www.arpa-e.energy.gov/rp-index.html .
A second set of ARPA-E funding opportunities will be announced in the late Fall. Please visit www.arpa-e.energy.gov for more information about these selections, upcoming technical workshops, and new funding opportunities.
Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) is NSF’s bold five-year initiative to create revolutionary science and engineering research outcomes made possible by innovations and advances in computational thinking. Computational thinking is defined comprehensively to encompass computational concepts, methods, models, algorithms, and tools. Applied in challenging science and engineering research and education contexts, computational thinking promises a profound impact on the Nation’s ability to generate and apply new knowledge. Collectively, CDI research outcomes are expected to produce paradigm shifts in our understanding of a wide range of science and engineering phenomena and socio-technical innovations that create new wealth and enhance the national quality of life.
CDI seeks ambitious, transformative, multidisciplinary research proposals within or across the following three thematic areas:
Our office can facilitate the formation of interdisciplinary teams and help develop the most competitive proposals possible. For more information and proposal development assistance, please contact the Program Development Specialists in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs:
Lesha Agnew, lagnew@olemiss.edu, x7482
Mickey McLaurin, mclaurin@olemiss.edu, x7482
Kendra Rauschenberger, kendra@olemiss.edu, x7482
As a means of increasing the number of U.S. citizens and nationals trained in science and engineering disciplines of military importance, the Department of Defense (DoD) plans to award approximately 200 new three-year graduate fellowships in April 2010, subject to the availability of funds. The DoD will offer these fellowships to individuals who have demonstrated ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering. National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowships are awarded to applicants who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or closely related to, an area of DoD interest within one of the following disciplines:
Fellowships are sponsored by the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the High Performance Computing Modernization program. The NSDEG Fellowship Program is administered by the American Society for Engineering Education.
The Workshop for the Next Generation of Science and Technology Policy Leaders aims to build a small community of particularly promising early career individuals who can participate effectively in science and technology policy (STP) activities, broadly construed, taking advantage of the current national attention given to STP issues and dilemmas.
The workshop constitutes the heart of a larger Conference on the Rightful Place of Science that CSPO is organizing. The conference and workshop will convene Monday morning 17 May 2010 and adjourn mid-day on Wednesday 19 May 2010, with additional workshop sessions on Sunday 16 May 2010 and the afternoon of Wednesday 19 May 2010. Next Generation participants will share special events at the Conference with internationally prominent keynote speakers and “exemplars” of science and policy practice.
CSPO calls for proposals to participate in the Workshop. A complete proposal consists of three parts:
Each item is limited to one page of single-spaced text.
Eligible applicants will have received their PhD (or other terminal degree) in 2004 or more recently and will not be in a tenured position. Selection criteria will be (1) intellectual quality; (2) clear relevance to STP issues; and (3) evidence of effective communication skills.
Twelve participants will be fully supported. Successful applicants will have their participation in the Workshop and Conference funded by CSPO and will receive an honorarium for writing both a scholarly paper and a paper on the same subject but for more general audiences.
Proposals must be submitted to one of six theme tracks:
Submit proposal materials by October 25th to cspo@asu.edu.
The application cycle for the NIH extramural Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) is underway and ends on December 1, 2009, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. Highly-qualified health professionals who are or will be engaged in biomedical or behavioral research and who have started an online application should complete it now; those who have not yet started should visit www.lrp.nih.gov to learn more about the programs and apply.
The extramural LRPs often allow scientific investigators to remain in the research workforce, achieve research independence, and focus their efforts on advancing the health of the nation without having to worry about their student loan debt. Each year, some 1,600 research scientists benefit from the more than $70 million NIH invests in their careers through the extramural LRPs. The extramural LRPs include Clinical Research, Pediatric Research, Health Disparities Research, Contraception and Infertility Research, and Clinical Research for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds.
BENEFITS: New LRP contracts are awarded for a two-year period and repay up to $35,000 of qualified educational debt each year. Tax offsets also are provided as an additional benefit. Participants may apply for competitive renewals, which are issued for one or two years. Undergraduate, graduate, medical school, and other health professional school loans qualify for repayment. An NIH grant or other NIH funding is not required to apply for or participate in the LRPs.
ELIGIBILITY: Applicants must possess a doctoral-level degree (with the exception of the Contraception and Infertility Research LRP); be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident; devote 20 hours or more per week to conducting qualified research funded by a university, nonprofit organization, or federal, state, or local government entity; and have qualified educational loan debt equal to or exceeding 20 percent of their institutional base salary.
QUESTIONS? Visit the LRP website at www.lrp.nih.gov for more information and to access the online application. For additional assistance, call or e-mail the LRP Information Center at (866) 849-4047 or lrp@nih.gov.
The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) has established the DOE Office of Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE SCGF) program to provide support for outstanding students to pursue graduate training in basic research in areas of physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computational sciences, and environmental sciences relevant to the Office of Science and to encourage the development of the next generation scientific and technical talent in the U.S.
Fellows will receive a $35,000 yearly stipend for living expenses, $10,500 per year for tuition and fees and a $5,000 research stipend supplement for research materials and travel expenses. Fellows will be required to participate in the annual DOE SCGF Research Conference to be held each summer at a DOE national laboratory. Travel expenses and accommodations to the Conference will be provided by the DOE SCGF program.
THE APPLICATION DEADLINE IS NOVEMBER 30, 2009.
Faculty interested in serving as reviewers for this program are encouraged to register. Selected reviewers will be contacted in late fall with additional information about the review process, criteria and logistics.
The October 2009 issue of the Research Highlights newsletter is now online and ready for reading.
The new issue includes these items:
The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs publishes Research Highlights for University of Mississippi faculty, staff and students who are interested in and involved in research, scholarship, and creative activities. We hope this publication is a useful tool for UM researchers and scholars in all disciplines. If you have questions or suggestions, or if you wish to submit news items or story ideas, please email the Research Highlights editor at research@olemiss.edu.