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– Jump ahead with our Table of Contents –
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Engaging NASA Workshop Planned
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Perseverance rover lands on Mars (illustration by NASA/JPL)
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On April 19, Ingenuity achieved the first powered flight by an aircraft on another planet. Perseverance is exploring the Jezero Crater and the Artemis Program is planning to return Americans to the moon.
The University of Florida currently has more than 150 UF faculty members involved in NASA-funded research projects, including a key experiment on Perseverance and an active role in the LISA gravitational wave mission. UF faculty also play key roles in developing state-of-the-art technologies for future space missions and figuring out how to feed and sustain astronauts on long missions.
But UF has significant untapped potential for NASA research, so UF Research and the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering are hosting two day-long workshops for faculty from across the institution where current NASA-funded researchers will share their experiences and familiarity with space-related research. Together, presenters and participants will brainstorm how researchers can add a NASA component to research already funded by other federal agencies like the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.
On May 24, the focus will be on NASA’s current mission structure, its origins/history, and the Science Mission Directorate, which is the largest of the four directorates and the one that most overlaps with UF’s diverse research portfolio. A second workshop on May 27 will focus on the remaining three NASA directorates in separate tracks so participants can select the program that is the best fit for their research.
“Created by faculty for faculty, these workshops will present tried-and-true methods to grow and sustain a NASA-funded research program,” said Forrest Masters, professor and associate dean for research in the College of Engineering. “Teams of experienced PIs will share knowledge accrued over many years, even decades, to help attendees succeed with proposing research ideas, building teams and, ultimately, advancing NASA’s mission.”
This workshop will be followed by an in-person event in the fall that will bring faculty together to share their research, form teams, interact with NASA personnel, and explore opportunities to pursue future NASA solicitations.
For more information and to register, visit:
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Research Resumption Portal Key To Reopening Labs
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When the UF Research Resumption Task Force first opened the Research Resumption Portal on April 26, 2020, no one knew what the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic meant for the research enterprise.
But by the time the portal was officially closed late last month, UF Research had approved over 8,000 people to return to lab and field facilities on campus and around the state. This involved a review of 4,917 separate requests
“Almost as soon as we shut down we began planning for how we would reopen,” said Vice President for Research David Norton. “We were very fortunate that IFAS had a tool in place that could be quickly adapted to facilitate the orderly return of people to their labs and field sites. That was key to the success of our Research Resumption strategy.”
The portal functionality was developed by Brian Gray, in the IFAS Dean for Research office, working with IFAS Senior Associate Dean for Research John Davis and Interim Associate Dean for Research Damian Adams.
“Brian was awesome through the whole process and is the single key person that made it all happen,” said Assistant Vice President for Research Rob Ferl, who chaired the research resumption task force.
Others who facilitated the success of the program include Assistant Vice President for Research Stephanie Gray; Brian Sevier with the Clinical and Translational Science Institute; Michael Mahoney and Nick Dunham with UF Research operations and IT; and T.J. Summerford and Brian Karcinski at UFIT.
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Distinguished Professor Rob Ferl To Co-chair National Academies Space Research Group
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University of Florida Distinguished Professor Rob Ferl
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The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have appointed University of Florida Distinguished Professor Rob Ferl to co-chair a group tasked with mapping space-related biological and physical research for the next 10 years.
Ferl and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Krystyn J. Van Vliet will chair the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space 2023-2032, commissioned by NASA to “review the state of knowledge in the current and emerging areas of space-related biological and physical sciences research and generate consensus recommendations for a comprehensive vision and strategy for a decade of transformative science at the frontiers of biological and physical sciences research in space,” according to an Academies release.
“Decadal surveys are community-driven, bottom-up studies that aim to formulate a consensus on the most compelling science questions for the decade ahead,” Ferl said. “Sponsoring agencies and Congress view surveys as the considered statement of priority by the U.S. space science community and have repeatedly stated their intent to give highest priority to the missions/objective identified in the survey.”
Ferl, who has been involved with the survey for a dozen years and chaired a midterm assessment of the previous decadal survey, says participating in the survey gives scientists the opportunity to influence policy in meaningful ways.
“We don't have to just sit and wait for a call for proposals that we find interesting,” said the longtime researcher in how plants grow in space. “We can influence science policy, and that puts us scientists in an active, forward-thinking, influential role in the development of science.”
The 2011 survey, titled “Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration,” was written during a critical period in the evolution of science in support of space exploration. The research agenda in space life and physical sciences had been significantly reduced in the previous decade, just as the International Space Station was nearing completion in 2011.
“The goal of this report is to lay out steps whereby NASA can reinvigorate its partnership with the life and physical sciences research community and develop a forward-looking portfolio of research that will provide the basis for recapturing the excitement and value of human spaceflight,” according to the executive summary of the 2011 survey.
And that’s exactly what NASA has done, Ferl said.
“Ten years ago, we didn't have a deep idea of what a biological response to being in space was like,” said Ferl who, with collaborator Anna-Lisa Paul, has studied the impacts of little or no gravity on plants on airplanes, the Space Shuttle and the ISS. “Now we have a robust dataset that scientists can share through GeneLab, an open-access resource of data from spaceflight and corresponding analogue experiments.”
Ferl says he knows he won’t be an active scientist when the next decadal survey comes around, so he considers this opportunity “my chance to have a lasting effect on an area of science that I have come to appreciate and love enormously.”
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UF MainSpring – Together We Drive UF Research
What is MainSpring? At the University of Florida, MainSpring is an interconnected community of professionals learning, sharing and growing together to move the research enterprise forward. Our goal is to reduce administrative burden on faculty and risk to UF by supporting sponsored programs administration through networking, education and development of knowledge and skills. This includes connecting the diverse community of professionals that support sponsored programs but don’t always see themselves as an integrated part of the research enterprise. Whether processing payroll, coordinating travel or serving as a research administrator, we are all an integral part of moving UF’s research enterprise forward.
So how can you help? Visit and explore the MainSpring site, featuring new resources designed to make your life easier. Join the MainSpring professional development events and encourage staff, both business administrators and research administrators, to attend as well. Let people in your areas know about MainSpring and promote active participation. We don’t work in a laboratory. We aren’t scientists. We don’t apply for grants. But research can’t happen without us. Together, We Drive UF Research. |
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Research Development Spotlight
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Research Opportunity Seed Fund
UF Research has awarded 16 faculty teams $1.338 million through the Research Opportunity Seed Fund to address scientific challenges in education, human and animal health, and materials science.
The program is focused on multidisciplinary, faculty-initiated research team projects with potential for extramural support.
Among the projects funded this year are those focused on understanding what causes the anxiety that leads many students to underperform in math; developing vaccines against deadly glioblastoma brain tumors; using artificial intelligence to reduce the use of antibiotics in cattle; exploring the potential of using bacteriophages to treat antibiotic-resistant infections; developing new antiviral therapies for COVID-19 and other viruses; and understanding a new class of materials, called ferroelectric manganites, that hold great potential for next generation computer memory devices.
“The quality of proposals we receive every year for the Research Opportunity Seed Fund is outstanding,” said David Norton, vice president for research. “Many previous recipients have gone on to win major extramural funding from federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and we expect the same for the projects funded this year.”
While the number of proposals submitted per college is based on the previous year’s extramural funding, the final selection is based solely on scientific merit as determined by independent faculty review panels.
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Humanities Collections and Reference Resources
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access is accepting applications for the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program.
This program supports projects that provide an essential underpinning for scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. Thousands of libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country maintain important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, and digital objects. This program strengthens efforts to extend the life of such materials and make their intellectual content widely accessible, often through the use of digital technology. Awards are also made to create various reference resources that facilitate use of cultural materials, from works that provide basic information quickly to tools that synthesize and codify knowledge of a subject for in-depth investigation.
Proposed projects may address the holdings or activities of a single institution or may involve collaboration between institutions. However, even in the case of single-institution projects, working with specialists in other offices or departments or colleagues in other institutions often helps ensure that proposed activities are achievable and will have maximum impact for the humanities. Collaboration can be crucial in providing the appropriate mix of humanities content and methodological expertise and can help broaden the scope of, and audiences for, proposed collections or reference resources.
Among the projects funded last year were a national traveling exhibition and public programs at 20 libraries commemorating the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and 46 summer seminars, institutes and workshops for K–12 schoolteachers and college faculty.
“NEH is proud to award hundreds of grants to keep our nation’s scholars, students, teachers, and citizens moving forward in pursuit of new knowledge and understanding,” NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede said in announcing awards last year.
Optional draft proposals are due by June 3, 2021, with a full application due by July 15, 2021. Expected notification date is April 30, 2022, with project start dates between June 1 and Sept. 1, 2022.
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Engineering Professor Emeritus and Alumna Recognized by Florida Inventors Hall of Fame
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UF professor emeritus Rajiv Singh (left) and computer science & engineering alumna Susann Keohane
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A University of Florida professor emeritus in materials science and engineering who developed an innovative computer chip manufacturing process, and an alumnus in computer science and engineering who is a leader at IBM in the application of artificial intelligence to aging issues are among the 2021 inductees to the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.
During his 30 years at UF, Rajiv Singh became a world leader in the semiconductor processing field. He now serves as a vice president at Entegris, a global leader in advanced material science that acquired Sinmat, the company Singh co-founded, in 2020. Singh is one of the original developers of pulsed laser deposition and the inventor of chemical mechanical polishing for mechanically hard advanced electronic materials used in manufacturing of smartphones, advanced silicon carbide electronics for electric vehicles, 5G communications, and more. He holds 26 U.S. patents.
Susann Keohane is IBM’s Global Research Leader for the Aging Initiative, Watson Health & Healthy Aging Innovation Leader and IBM Master Inventor. She holds a series of seminal patents in autonomous vehicles, and her groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and Internet of Things are transforming technology for people with disabilities and the aging population by applying advanced analytics and machine learning techniques to model activities of daily living and generating new insights that significantly improve quality of life. She holds 137 U.S. patents.
Singh and Keohane bring to 13 the number of UF inductees since the program started in 2014. Here are the others:
2020
Christine Schmidt
Christopher Batich
2019
Chris Malachowsky
Rick Yost
2018
Herbert Wertheim
2017
Thomas Maren
2016
Nick Muzyczka
2015
Janet Yamamoto
Nan-Yao Su
Robert Grubbs
2014
Robert Cade
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RCR Training: 2021 Summer Seminar Series
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This summer, UF Research Integrity, in collaboration with RCR on Campus, will once again host a summer seminar series on Research Integrity and the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). The series will cover a wide variety of topics including the research lifecycle, research misconduct, peer review, as well as publishing and authorship.
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We will also have several new offerings on topics such as Data Ethics for Trustworthy A.I., the Effects of Culture on the Research Lab Dynamics and Study Design and others. Please visit our website for the full list of seminars and registration information.
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