Meetings

A computer science and engineering professor at The University of Texas at Arlington is using a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to determine how to detect and eliminate biases in web database applications.

A University of Texas at Arlington civil engineering assistant professor is working to make concrete and cement more sustainable by adding nanoscale fibers from wood to the material. In 2018, landfills received 12.2 million tons of wood, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, representing 8.3% of all municipal solid waste. The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities awarded Warda Ashraf a $50,000 grant for her project, “Application of Cellulose Nanofibers as Durability Performance Enhancing Additives for Cement and Concrete Industry.”

Salk Professor Kay Tye has been selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator, joining a prestigious group of more than 250 HHMI investigators across the United States who are tackling important scientific questions.

The scientists come from 21 US institutions and will join a community of Investigators who are tackling some of the most challenging problems in biomedical research.

As part of their larger initiative to understand the effects of space conditions on different organisms, NASA has awarded $2 million to Sanford Burnham Prebys assistant professor Karen Ocorr. The grant will fund a three-year project to study the effects of low gravity on muscle and neuron function in fruit flies and nematode worms aboard the International Space Station.

Recently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai a five-year grant to test out whether exposing patients to a combination of light therapies will slow Alzheimer’s debilitating effects.

The University of Colorado Boulder and City College of New York are announcing a joint research center for sustainable building technology. The Building Energy Smart Technologies (BEST) Center is a five-year initiative funded by the National Science Foundation under the NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers model.

Southwest Research Institute hydrologists will embark upon a two-year investigation of west Texas spring systems to apply scientific tools that will aid water resource management for semiarid regions where vital water systems are at potential risk. The project is funded by a WaterSMART Applied Science Grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The NSF Awarded $250,000 to study factors contributing to agricultural collapse in ancient south-central Veracruz, Mexico (circa 800 C.E.) to gain insights into modern farming and potential impacts of climate change.