AFOSR awards $15.5 million in research grants

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research today announced that it will award approximately $15.5 million in grants to 42 scientists and engineers from 32 research institutions who submitted winning research proposals through the Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program (YIP).

The YIP is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the United States who received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years and who show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research.

The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering.

This year AFOSR received 234 proposals in response to the AFOSR broad agency announcement solicitation in major areas of interest to the Air Force. These areas include: Dynamical Systems and Control, Quantum and Non-Equilibrium Processes, Information, Decision and Complex Networks, Complex Materials and Devices, and Energy, Power and Propulsion. AFOSR officials select proposals based on the evaluation criteria listed in the broad agency announcement. Those selected will receive the grants over a three-year period.

The recipients and their anticipated research areas are:

· Dr. Edward Ackad, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Understanding Laser-Cluster Interactions in the X-ray Regime

· Dr. Amir Ahmadi, Princeton University, Scalable Algorithms with Formal Guarantees for Lyapunov Analysis of Control Systems via Algebraic Optimization

· Dr. William Anderson, Baylor University, Turbulent Boundary Layer Flows Over Sharp Aerodynamic Drag Transitions

· Dr. Panagiotis Artemiadis, Arizona State University, Perception and action interfaces in the symbiosis of humans and multi-agent systems

· Dr. Francisco Becerra Chavez, University of New Mexico, High-capacity atom-photon interfaces for quantum information

· Dr. Kurtis Cantley, Boise State University, Spike Timing-Dependent Learning Circuits for Temporal Pattern Recognition and Classification

· Dr. John Carlsson, University of Southern California, Allocating Geographic Resources Optimally

· Dr. Michele Cash, University of Colorado, Ensemble Modeling and Data Assimilation within the Enlil Solar Wind Model

· Dr. Mark Davenport, Georgia Institute of Technology, Solving inference and inverse problems using soft data

· Dr. Adam de la Zerda, Leland Stanford Junior University, Molecular imaging of human performance biomarkers at cellular resolution in vivo

· Dr. Lian Duan, Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly University of Missouri, Rolla), Numerical Simulation of Freestream Acoustic Disturbances

· Dr. Danna Freedman, Northwestern University, Molecular models to investigate diamagnetic anisotropy: Towards the directed synthesis of rare-earth free permanent magnets

· Dr. Mirko Gamba, University of Michigan, Particle-Free Spatially-Resolved Two-Component Velocimetry for Fluid Flows

· Dr. Noel Giebink, Pennsylvania State University, Complex index and nonlinearity modulation in organic photonic composites

· Dr. Alon Gorodetsky, University of California, Irvine, Protein-Based Proton-Conducting Materials

· Dr. Melissa Green, Syracuse University, Langrangian Coherent Structures in Bluff Body Flows

· Dr. Leanne Hirshfield, Syracuse University, Understanding the Effects of Cyber Attacks on Human Operators

· Dr. Allon Hochbaum, University of California, Irvine, Self-Assembled Biomimetic Conductive Fibers as a Novel Functional Materials Platform

· Dr. Jeremiah Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Synthesis and Self-Assembly of Tri- and Tetra-block Bottlebrush Copolymers

· Dr. Addis Kidane, University of South Carolina, Multi-Scale Response of Engineered and Energetic Mat during Aggressive Condition

· Dr. Michael Kudenov, North Carolina State University, Passive Snapshot Remote Sensing of Object Velocity

· Dr. James LeBeau, North Carolina State University, A transformational approach to quantify chemistry at the Atomic Scale

· Dr. Kristina Lemmer, Western Michigan University, The Study of Complex Molecular Plasma

· Dr. Zhiqiang Lin, University of Texas at Dallas, Towards Fundamental and Binary-Centric Techniques for Kernal Malware Defense

· Dr. Christopher McGuffey, University of California, San Diego, Dynamics of High-Intensity Laser-Driven Proton Beam

· Dr. Ningfang Mi, Northeastern University, Creating An Integrated Management Layer To Administer Heterogeneous Resources in Dynamic Workflow Clusters

· Dr. Ethan Miller, Johns Hopkins University, Conjugate Depletion Experiment

· Dr. Majid Minary-Jolandan, University of Texas at Dallas, Lessons from Bone to Bioinspired Tough and Self-Remodeling Aerospace Materials

· Dr. Chetan Patil, Vanderbilt University, Development of stimulated Raman spectroscopy for ultrahigh resolution imaging of neuronal stimuli

· Dr. David Roberson, University of Texas at El Paso, Synthesis of 3D-printable Polymer Matrix Composites

· Dr. Michael Sangid, Purdue University, Identifying The Crack Driving Force Mechanism Through Bayesian Analysis

· Dr. Monika Schleier-Smith, Leland Stanford Junior University, Control and visualization of collective spin states for quantum metrology

· Dr. Toru Shiozaki, Northwestern University, Electronic Structure Theory for Photo-Induced Spin-Forbidden Dynamics

· Dr. Aarti Singh, Carnegie Mellon University, Compressive and Adaptive Measurement Design for Inference Problems in Multi-Attribute Large-Scale Graphs

· Dr. Volker Sorger, George Washington University, Breaking Photonic Limits: light-matter-interaction enhanced devices for atto-joule & THz Datalinks

· Dr. Naveen Verma, Princeton University, From Sensor Data to High-value Information: ultra-low-energy platforms for deriving inferences from complex

· Dr. Kaitlyn Voccola, Colorado State University, Mathematical and Statistical Techniques for Synthetic-Aperture Radar

· Dr. Joshua Vura-Weis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Tabletop Femtosecond XUV Transient Absorption Spectroscopy

· Dr. Chao Wang, Johns Hopkins University, Tailoring Magnetic Nanomaterials for Electromagnetic Wave Absorption

· Dr. Qiqi Wang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gradient based optimization and control of chaotic multidisciplinary systems via Least Squares Shadowing adjoint method

· Dr. David Wentzlaff, Princeton University, Megacore Operating System and Chip Architecture Co-Design

· Dr. Mona Zebarjadi, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Meta-conductors with invisible dopants