ARLINGTON, VA -- The Air Force Office of Scientific Research here today announced it will award approximately $9.5 million in grants to 29 scientists and engineers who submitted winning research proposals through the Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program.
The program is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the United States. Those selected will receive the grants over a 3-year period. Competition for YIP grants is intense. A total of 215 proposals were received in response to the AFOSR broad agency announcement (BAA-2007-7) solicitation in major areas of interests to the Air Force. Interest areas include: aerospace, chemical and material sciences; mathematics, information and life sciences; and physics and electronics. AFOSR officials selected proposals based on the evaluation criteria listed in the broad agency announcement.
The program supports scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years. Grant recipients must 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.
The recipients and their anticipated research areas are:
· Dr. Joanna Austin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will focus on hypervelocity boundary layer studies for axisymmetric engine flowpaths.
· Dr. Jonathan Black, Air Force Institute of Technology, will work on hybrid laser/video 3d non-contact motion capture and analysis.
· Dr. Shannon Blunt, University of Kansas, will research intra-pulse radar-embedded communications.
· Dr. Roman Boulatov, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will develop new method to acquire chemomechanical parameters of diverse chemical reactions.
· Dr. Markus Buehler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will investigate structural hierarchies in biomimetic materials: protein inspired de novo materials.
· Dr. Stephen Cronin, University of Southern California, will study nanoplasmonic catalysis for synthetic fuel production.
· Dr. Daniel Forger, University of Michigan, will work on physiology modeling of circadian timekeeping.
· Dr. Anthony Grbic, University of Michigan, will find a new approach to manipulating electromagnetic fields: nearfield focusing plates.
· Dr. Kevin Hamlen, University of Texas at Dallas, will study automated, certified program-rewriting for software security enforcement.
· Dr. Wesley Henderson, North Carolina State University, will investigate biomass processing using ionic liquids for jet fuel production.
· Dr. Michael Hochberg, University of Washington, will develop nanophotonic devices in silicon for nonlinear optics.
· Dr. Scott Jensen, Utah State University, will conduct studies for utilizing cryogenic magnetohydrodynamics in multi-fuctional electro-mechancial systems.
· Dr. Chunqi Jiang, University of Southern California, will research improved imaging and serial assessment of carotid atherosclerosis.
· Dr. Anne Katherine Jones, Arizona State University, will focus on engineering oxidoreductases: utilization of an unnatural amino acid to create artificial hydrogenases.
· Dr. Aslan Kasimov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will investigate accurate numerical simulation and analysis of multi-dimensional shock and detonation waves.
· Dr. Michael Kessler, Iowa State University, will work on new cynate ester resins modified with nanoparticles for inclusion in continuous fiber reinforced composites.
· Dr. Heather Lewandowski, University of Colorado, will study resonant energy transfer in a system of cold trapped molecules.
· Dr. Xiaoqin Li, University of Texas at Austin, will focus on probing spin waves using brillouin lighting scattering.
· Dr. Shriram Ramanathan, Harvard College, will work on exploratory phase transition-based switches using functional oxides.
· Dr. Johannes Royset, Naval Postgraduate School, will investigate adaptive precision adjustment for efficient optimization of complex systems.
· Dr. Yuri Shprits, University of California at Los Angeles, will study modeling of the origin and energization of the inner radiation belt electrons and phenomena that mediates it.
· Dr. Leon Shterengas, State University of New York at Stony Brook, will investigate Holmium doped solid state lasers resonantly pumped and q-switched by novel GaSb-based photonic devices.
· Dr. Irfan Siddiqi, University of California at Berkeley, will conduct research on single bohr magneton detector: the ultimate probe of manomagetism with quantum-limited resolution.
· Dr. Brian Thurow, Auburn University, will work on the development and application of a high-speed three-dimensional density measurement technique for aero-optic applications.
· Dr. Guido Verbeck, University of North Texas, will address development of novel preparative mass spectrometry instrumentation for the advancement of new materials and nanofabrication.
· Dr. Miao Yu, University of Maryland at College Park, will investigate fly ear inspired miniature acoustic sensors for detection and localization.
· Dr. Y.-H. Percival Zhang, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, will focus on accelerating the rate-limiting step in novel enzymatic carbohydrate-to-hydrogen technology by enzyme engineering.
· Dr. Yi Zhang, University of California at Santa Cruz., will research adaptive information filtering.
· Dr. Lizhong Zheng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will study dynamic wireless networks based on open physical media.