Read the research blog Further Findings.
Research Prizes and Honors
[Have you or a colleague won a research-related prize or honor? Let the Research Alert know.]
GOODENOUGH ELECTED TO ROYAL SOCIETY
John Goodenough, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of science.
The society elected Goodenough for his pioneering contributions to solid state science and technology.
He was one of eight foreign fellows to join the society this year. Goodenough was the head of Inorganic Chemistry at Oxford (1976-1986) when he first identified and developed the oxide material now used, worldwide, for high energy-density rechargeable lithium batteries, ubiquitous in today’s portable electronic devices.
News and Information
NSF APPLICATIONS SOON MUST INCLUDE DATA SHARING PLANS
Beginning in October, all proposals for funding from the National Science Foundation must include a two-page “supplementary document” describing how research data will be shared, according to the NSF.
The requirement addresses the need for data from publicly funded research to be made available to the public.
Additional guidance from NSF will include the agency’s expectations for the data management plans. This requirement is a departure from NSF’s long-standing policy “requiring grantees to share their data within a reasonable length of time, so long as the cost is modest,” NSF said. The change is also in keeping with “the growing interest from U.S. policymakers in making sure that any data obtained with federal funds be accessible to the general public” and the Obama administration’s efforts to make government “more transparent and more participatory,” the agency said.
QuotedUT Researchers in the News
[A sampling of recent quotes by university faculty members and researchers. To be included in this section, let the Research Alert know when you or a colleague have been quoted.]
Computerworld
May 26, 2010
HEADLINE: Researchers race to produce 3D models of BP oil spill: NSF approves supercomputing time as researchers apply storm surge models to oil spread
Acting within 24 hours of receiving a request from researchers, the National Science Foundation late last week made an emergency allocation of 1 million compute hours on a supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas to study how the oil spreading from BP’s gusher will affect coastlines.
…The project is getting a “high priority,” said another researcher, Clint Dawson, a professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at The University of Texas. “What our model can do that a lot of the other models can’t do is actually track the oil spill up into marshes and the wetlands because we have fine-scale resolution in those areas.”
The researchers are also looking at the possibility of a hurricane in the Gulf this summer and what would happen “if the oil gets blown around,” said Dawson.
Research Opportunities
Important university research deadlines:
Awards and Grants
Limited Submissions
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT
The University of Texas at Austin Stimulus Package Web page is online.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
DARPA
Broad Agency Announcement: Defense Sciences Research and Technology (Opens pdf)
Deadline: May 5, 2011
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Genomic Science and Technology for Energy and the Environment
Deadline: Pre-application, June 28, 2010; Application, Sept. 10, 2010
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Black Carbon’s Role In Global To Local Scale Climate And Air Quality
Deadline: Sept. 22, 2010
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
The Central Processing of Taste Information
Deadline: Oct. 5, 2010
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Condensed Matter and Materials Theory
Deadline: Oct. 31, 2010
Theory, Models and Computational Methods
Deadlines: Aug. 2, 2010 and Nov. 30, 2010
Advances in Biological Informatics
Deadline: Aug. 23, 2010
OTHER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Sloan Research Fellowships (for early career faculty)
Deadline: Sept. 15, 2010
[Please submit your proposal through the Office of Sponsored Projects via the Proposal Review Form. For questions, please call 471-6424 or email osp@austin.utexas.edu.]
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Active Living Research: Building Evidence to Prevent Childhood Obesity
Deadline: Submit Letter of Intent any time until July 1, 2011
Research Project
[Let the Research Alert know about your research projects.]
Analytical and geometrical problems in calculus of variations and partial differential equations
RESEARCHER: Alessio Figalli, associate professor, Department of Mathematics, principal investigator
AGENCY: National Science Foundation
AMOUNT: $111,992
First of all, the researcher plans to work on optimal transport theory. This problem, which consists of finding the cheapest way to transport a distribution of mass from one place to another, has recently found many applications in meteorology, biology and populations dynamics. He also intends to study Euler equations for incompressible fluids and to work on problems of semiclassical limit coming from quantum physics.
The research described above has applications in many different areas: the optimal transport problem has obvious application to economics, but it has also shown to be very interdisciplinary, with links with other areas of mathematics like geometry, probability and partial differential equations, and also with physics and biology. Euler equations and semi-classical limits are classical problems in physics and quantum physics, and their mathematical study may increase deeper understanding of the physical phenomena themselves. Finally, the study of the rigidity of crystals under exterior potential should help to explain many phenomena, which are currently observed in experiments but not yet completely understood.
