Laura O'Dwyer, professor of Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics & Assessment at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, is part of a team that was awarded a prestigious interdisciplinary grant from the National Science Foundation. The five-year grant will support the launch of a new science and technology center, the NSF Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet.
The new center will leverage recent advances in analytical and data sciences, incorporate new ocean sampling technologies and an open-science framework, and engage educators and policymakers to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of the chemicals and chemical processes that underpin ocean ecosystems and other microbiomes that affect daily life.
The center is led by a team of researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; University of Virginia; Columbia University; University of Georgia; Marine Biological Laboratory; Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences; Stanford University; Boston College; Ohio State University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Boston University; University of Texas Rio Grande Valley; and the University of Florida. NSF Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet will be one of six new science and technology centers that will focus on complex research in fields ranging from mechanobiology to particle physics to climate change. The five other centers funded by this grant will include the NSF Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand, the NSF Center for Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics, the NSF Center for Oldest Ice Exploration, the NSF Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability Center, and the NSF Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems.
To learn more about this grant and the six new centers funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, read more here: https://nsf.gov/news/special_reports/announcements/090921.jsp