I would like to thank Professors Jennie Atchison and Johanna Casale for an informative and engaging presentation about KEEN and the resources available to all faculty to enhance our teaching. Jennie and Johanna will be hosting additional brown bag lunches to delve deeper into the KEEN toolkit and to practice our skills – keep an eye out for their upcoming events. 

Jin Wen, PhD 

College of Engineering faculty and staff are invited to ring in the new year with Dean Walker and the Drexel Staff Assembly - Engineering (DSA-E) at the DSA-E Team Building College Crawl on Tuesday, January 3 from 1 - 3 p.m. The traveling "open house" will start at Crossings with hosts UAC/ELS and make its way across the college to CBE/ECE/MSE, CAEE/MEM, ending in the Dean's Suite. Refreshments and a fun activity at each stop along the way! Please RSVP by Friday, December 23. Questions? Contact Leslie Campion and Dorilona Rose, DSA-E Co-Chairs.

Applications are currently being sought for the biannual Faculty Fellowship program to be held in Israel in Summer 2023. Ideally suited to first-time travelers to Israel, the program has two major components and objectives. For the academic exchange component, each participant is introduced to, or paired with, Israeli counterparts in their field of study. There will be extensive touring and visits to historical sites, as well as exposing participants to Israel’s dynamic technological and scientific advancements, industry, culture and life. Participants will hear from speakers from all walks of Israeli society and join in debate on academic, political and economic topics. Interested parties should apply at www.ff2israel.org, or contact Rene Reinhard at rreinhard@jnf.org, Eileen Wedeen at ewedeen@mwio.org, or call (212) 439-7855 directly with any referrals or recommendations.

Richard Cairncross, PhD, professor of chemical engineering, and Ajmal Yousuff, PhD, professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, formed a collaborative team between Drexel and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCA) and that was selected to participate in the Nationwide Eclipse Balloon Project (NEBP). This NEBP effort will immerse teams in an innovative, NASA-mission-like adventure in data acquisition and analysis through scientific ballooning during the next two domestic eclipse events. The team, known as the “Devil Dragon Balloon Team”, will fly scientific equipment during these eclipse events with a team of researchers and students to address relevant scientific and engineering questions related to the eclipse. 

Yury Gogotsi, PhD, Distinguished University and Bach professor, was quoted in a Dec. 7 Science feature about academics from Kharkiv, Ukraine that have been displaced by the war and their efforts to rebuild the city and its research centers.

Research by Michael Waring, PhD, professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, and Bryan Cummings, PhD, a research scientist, debunking the myth that houseplants contribute to improving indoor air quality, was cited in a Dec. 7 Freethink post about a startup engineering plants to remove volatile organic compounds from the air.

Research by Franco Montalto, PhD, professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, on the environmental effects of the green roof on New York’s Javits Center, was mentioned in a Dec. 13 Crain’s New York Business profile of Alan Steel, president and CEO of the New York Convention Center Operating Corporation, which operates the Center.

Sharon L. Walker, PhD, dean of the College of Engineering, was quoted in a Dec. 14 piece on The Story Exchange that profiled Cesunica Ivey, a UC-Berkeley researcher who is using air quality monitoring to help vulnerable populations affected by air pollution.

The College of Engineering's participation in the deployment of Pennsylvania's first driverless shuttle service at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, was featured in Dec. 15 Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Business Journal, KYW-Newsradio (1060-AM) and WCAU-TV (NBC-10) stories.

NSF 

Drexel has submitted the fringe benefit proposal to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to establish the fiscal year 2024 fringe benefit rates for sponsored projects. These rates are not final until we receive the official rate letter from DHHS, however, we do not expect any significant changes when they are finalized. You can view the proposal FY24 rates and other rates here. 

NIH has issued the Data Management and Sharing (DMS) policy (effective 01/25/2023) to "promote the management and sharing of specific data generated from NIH-funded or conducted research." To prepare for the new 2023 NIH DMS policy, Drexel's Office for Research and Innovation is hosting two information sessions on December 16, 2022 and January 2023. You can register for the December 16 session here and the January 12 session here. 

NSF released an update on the FastLane proposal decommissioning and transition of functionality to reserch.gov. You can view the full update here. 

The NSF SBIR/STTR Phase II application deadline is March 1, 2023. To be eligible for this solicitation, you must have received a Phase I award. You can view the Phase II solicitation here. 

The prepublication of the National Academies study on "NSF Efforts to Achieve the Nation's Vision for the Materials Genome Initiative" is now available online. You can view the full prepublication here.