The CNAP COBRE center at Kansas State University is soliciting applications for pilot grants that will begin on June 1, 2023. The grants are open to all faculty with appointments at higher education institutions within the state of Kansas, although early and mid-career faculty will be prioritized for funding.

Proposed pilot grants should seek to enhance neuroscience research in the state of Kansas and/or fit within CNAP’s theme of cognitive and neural plasticity. The center funds basic, translational and clinical research in humans and animals from a wide range of disciplines (e.g., animal behavior, biology, pharmacology, veterinary medicine, cognitive science, human factors, kinesiology, human nutrition, computer science and engineering).

Applicants are encouraged to submit a letter of intent by 5 p.m. CST on Wednesday, Feb.1, 2023. This is highly recommended to ensure that your grant can be reviewed in a timely manner. Applications should be submitted by the applicant’s research office and are due by 5 p.m. CST on Wednesday, March 1, 2023.

1 p.m.

Friday, Jan. 20

The Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR, is hosting a webinar to share information about the Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) Track-4: EPSCoR Research Fellows solicitation NSF 23-535. This opportunity provides awards to build research capacity and transform the career trajectories of non-tenured and tenured investigators through extended collaborative visits to the nation's premier private, governmental, or academic research centers.

This solicitation offers two tracks - RII Track-4:NSF and RII Track 4:@NASA. While they are similar in achieving the same goals, RII Track-4:NSF is open to a broad community, and RII Track-4:@NASA focuses on PIs from specific institutions of higher education with high enrollments of trainees from underrepresented populations in STEM to collaborate specifically with researchers at NASA's participating research centers. The aim of this webinar is to inform the community about this opportunity. 

Register in advance for this webinar.

9:30-11 a.m.

January 26

Please join the Human Networks and Data Science Program to discuss questions about the program with the program director. 

To join, use the Human Networks and Data Science office hour Zoom link.

• All meetings during office hours are 1-on-1. Guests are seen in the order they join. You may have to wait if others join before you.
• If you need captions or other accommodations, please contact Trisha Van Zandt in advance. 

For more information about the program, visit the Human Networks and Data Science Program page.

Jan. 25 and Feb. 1

Please join the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program to discuss questions about the program with the program directors. 

Office hours will take place over Zoom, generally on Wednesdays from 3 to 4 p.m. 

Learn more and register to attend.

Noon-1 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 19

During this office hour, NSF administrative professionals, who often interact with the research community, will give an overview of their roles in the merit review and grants management process and answer audience questions. The IIS Office Hours are for researchers interested in learning about programs and policies in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at NSF. Office Hours are designed to give current and potential investigators a window into IIS. Attendance at office hours is voluntary and designed to help investigators gain information that can help them strengthen their proposals. Short summaries will be posted after each session. Sessions will be closed-captioned.

Register in advance for this webinar.

Noon-1 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 19

The Mathematical Biology program in the Division of Mathematical Sciences is hosting a webinar to share information about the new funding opportunity on Emerging Mathematics in Biology, or eMB. Program Officers will answer questions from the participants.

Register in advance for this webinar.

Office hour: Noon, Jan. 19

EDGE proposal deadline: February 16

The Directorate for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation and the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health will host a virtual office hour about the EDGE program and the current solicitation. Together with program directors from NHGRI, program directors from BIO’s Divisions of Integrative Organismal Systems, Biological Infrastructure, Environmental Biology, and Molecular and Cellular Biosciences will provide a brief presentation and answer questions from participants. 

Through the EDGE program, the NSF and the NIH support research to deepen understanding of comparative and functional genomics. The program supports development of innovative tools, technologies, resources, and infrastructure that advance research on mechanisms connecting genes and phenotypes. EDGE also supports functional genomic research on the mechanistic basis of complex traits in diverse organisms within the context (environmental, developmental, social, and/or genomic) in which they function.

Register to attend the webinar.

This summer, NIIMBL and BioKansas are partnering to provide a unique opportunity for up to 15 STEM students nationwide. This is an in-person, weeklong eXperience for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous undergraduate students. Each day will focus on new lessons - from developing your brand, communications, hands-on training, and resume workshops. Our last day will conclude with the Innovation Festival, an event where music and tech collide in the heart of Kansas City, where there will be a plethora of conference topics and workshops to choose from.

All expenses are paid for each selected student including transportation, lodging, and meals. We’ll also provide each student with an additional $500 stipend for participating. 

Apply by January 20, 2023

Learn more.

Noon

Friday, Jan. 20

Join this informational webinar to learn more about the Geosciences Open Science Ecosystem, or GEO OSE, program. This webinar will review the new GEO OSE solicitation and provide time for Q&A. The GEO OSE program seeks to support sustainable and networked open science activities to foster an ecosystem of inclusive access to data, physical collections, software, advanced computing, and other resources toward advancing research and education in the geosciences. The purpose of this support is to broadly enable geoscientists to leverage expanding information resources and computing capabilities to address interdisciplinary grand challenge research questions at the forefront of the geosciences.

Register in advance for this webinar.

Noon-1 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 25

The National Science Foundation CISE Directorate has issued a new program on Design for Environmental Sustainability in Computing, or DESC. The purpose of DESC is to encourage the submission of novel and high impact proposals that advance sustainability in all aspects of computing broadly. DESC seeks proposals that look well beyond power/energy efficiency of computing. Design for sustainable computing approaches with carbon and other sustainability metrics as first order optimization criteria are a particular goal of this program. For example, DESC encourages a full lifecycle analysis approach that considers computing across its lifecycle including embodied impacts from manufacturing, impacts from supply chains, reuse, recycling, and disposal, all of which go beyond the supply chain. DESC is open to diverse notions of environmental sustainability, presuming they can be quantified and will provide impact. Sustainability solely for economic and/or societal impacts are out of scope for DESC.  Moreover, DESC is not soliciting proposals that solely seek to advance energy efficiency, performance, or other traditional computing metrics or develop computing to support sustainability in other domains. It is specifically focused on design for environmentally sustainable computing. 

This 60-minute information webinar will provide an overview of the DESC program including context for the topic, the topic areas of interest and those excluded, and a question and answer session with NSF Program Directors responsible for this solicitation.

Register in advance for this webinar.

3-5 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 26

Children's Mercy Research Institute, 2401 Gillham Rd, Kansas City, MO

Presentations: 3:30-4:30 p.m.

• Welcome, Series Overview and Deliverables
• Dennis Ridenour, CEO, BioNexus KC and Sara Hart Weir, Rare KC
• Speakers
• Pediatric: Tom Curran, PhD, Executive Director and CSO, Children’s Mercy Research Institute
• Adult: Steven Stites, MD, Vice Chancellor Clinical Affairs, University of Kansas Medical Center
• Payor: Jay Bryant-Wimp, RPh, Clinical Advisor, Optum Frontier Therapies
• Patient: Kevin Wake, Patient Advocate, Uriel E. Owens Sickle Cell Disease Association of the Midwest
• Panel discussion | Moderator: Kelly Ranallo, Founder, RareKC

Join us for networking and refreshments before and after the presentations. 

11-Noon

Feb. 2, March 2

Please join this I-Corps Teams webinar to ask an I-Corps program director questions and hear updates about the I-Corps program, curriculum, and important dates.

Register for the I-Corps Teams webinar on Zoom.

‘Do or die’: Western Kansas farmers push to save Ogallala aquifer Hays Post

K-State, MSU students help renovate Mayfield houses The Paducah Sun

Breaking the Assimilationist Trajectory Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Scoglio receives grant to study disease spread and long-distance dispersal of pathogens The Junction City Union

Fifteen Specialty Crop Block Grants awarded in 2022 Morning Ag Clips

NSF launches prize challenge to develop innovative learning technologies for K-12 students

The U.S. National Science Foundation today launched a $6 million prize challenge to develop innovative learning technologies for K-12 students, made possible through a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Walton Family Foundation. NSF

Astronomers discover closest black hole to Earth

Astronomers have discovered the closest black hole to Earth, the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximity to Earth, a mere 1,600 light-years away, offers an intriguing target of study to advance understanding of the evolution of binary systems. NSF

Developing mucosal vaccines for respiratory viruses

A next generation of improved vaccines for mucosa-replicating viruses will require advances in understanding on several fronts, the authors say. For instance, more must be learned about interactions between flu viruses, coronaviruses and RSV and the components of the immune response that operate largely or exclusively in the upper respiratory system.  NIH

A top U.S. science oversight board is about to get much more diverse

The demographic makeup of the presidentially appointed body that oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF) skewed toward white men under former President Donald Trump. But last week, President Joe Biden took a big step toward restoring its previous diversity. Science

China’s COVID wave has probably peaked, model suggests

China’s massive COVID-19 outbreak probably peaked in late December, according to a preliminary analysis on the number of infections late last year and data on travel between cities. But public-health experts are frustrated by a lack of official data on the magnitude and severity of the outbreak. Nature

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