or select your discipline:
|
|
Dear Colleague Letter: National Science Foundation and Air Force Research Laboratory
The National Science Foundation and Air Force Research Laboratory have entered into a partnership to support the training of graduate students to meet both the NSF's strategic workforce development objectives as well as the AFRL's mission to lead the discovery, development and delivery of new technologies for our air, space and cyberspace forces. NSF, via a Dear Colleague Letter, will consider supplemental funding requests to this end enabling PIs (or Co-PIs) to request up to six months of additional support for graduate students supported on active NSF grants.
The Department of Agriculture, NIFA Biology Risk Assessment Research Grants Program seeks to support the generation of new information that will assist Federal regulatory agencies in making science-based decisions about the effects of introducing into the environment genetically engineered organisms.
|
|
This week marks a number of endings. Late Friday afternoon, we will have a final celebration for our graduating students, recognizing their accomplishments culminating in this very challenging year. It also marks a day for me to thank all the outstanding contributions by our faculty to ensure our students arrived at this destination. Managing research, teaching, and service commitments during the pandemic has been immeasurably challenging – thank you for all you do.
Thursday evening marked the final night of Hanukkah. Traditionally a time for gatherings of family and friends, the pandemic has impacted those gatherings, as it will the gatherings for Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve. Although there is light at the end of the tunnel with the approvals of vaccines that should end the pandemic soon, I hope you will gather safely and thoughtfully with your family and friends and be mindful that cases continue to rise as do deaths from this terrible disease.
Recently, I spent some time reflecting on my nine years at K-State – as dean of Arts & Sciences and vice president for research – and all the wonderfully creative people with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work. One of my favorite authors, Pearl S. Buck, had written about creativity, which is at the heart of what we do in research. Made harder by the pandemic, creating is a life’s passion, and teaching others to “be creative” through research and scholarly activities is a unique calling. The following quote (I used her words, and recognize her use of gendered pronouns) is very meaningful to me, and I’ve chosen to share it here:
“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create—so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”
The pandemic has taken our breath in so many ways, and for faculty, Friday marks, perhaps, an opportunity to start to catch your breath. Please take time to relax and reflect in ways that work best for you. Check in on your colleagues, friends, and family and help them catch their breaths as well.
Friday marks my final contribution to Research Weekly as your vice president for research. Before the semester begins in late January, Carolyn and I will be packing up and heading to our next chapter in Ames. My experiences and friends here have given me so much – so many outstanding memories and opportunities to learn. The K-State family of faculty, staff, and students is very special, and I will always look back at my time here with fondness.
Ending with a final quote from Buck:
“One faces the future with one’s past.”
Thank you all for your contributions to my past. I wish all of you a safe and healthy holiday season.
-Peter
|
|
Research Weekly will be on hiatus during the holiday break and will not be published on December 23 and 30.
|
|
The X-Force program is now accepting applications for technologists and entrepreneurs to serve their country by solving real-world national security problems in collaboration with the U.S. military. Interested individuals may apply now through December 31, 2020.
|
|
FY21 National Defense Education Program Funding Opportunity Announcement - STEM, Biotech, Civics Education |
|
The National Defense Education Program (NDEP) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is now on Grants.gov, announcement HQ0034-21-S-F001. The Department of Defense (DoD) seeks innovative applications on mechanisms to implement education, outreach, and/or workforce initiative programs in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and Biotechnology. Activities will support the DoD STEM strategic plan and align to the 2018 Federal STEM strategic plan. Additional efforts will create a separate pilot program in Enhanced Civics education. The Department intends to award multiple grants, subject to the availability of funds. This will be a two (2) part submission process. Suspense for white papers is 25 JAN 2021. Selected white paper applicants will be invited to apply.
|
|
EONS 2021-OCEAN: Call for Peer Review Panelists |
|
NASA Minority University Research and Education Project is seeking subject matter experts to serve as virtual panel reviewers of proposals to EONS-2021, Appendix I: OCEAN. The virtual panel review is expected to be held from May 24-28, 2021. Information about the opportunity, proposal requirements and evaluation criteria can be found on the OCEAN web page in the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES).
Non-civil servant panelists will receive a $200/per day honorarium. Interested parties should reply to this email identifying their area of expertise, along with a CV or resume to NASAOCEAN@nasaprs.com by February 26, 2021 for consideration.
|
|
The Local Food System Response to COVID-19: Building Better Beyond Webinar Series |
|
Join the USDA on the third Monday of each month for facilitated cross-sectoral discussions on topics related to local food and COVID-19, such as customer retention and engagement, emergency food, cooperative business models, state policies, and consumer behavior. Next up, on December 21, the topic will be emergency food and the local food system.
|
|
Thursday, January 14, 3 p.m.
through
Friday, January 15, 2021
Registration and Abstract Submission Deadline: December 1, 2020
|
|
Save The Date — CERES Symposium |
|
1-4 p.m.
January 28, 2021
Speakers from industry, government, and higher education will explore parallels between the current COVID-19 pandemic and pathogen outbreaks in the agricultural industry and discuss strategies and innovations to improve preparedness, response, recovery, and resiliency for future pathogen outbreaks in agricultural and human disease.
|
|
Coming soon: PI Launchpad 2020 |
|
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in partnership with the Heising-Simons Foundation, will host a virtual workshop tentatively planned for early Summer 2021 to explore the fundamentals of how to turn a science question into a mission concept.
Updates will be made available here as they are announced. Check back in early 2021 for more information.
|
|
K-State RSCAD in the news |
|
Agency news and trending topics |
|
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers around the world have shown willingness to put their own lives on the line for their patients and communities. Unfortunately, many have also contracted SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes of COVID-19, while caring for patients. That makes these frontline heroes helpful in another way in the fight against SARS-CoV-2: determining whether people who have recovered from COVID-19 can be reinfected by the virus. nih.gov
The Amazon rainforest may be a hotspot for animal and plant diversity, but Louisiana State University scientists report that new species form there less often than previously thought. Places such as deserts and mountaintops that do not have many species provide more opportunity for rapid diversification. This paradox of diversity -- that new species form at a faster pace in "cold spots" than hotspots -- was reported in the journal Science. nsf.gov
The combination of baricitinib, an anti-inflammatory drug, and remdesivir, an antiviral, reduced time to recovery for people hospitalized with COVID-19, according to clinical trial results published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. nih.gov
For decades, Tasmanian devils have struggled with a gruesome affliction: a deadly, infectious face cancer that has driven their population from 140,000 in the 1990s to about 20,000 today, Jason Bittel reports for National Geographic. Experts worried that the disease could drive the species to extinction. But new research published today in the journal Science provides some hope: the spread of the cancer has slowed, so it might not wipe the devils out after all. smithsonianmag.com
Dogs can’t tell the difference between words that differ by only one sound, according to new research published on December 9 in the journal Royal Society Open Science. smithsonianmag.com
|
|
k-state.edu/research
researchweekly@k-state.edu
785.532.5110
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
