Spotlight on Research - Summer 2012

Over the past weeks, we have received numerous updates from CU's federal relations office about the budget proposals for FY13. While proposals for some major budget items, such as for NIH, are still out, the proposals for NSF, NASA, DOE, and DoD suggest an overall flat budget with some areas expected to see significant decreases or increases. However, according to our new Assistant Vice President for Research and Federal Relations, Abby Benson, things may significantly change as the NIH proposal is likely to affect the budgets of all other non-DoD agencies. It seems almost certain that we will have to wait for the final budget until after the election.

In such uncertain times, it is more important than ever to continuously discuss your research plans, both short and long term, with your program officers at funding agencies. When meeting with program managers, my predecessor and current NSF program manager, Marty Dunn, recommends: Be "professionally persistent", be prepared and use your time as an opportunity to impress, and listen; if you can serve on a panel, do a good job and impress the program director - it is good for you and your research community. Please, note that my office provides matching funds for travel to funding agencies. The following article may provide some additional information on how to approach program officers: What to Say - and Not Say - to Program Officers. I also recommend visiting our internal ADR website where we post short reports from faculty who have recently visited program officers. Their reports may help in preparing your visit at an agency.

Finally, I would like to ask all of you who work on proposals with matching requirements to start working on the matching and cost share plans early. A set of guidelines are posted on the ADR website. In general, please discuss your matching needs first with your department chair and me before approaching the Vice Chancellor for Research Office. Thank you.

Kurt Maute
Associate Dean for Research

Diane McKnight (CEAE) was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. McKnight was recognized for making clear the interrelationship between natural organic matter and heavy metals in streams and lakes. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice or education" and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

Nikolaus Correll (CSCI) received an NSF CAREER Award for "Modeling and Design of Composite Swarming Behaviors."

Joel Kaar (ChBE) has been selected to receive an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award for "Probing Enzyme-Surface Interactions via Protein Engineering and Single-Molecule Techniques."

Kristi Anseth (ChBE) was selected as the recipient of the Materials Research Society's inaugural Mid-Career Research Award. She was recognized "for exceptional achievement at the interface of materials and biology enabling new functional biomaterials that answer fundamental questions in biology and yield advances in regenerative medicine, stem-cell differentiation, and cancer treatment."

Mark Borden (MCEN) was invited to give talks on his research in microbubbles at the 17th European Ultrasound Contrast Symposium in Rotterdam sponsored by Erasmus Medical Center and at the Institute of Biomedical Imaging at Oxford University.

Penina Axelrad (ASEN) received the Institute of Navigation Burka Award for the best technical article having appeared in the journal Navigation in the last year. Her paper is titled "Collective Detection and Direct Positioning Using Multiple GNSS Satellites."

John Daily (MCEN) was elected Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Amy Javernick-Will (CEAE) received an Outstanding Presentation Award at the 2011 Engineering Project Organizations Conference. She also was recognized by Engineering News Record with a 2012 Mountain States "Top 20 under 40" award.

Jean Koster (ASEN) and graduate student Lydia McDowell received the Best Paper Award from the AIAA Design Engineering Technical Committee for their presentation on the Hyperion Green Aircraft Project.

Frank Kreith (MCEN) delivered a plenary talk on sustainable energy at the 2011 ASME Congress that will appear as the lead article in the May issue of ASME's Mechanical Engineering Magazine. He also was selected to receive the Hoyt Clarke Hottel Award from the American Solar Energy Society, an award that was presented at the World Renewable Energy Forum in Denver in May.

Jason Marden (ECEE) received the Donald P. Eckman Award from the American Automatic Control Council recognizing an outstanding young engineer in the field of automatic control. His citation is for "Outstanding Contributions to Game Theoretic Methods for Distributed and Networked Control Systems."

John McCartney (CEAE) received the 2012 ASCE J. James R. Croes Medal for the paper "Centrifuge Permeameter for Unsaturated Soils. I: Theoretical Basis and Experimental Developments" in the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering.

Dan Scheeres (ASEN) received the college's 2011 Faculty Research Award.

Stephanie Bryant (ChBE) and Kristi Anseth (ChBE), along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have developed a prototype bioreactor, a device for culturing cells to create engineered tissues that both stimulates and evaluates tissue as it grows, mimicking natural processes while eliminating the need to stop periodically to cut up samples for analysis. Tissue created this way might someday be used to replace damaged or diseased cartilage in the knee and hip. By using ultrasound to monitor tissue during processing without destroying it, the novel bioreactor could be a faster and less expensive alternative to conventional methods.

The use of microbubbles with focused ultrasound may pave the way for cancer gene therapy, according to a new study led by Mark Borden (MCEN).
The approach taken by Borden's group - recently featured as the cover story for the Journal of Controlled Release - is to coat a microbubble surface with nanoparticle assemblies of DNA and polymer. The microbubble is injected intravenously and travels with the bloodstream to the tumor where ultrasound is applied to release the nanoparticles and help the DNA migrate into the tumor. The DNA-polymer assemblies then enter the tumor cells and release the DNA where it can be transcribed to provide therapy. The platform technology may provide gene therapy for other disorders as well.

John Crimaldi (CEAE) published "The role of structured stirring and mixing on gamete dispersal and aggregation in broadcast spawning," featured on the cover of the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Al Gasiewski (ECEE) and his team from ECEE, Space Grant, and the National Snow & Ice Data Center were chosen for a launch slot for a CubeSat. This will likely be the first CubeSat-based passive microwave radiometer in space. The breadboard version of the radiometer was developed last fall in a capstone design project.

Lakshmi Kantha (ASEN) has published a new book with Springer entitled Migration on Wings - Aerodynamics and Energetics.