Air Force invests $12 million in research program

16 Oct 2008 | Air Force Office of Scientific Research Staff

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research announced Oct. 17 it will award approximately $12.1 million in grants to 39 scientists and engineers who submitted winning research proposals through the Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program.

The program is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the United States who hold a doctorate or achieved an equivalent degree in the last five years and show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research.

The Young Investigator Research Program, or YIP, fosters creative basic research in science and engineering, enhances early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increases opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering.

According to AFOSR officials, competition for the YIP award is intense. This year, the AFOSR broad agency announcement solicitation in major areas of interest to the Air Force resulted in 210 proposals. The areas of interest include: aerospace, chemical and material sciences; physics and electronics; and mathematics, information and life sciences. AFOSR officials select proposals based on the evaluation criteria listed in the broad agency announcement.

Those selected will receive the grants over a three-year period. Recipients and their projected research areas are:

· Dr. Calin Belta, Boston University, will conduct formal synthesis of control and communication strategies for teams of unmanned vehicles.

· Dr. Sergiy Butenko, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, will develop novel optimization techniques for analysis of biological and social networks.

· Dr. Soon-Jo Chung, Iowa State University, will investigate bio-inspired integrated sensing and control flapping flight for micro aerial vehicles.

· Dr. Myra Cohen, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will conduct research to produce measured confidence level for adaptive targeted testing of software product lines.

· Dr. Joseph Comberiate, The JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, will investigate space-based 3-D imaging of equatorial plasma bubbles.

· Dr. Gregory Engel, University of Chicago, will work on harnessing solar power for endothermic chemical reactions: a novel strategy for rational design of photocatalysts.

· Dr. Thomas Epps, University of Delaware, will find a new approach to ion-conducting network membranes using tapered block copolymers.

· Dr. Javier Garay, University of California, Riverside, will focus on producing 3-D nanostructured magnetic materials for novel magnetic devices.

· Dr. Gustaaf Jacobs, San Diego State University, will study high-order particle-mesh algorithms for shock particle physics in combustion and explosion.

· Dr. Odest Jenkins, Brown University, will develop coordinating robotic networks through belief propagation.

· Dr. Lalana Kagal, MIT, will conduct studies for Web-based Policy Interoperability via a Semantic Policy Interlingua.

· Dr. Endawoke Kassie, University of California, Los Angeles, will research the physics behind ionospheric and plasmaspheric density irregularities.

· Dr. Irena Knezevic, University of Wisconsin-Madison, will work on semiconductor nanowire and nanoribbon thermoelectrics.

· Dr. Pavlo Krokhmal, University of Iowa, will conduct probabilistic analysis of combinatorial optimization problems on hypergraph matchings.

· Dr. Tonghun Lee, Michigan State University, will study laser diagnostics of plasma-assisted combustion for scramjet applications.

· Dr. Benjamin Lev, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will explore quantum liquid crystals using ultracold dipolar atoms.

· Dr. Jun Lou, Rice University, will investigate temperature and scale dependent mechanical behavior in metallic nanostructures.

· Dr. Paulo Lozano, MIT, will work on fully scalable porous metal electrospray propulsion.

· Dr. Belinda Marchand, The University of Texas at Austin, will focus on optimal constellation design for maximum continuous coverage of targets against a space background.

· Dr. Michael McAlpine, Princeton University, will study biomimetic nanosensor arrays for selective small molecule detection.

· Dr. Casey Miller, University of South Florida, will develop giant magnetocaloric alloys via nanostructuring and interfacial exchange interactions.

· Dr. Hanifah Muliana, Texas Engineering Experiment Station, will conduct multi-field analysis of smart morphing composites at multiple time and length scales.

· Dr. James Patterson, Brigham Young University, will work on the molecular basis of adhesion.

· Dr. Shashank Priya, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, will address domain engineered magnetoelectric thin films for high sensitivity resonant magnetic field sensors.

· Dr. Jason Schmidt, Air Force Institute of Technology, will research advanced wavefront estimation in strong turbulence.

· Dr. Jay Sharping, University of California, Merced, will develop compact fiber-parametric devices for biophotonics applications.

· Dr. Matthew Shawkey, The University of Akron, will study avian nanostructured tissues as models for new defensive coatings and photonic crystal fibers.

· Dr. Christian Skalka, University of Vermont, will develop a language-based approach to wireless sensor network security.

· Dr. Gookwon Edward Suh, Cornell University, will study heterogeneous multicore platform through diversity and redundancy for enhancing the security of future systems. 

· Dr. Gita Sukthankar, University of Central Florida, will work on improving synthesis and recognition of crowded scenes using statistical models of group behavior.

· Dr. Jeffrey Sutton, The Ohio State University, will investigate spatio-temporal characteristics of scalar mixing and dissipation processes in turbulent jets and flames.

· Dr. Erik Thostenson, University of Delaware, will study novel micro- and nano-structured composites for sensing and actuation.

· Dr. Vikas Tomar, University of Notre Dame, will investigate nanoscale thermal conduction and mechanical strength correlation in high temperature ceramics.

· Dr. Katherine Willets, University of Texas at Austin, will work on mapping local shape-dependent EM field enhancements in single metallic nanoparticles using stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy.

· Dr. Robert Wood, Harvard College, will conduct a comprehensive study of aeroelasticity in flapping-wing MAVs.

· Dr. Dapeng Wu, University of Florida, will develop a joint information theoretic and differential geometrical approach for robust automated target recognition.

· Dr. Huili (Grace) Xing, University of Notre Dame, will research quantum limits of nitride RF high-electron mobility transistors.

· Dr. Deniz Yavuz, University of Wisconsin-Madison, will focus on refractive index enhancement in gases.

· Dr. Gleb Yushin, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, will investigate multifunctional ultralight Mg-Li alloy nanocomposites.

Marine Corps Forces Europe & Africa