Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Materials Research awarded $466,668 to The University of Southern Mississippi on July 1, 2026, under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) for collaborative research spanning U.S. and Canadian institutions. This four-year project (completion June 30, 2030) delivers a data-driven materials-by-design framework to accelerate the discovery and optimization of organic mixed ionic-electronic conducting polymers for advanced electronic applications, including wearable sensors, bioelectronics, and organic electrochemical transistors. The primary deliverables include predictive computational tools and artificial intelligence models that establish structure-processing-property relationships to guide polymer design, thereby reducing reliance on conventional trial-and-error experimentation and enabling the development of high-performance, flexible, low-cost devices compatible with biological systems and energy storage applications.

Supporting the research mission, the project generates workforce development and educational products, including training of students in interdisciplinary data-enabled materials science and engineering, development of new curriculum modules in data-driven materials design, and public engagement workshops demonstrating the role of artificial intelligence in next-generation electronics. These research and educational outputs align with the NSF's Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Our Future initiative, which seeks to transform materials discovery and engineering methodologies. The integration of molecular design, advanced characterization, device engineering, and artificial intelligence across participating institutions produces both proprietary research findings and transferable knowledge supporting the broader advanced materials and digital manufacturing workforce.