Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation's Office of Integrative Activities awarded $646,945 to Trustees of Tufts College on February 15, 2026, under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) to conduct collaborative research on post-fire property decontamination and economic recovery in wildland-urban interface (WUI) environments. The project, concluding January 31, 2029, will deliver three primary research products: (1) fundamental scientific understanding of wildfire contaminant fate and transport in water and soil systems to guide post-fire testing protocols; (2) qualitative research documenting resident needs and priorities in fire-impacted communities through stakeholder interviews; and (3) an artificial intelligence-supported interactive online platform that integrates disparate data sources using large language model-assisted and rule-based methods to generate structured contamination assessment reports for use by community stakeholders.

The research addresses critical gaps in post-fire property sampling, testing methodologies, and data accessibility by analyzing contaminants generated from burning mixed household products and examining their transport through plumbing systems and burned soils. The project incorporates direct engagement with fire-impacted communities and applies advanced computational methods to synthesize multiple data sources, enabling enhanced decontamination decision-making and economic recovery efforts across affected regions. These deliverables advance NSF's mission to strengthen the national scientific enterprise through fundamental knowledge expansion in Earth systems science while addressing a significant environmental and public health challenge.