Project Grant W911NF2310008

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) totaling $630,000 aims to develop "synthetic life-like materials and machines" using light-responsive active fluids. The project at Brandeis University will pursue two complementary research aims: Embedding a rigid inclusion in a photo-responsive active nematic liquid crystal to implement hybrid theory-experiment feedback and control the targeted dynamics of the...

This $308,031 three-year Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program supports research on the nonlinear electrohydrodynamics of motile particles in confinement. The project aims to develop mathematical models, analytical solutions, and computational methods to understand the behavior of micron-sized colloidal particles driven to rotate or roll by electric fields between two planar electrodes. The research integrates...

This $510,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports research into statistical mechanics of active matter at Colorado State University from May 2022 through April 2025. Principal Investigator Grzegorz Szamel and his research group will develop new computational simulation methods to study the rheological properties of active matter systems, which consist of objects that consume energy to perform motion. They will further develop the stochastic thermodynamics of active matter and...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $1,350,000 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Office of Research. The award period runs from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2027. The project aims to develop "synthetic life-like materials and machines" by using light-responsive active fluids to control the dynamics and motions of rigid and deformable interfaces and inclusions. Key...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems awarded a $450,000 Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to research and develop switchable persistent spin helix devices. The goal is to overcome key challenges in spintronic devices, which use electron spin rather than charge to carry information, by leveraging materials with strong spin-orbit coupling and electric-field tunable persistent...

This $244,955 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), supports theoretical and computational research to develop advanced computational tools and use them for describing the dynamical behavior of magnetic molecules connected to external electrodes and manipulated by magnetic fields. The research aims to provide a balance between computational efficiency and physical accuracy in simulating such open...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) program provides $306,369 in funding to the University of Delaware to conduct computational modeling and education research on the multiscale simulation of nanofluid assembly for the design of smart materials. The research aims to gain a fundamental understanding of how microscale self-assembly processes in particle-stabilized multiphase fluids can be used to control the mesoscale...

This $279,207 NSF Engineering Program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award to the University of Washington aims to develop fundamental theoretical and computational tools to quantify the maximal power that can be generated by exploiting thermal gradients and anisotropy in natural and engineered systems. The project proposes to study the tradeoffs between work produced and dissipation in cyclic thermodynamic processes, with the goal of advancing the understanding and synthesis of "thermodynamic...

This three-year Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program, totaling $259,999, will support research into dynamical evolutions in complex, high-dimensional energy landscapes. Specifically, the awardee, Northwestern University, will investigate Markov chain dynamics arising from spin systems in statistical physics, which serve as prototypical examples for protein folding, evolutionary dynamics, out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics, and neural...

This Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to advance the scientific understanding of magnetogenetics, a groundbreaking biological technology that uses magnetic fields and nanoparticles for noninvasive control of cell activities. The $205,994 award, provided to the University of Kentucky Research Foundation, will integrate novel computational modeling and experimental methods to thoroughly analyze the nanoscale energy conversion...