Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College, a private women's liberal arts college based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, operates as a prime recipient of federal research grants and as a subrecipient on federally funded research collaborations, with no direct federal contracts but substantial grant-funded research activity across the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and other research agencies. The college does not compete under set-asides; all 109 awards in the recent footprint are merit-based or program-designated grants and sub-grants flowing to academic research and education initiatives.

Bryn Mawr's customer concentration is heavily weighted toward NSF and NIH. The National Science Foundation accounts for 48 awards (approximately 44% of the total footprint) across multiple disciplinary divisions, followed by the Department of Health and Human Services' National Institute of General Medical Sciences (5 awards), the Defense Human Resources Activity (5 awards), the National Science Foundation Division of Physics (4 awards), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Shared Services Center (4 awards, $131 thousand combined potential value). The college's combined potential value across all awards stands at $131 thousand, though the obligated dollars across all awards total $34.8 million, indicating that many awards carry multi-year funding structures with front-loaded obligations relative to their stated ceiling values.

The college's research portfolio reflects its core mission as a primarily undergraduate institution with research and education integration. Representative prime grant awards include a $515,862 Project Grant from NIGMS (CFDA 93.859) on bacterial lipid trafficking proteins for antibiotic development research, running June 2026 through May 2029; a $2.5 million NSF Project Grant (CFDA 47.049) awarded October 2024 to establish a Research and Education Center for Quantum Materials and Sensing, partnering with Johns Hopkins University, Ursinus College, and Colorado State University through sub-awards; a $656,580 NSF Division of Earth Sciences grant (CFDA 47.050) investigating microbialites in Ordovician reefs with workforce engagement of first-generation, low-income students; and a $475,490 NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences award (CFDA 47.049) studying magnetized plasma flow past obstacles in a wind-tunnel experiment. The college also received a $2.5 million EXPANDQISE Track 2 grant from NSF's Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences to expand quantum information science education and research, and has served as a Research at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) awardee under CFDA 47.074 (Biological Sciences) for projects such as a $368,978 NSF-funded investigation of phospholipid trafficking in bacterial membranes. Additional grants span chemistry (fluorination and cyanation methodologies, $268,179), mathematics (monomial ideals and parking functions, $249,548), neuroscience (protective clearance in phagocytes, $418,606 from NINDS under CFDA 93.853), and research infrastructure planning ($100,000 from NSF Office of Integrative Activities for cyberinfrastructure strategy development).

The college's sub-award footprint includes roles as a sub-recipient on an MIT-led NSF grant focused on undergraduate data science education and programming (awarded October 2024), a Rochester Institute of Technology-led effort on data science learning platforms (April 2024), and a Pennsylvania State University collaboration on coastal ecosystem resiliency and wetland restoration (May 2026). Bryn Mawr also participates as a sub-contractor under Institute of International Education awards administering the Boren Flagship Grants, Fellowships, and Scholarship Awards (Defense Department component), with multiple sub-awards flowing through in 2024, 2025, and October 2025. The college also holds NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) institution status, supporting graduate fellows pursuing research-based degrees in STEM fields.

Activity has held steady at 8 awards per year in both 2024 and 2025, with 2 awards recorded through June 2026. Four awards are set to reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating modest recompete exposure. The college's research activity is concentrated in fundamental biomedical sciences (cell and molecular biology, neuroscience, chemistry), mathematics and physics, geosciences, and STEM education and workforce development at the undergraduate level, consistent with its mission to integrate faculty research with student training at a primarily undergraduate institution.