Xiaosong Du wants to teach physics to autonomous drones and self-driving cars.
"Those vehicles use data to know where to go and what to do, but they don't consider things like how acceleration can affect comfort for a traveler or the safety of a delivery," he said.
The National Science Foundation has given Du, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology, a $200,000 grant designed for early-career faculty members to continue his research into the software and hardware to make that happen. The money will let him hire a couple of graduate students and build a prototype drone equipped with new programming.
"I feel really grateful for the support from the NSF," Du said.
Adding to his gratitude is that foundation grants have been harder to come by this year, since the Trump administration embarked on cutting more than $1 billion in National Science Foundation grants as part of the Department of Government Efficiency initiative to slash government spending.
But so far this year, Missouri S&T in Rolla has kept moving forward and has received NSF grants.
Shelley Minteer is a chemistry professor at S&T and the director of the university's institute center for resource sustainability. She has won two National Science Foundation grants this year to research ways to improve biomanufacturing. They will total more than $27 million over the next five years.
One of them is researching using parts of cells instead of the entire cell in making a variety of chemicals, and the other focuses on adding electricity to production processes. Both are looking to make chemical production safer and more efficient.
Minteer is a veteran of National Science Foundation grants, winning more than a half-dozen over her career. She said that while things are going well for S&T so far, the process has been different.
"The patterns are changing, how the process is changing, and that leads to some faculty having uncertainty," she said. "But I think good science is still being funded."
Changes in the process mean delays in having proposals reviewed and more scientists competing for less money, according to Kamal Khayat, S&T's vice chancellor for research and innovation.
"There's a slowdown in the cadence of awarding proposals. The success rate has been hindered," Khayat said. "But we have to pivot, and we have to keep on looking for other opportunities."
Khayat said he is optimistic, in large part because while S&T is relying on external grant funding to pay for research and educational goals, the National Science Foundation is a small piece of the puzzle.
Last year, the campus received about $8 million in National Science Foundation grants. It gets similar-size grants from the Departments of Energy and Transportation and almost twice as much from the Department of Defense — areas the Trump administration is not cutting so far.
But the news isn't all good for S&T or for other schools in Missouri. According to the grant tracking organization Grant Witness, Missouri has seen 18 National Science Foundation grants totaling more than $10 million get canceled this year. One of them was at S&T. Washington University had five canceled, St. Louis University lost two, and Harris-Stowe State University lost one.
Khayat said S&T, and all universities, have to stay nimble, and the school is working with the private sector to look for more opportunities to meet the campus' research funding goals.
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