NSF supports four new Science and Technology Centers with $120 Million

Created in 1987, the NSF Science & Technology Centers (STCs) program has supported exceptionally innovative, complex research and education projects that have opened up new areas of science and engineering and developed breakthrough technologies through integrative partnerships. The recent announcement of $120 Million in NSF funding for four new centers will bring the current active center portfolio to 17.

STCs conduct world-class research through partnerships among institutions of higher education, national laboratories, industrial organizations and other public or private entities, and via international collaborations, as appropriate. Each new awardee will receive approximately $6 million per year over five years, with the possibility of continual funding for up to five additional years.

A number of SSTI members are integral members of the teams for each of the four new centers, highlighted in bold in the descriptions below: 

NSF Science and Technology Center for Quantitative Cell Biology (QCB), led by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Harvard Medical School; and the J. Craig Venter Institute. The center aims to bring together expertise across cell and structural biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and computer science to develop whole-cell models that will transform our understanding of how cells function.

NSF New Frontiers of Sound (NewFoS) Science and Technology Center, led by researchers from the University of Arizona; California Institute of Technology; The City University of New York; the Georgia Institute of Technology; University of Alaska Fairbanks; UCLA; University of Colorado Boulder; Wayne State University; and Spelman College. Exploiting surprising links between acoustics and quantum mechanics, the NewFoS STC will tackle grand challenges using topological acoustics (TA) focused on three main areas: quantum information science, the future of wireless communication, and applying TA to bypass remote sensing limitations in the physical world at scale for issues such as climate change. 

NSF Center for Complex Particle Systems (COMPASS), led by a team of researchers from SSTI members University of Michigan; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Northeastern University; University of Southern California; Wayne State University; Chicago State University; Chicago State University; and Formative Evaluation Research Associates. The "ink" used in advanced manufacturing is shapable yet consists of diverse, often non-spherical, particles. This "particle-based matter" is the focus of COMPASS, which will bring together a team of theoretical, experimental, and computational researchers to develop the science and technology necessary to establish a much deeper understanding of particle-based matter as complex systems and its use in 3D printing and additive manufacturing.

NSF Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS), led by a team of researchers from University of Massachusetts Amherst;  Northern Arizona University; University of Maine; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Washington; Montana State University; Western Washington University; Huliauapaʻa; Alaska Pacific University; New York University; College of Menominee Nation; University of Michigan; Gedakina; and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. CBIKS also includes partnerships with 57 Indigenous communities. The center aims to advance knowledge about environmental change and its effects on food and cultural systems locally and globally by combining Indigenous knowledge with Western science in effective, ethical, and novel ways.

More information on the four new awards and STC program is available here.