Author: orandall

Parents are typically viewed as an essential part of the school and community; however, Black mothers are seldom positioned this way. As such, this study expands on a year-long research study that centered the onto-epistemologies of Black mothers as they envisioned an education for their children that moves beyond simply passing. While the initial study focused on Black mothers in the Southeastern region of the United States, this study focuses on Black mothers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) as they negotiate and navigate educational policies that aim to address anti-blackness in schools. This study recognizes the geopolitical differences that shape educational policy and lived experiences while also building on Black Diasporic work. Resultantly, the proposed study seeks to explore the extent to which Black mothers have been included and involved in the development of education policies related to antiblackness. From January 2023 to December 2024, this Spencer Grant would support research working with Black mothers in GTA as they navigate and negotiate educational policies that aim to address antiblackness in their children’s schools. The analytical arguments derived from the experiences of these mothers may offer insight into educational policy around anti-blackness, which could serve to inform various educational stakeholders.

• Funder: Spencer Foundation
• Amount: $71,588
• PI: Tianna Dowie Chin

Mixotrophs are essential components of the Antarctic planktonic community able to photosynthesize and also ingest small particles like bacteria to meet their nutritional needs. This project aims to understand the physiological response of mixotrophs exposed to micronutrient limitation in the Southern Ocean, specifically iron, manganese and simultaneous limitation of more than one trace metal, or colimitation. Such environmental conditions are characteristic of the Southern Ocean and can only be tested with local algae. The Principal Investigators hypothesize that under trace metal colimitation, some mixotrophs will have a competitive advantage by increasing their ability to consume particles to obtain energy and trace metals from their prey. Given the lack of understanding of how mixotrophs have adapted to the micronutrient limitation, the researchers propose studies with microalgal cultures isolated from the Southern Ocean; they will measure growth responses, consumption behavior, changes in cellular chemistry and transcription of genetic material in response to iron and manganese limitation. This project benefits the National Science Foundation goals of understanding Life in Antarctica and adaptation of organisms to this extreme environment. Society will benefit from the training proposed, whereby students from rural colleges will be instructed in computer coding and scientific data analyses. Furthermore, this work will support one graduate student, two undergraduate summer interns, and two early career scientists.

The Principal Investigators hypothesize that under Fe-Mn colimitation, some mixotrophs will have a competitive advantage by increasing their grazing rates to obtain energy, Fe, and Mn from their prey. Given the lack of understanding of how mixotrophs have adapted to seasonal changes in the availability of these micronutrients and how they influence mixotrophic growth dynamics, the PIs propose culture studies to measure growth responses, grazing behavior, and changes in elemental stoichiometry in response to Fe and Mn limitation. Transcriptomic analyses will reveal the metabolic underpinnings of trophic behavior and micronutrient stress responses, with implications for key biogeochemical processes such as carbon fixation, remineralization, and nutrient cycling. Results are expected to clarify the ecological roles of Antarctic mixotrophs and elucidate the adaptations of Southern Ocean organisms to their unique polar ecosystem following the 2015 Strategic Vision for Polar Programs. This work will support one graduate student, two undergraduate summer interns, and two early career scientists. A series of virtual coding and bioinformatic workshops will be organized, in which basic principles of coding, and data processing used in the proposed analysis will be taught to undergraduate students. Small colleges in rural areas will be targeted for 8 modules on bioinformatics training.

• Funder: NSF
• Amount: $379,674
• PI: Natalie Cohen

GlyGen is a maturing (five years old) knowledgebase that accumulates data in the glycobiology domain and connects it with other data types. GlyGen is unique; no other present or prior informatic resource has undertaken such an integrative mission. In part, the lagging growth of accessible knowledge in the glycobiology domain, compared to other -omics or biomedical research fields, reflects the inherent complexity of glycan structures, which, unlike genes and proteins, exist in branched and isomeric forms whose biosynthesis is not attributable to well-characterized, template-driven processes such as transcription or translation. Rather, glycan biosynthesis is mediated by the regulated expression of ensembles of glycosyltransferases, substrate transporters, and secretory pathway regulatory mechanisms that together generate dynamic cell- and tissue-specific patterns of protein and lipid glycosylation. In addition, each glycosylation site on a glycoprotein may routinely be modified by one of an ensemble of glycan structures, a glycoprotein feature called microheterogeneity. Importantly, microheterogeneity is not random, but reflects the intrinsic biosynthetic capacity of specific cells and tissues and may be modified by disease. These structural and biosynthetic complexities are essential contributors to the tissue- and disease-specific functions of glycans and glycosylation, and, therefore, need to be captured and represented in knowledgebases in a way that they can be queried and linked to other types of data. GlyGen aims to expand its underlying data model to accommodate new and more complex datatypes, augmenting and integrating new data types, and implementing robust modeling, unified procedures, and tools to improve discovery and exploration of glycan and glycoconjugate data. Enhancement of the overall resource 

functionality will be achieved through front-end improvements to accommodate user preferences and ensure exceptional data communication and visualization. Improving the interconnectivity of GlyGen and its partner databases as well as enhancing data-sharing across resources will continue to be core principles of the GlyGen project. All resulting harmonized data will be available through highly permissive licenses for easy integration into other resources, such as NCBI, EBI, SIB and other international efforts, as well as for easy repurposing by independent researchers, educators, bioinformaticians, and commercial entities. By the end of the next project period GlyGen expects to become the go-to, well-integrated 

resource for glycoscience data, similar to existing protein and genomic resources and serving the same broad community of biomedical researchers.

• Funder: NIH
• Amount: $5,397,508
• PI: Michael Tiemeyer

The focus of this project is investigating a variety of questions in low dimensional topology, which is the study of shapes of spaces with dimension at most four. Central in this subject is the study of knotting and linking of circles in three-dimensional spaces, called knot theory. For instance, knots and links can be used to construct three- and four-dimensional spaces. Low dimensional topology and knot theory have various connections to cosmology and physics (the shape of the universe and string theory), and biochemistry (the knotting behavior of DNA molecules). Unintuitively, many classification questions in topology are harder in dimensions three and four, and over the past three decades, topologists have developed modern tools (with roots in physics) for studying these questions. Two examples of such tools are Heegaard Floer invariants, which grew out of gauge theory, and Khovanov homology, which has roots in representation theory. This project will further develop these invariants and investigate their similarities and relations. Moreover, it will harness their power to study symmetries of surfaces (two-dimensional spaces), in connection with hyperbolic geometry and dynamics, and will investigate several fundamental questions in low-dimensional topology such as finding the minimum number of times a knot must cross itself to become unknotted.

In parallel, this project aims to make mathematics and in particular topology accessible to a broad audience, through educational activities at all levels with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion. These activities include, establishing a Math Circle program in the Athens-Clarke County public library and organizing summer Math Camps for high school and middle school students, running a summer research experience project for undergraduate students and a topology summer school for graduate students and postdocs. The major goals of this research program are organized around four areas. First, developing new invariants for studying spatial graphs and graph concordance. The main tool will be a generalization of (minus) Heegaard Floer homology called, tangle Floer homology. Studying spatial graphs up to concordance has applications in studying equivariant concordance between knots, and strong concordance between links. Second, studying mapping class group and extensions of surface diffeomorphisms over handlebodies using another generalization of Heegaard Floer homology, called bordered Heegaard Floer homology. Third, further developing the bordered Heegaard Floer homology tools by generalizing and refining the contact invariant defined by the PI and her co-authors and use it to address open questions in contact topology. Lastly, the PI focuses on connections and similarities between Khovanov homology and Heegaard Floer invariants, with the three major goals of defining new concordance invariants to study smooth 4D Poincare conjecture, finding new lower bounds for the unknotting number and developing new invariants for transverse knots.

• Funder: NSF
• Amount: $549,999
• PI: Akram Alishahi

This CAREER project focuses on the study of surfactant compounds in atmospheric aerosol and their effects on particle hygroscopic growth. Field collections and laboratory experiments using high resolution chemical and physical analyses will be used to assess the influence of surfactant molecular composition and associated properties on the hygroscopic growth of atmospheric particles. Hygroscopic growth can alter particle size and composition, both of which are important determinants in the influence of aerosol particles on visibility and human health.

The effect of surfactants on particle hygroscopic growth is expected to be nonlinear and dependent on the surfactant molecular composition, structure, and critical micelle concentration. The experimental plan will address the following questions: (1) What are the compositions, structures, and interfacial properties of surfactants in atmospheric aerosol particles? How do these surfactant characteristics vary as a function of particle size and air mass source region (e.g., natural, anthropogenic, marine, aged influences)? (2) What effects do surfactant structure, composition, and interfacial properties have on the hygroscopic growth of submicron and supermicron aerosol particles? Chemical and physical measurements of aerosol particles collected as part of two field campaigns at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, on the coast of Georgia, will be made during two seasons to capture seasonal variability. Laboratory experiments will also be conducted to measure the hygroscopic growth of model laboratory-generated aerosol particles to determine the influence of the surfactant fraction directly. Multivariate statistics will be used to determine the surfactant properties in different particle types.

The education and outreach plan includes working with high school students to collect local air quality measurements, developing a new laboratory course to explore the principles of analytical chemistry through measurements of aerosol chemistry, and conducting a first-year research seminar course and a summer research experience for undergraduate students.

• Funder: NSF
• Amount: $730,100
• PI: Amanda Frossard

Obesity continues to rise worldwide. Maternal obesity and consumption of high calorie diets continue to be public health concerns. The intrauterine and early postnatal environment provides support that is critical to the proper development and health of offspring. Maternal high fat (HF) diet consumption during pregnancy can have persistent detrimental effects on the fetus that predispose to obesity and its comorbidities. Our preliminary data in a rat model suggest that maternal HF diet has negative consequences on offspring controls of food intake via the gut- brain axis. Our overarching hypothesis is that gut dysbiosis resulting from perinatal exposure to maternal HF diet alters development of the gut-brain axis and vagally-mediated controls of feeding in offspring leading to increased susceptibility to obesity and other metabolic disorders. Aim 1 will determine how vagally-mediated controls of feeding are altered in rat offspring from dams consuming a HF during pregnancy and lactation. We hypothesize that HF offspring will be less sensitive to peripheral gut hormones, meal pre-loads, and/or nutrients that normally promote satiety. Aim 2 will determine how vagal communication between the gut and the brain is altered in HF offspring. We hypothesize that decreased satiation responses occur because (a) there is an alteration in the structure of VAN projections from the gut to the brain, (b) deficits in enteroendocrine cell number or function, and/or (c) the vagus nerve is less responsive to gut feedback signals. Aim 3 will define the role of gut microbiota composition in HF offspring propensity to obesity and other metabolic disorders. Our preliminary data indicate that HF offspring have gut dysbiosis and greater intestinal permeability by the time that they are weaned at postnatal day 21. Dysbiosis is sufficient to alter vagal structure and function, therefore we hypothesize that gut dysbiosis in HF offspring negatively affects gut-brain axis development and function. We will transfer dysbiotic HF microbiota to germ-free neonates to test sufficiency of dysbiosis in altered gut-brain axis function and determine whether use of prebiotics to normalize microbiota composition of HF fed dams, and consequently their offspring, will improve offspring gut-brain axis development and function. Together the proposed experiments will identify components of the gut-brain axis that are altered by early life exposure to maternal HF diet and could be targets for intervention to prevent adverse long-term metabolic consequences in HF offspring.

• Funder: NIH (via Johns Hopkins University)
• Amount: $902,749
• PI: Claire de La Serre

Efforts to promote diversity in undergraduate STEM education have made important inroads. Yet, these efforts remain stymied by cultural and structural factors that favor the status quo and lead to inequities and exclusion. LCC4 proposes to leverage the collective expertise and experiences of 16 institutions to establish and evaluate policies, develop and sustain instructional development, and develop and enact teaching evaluation practices that rely on multiple, valid and reliable sources of evidence. This collective effort will enable the institutions to incentivize, foster, and reward inclusive teaching and, in turn, disrupt exclusionary norms and catalyze advancement toward inclusive excellence. This proposal includes three major projects. The first aim is to establish and evaluate policies that incentivize and reward inclusive teaching, increasing its relevance to annual review, promotion, and tenure (Policy). The second aim is to develop, test, and sustain models of instructor development that widely engage faculty in using inclusive teaching practices (Instructor Development). The third aim is to develop and enact teaching evaluation practices that use multiple sources of evidence, thereby providing faculty with evidence to improve teaching over time and administrators with evidence to evaluate teaching more holistically and equitably (Sources of Evidence). These three projects will be led by small learning teams whose membership will be dynamic and driven by the needs and contexts of the institutions involved. The entire LCC4 will meet monthly online and annually in person to share progress and lessons learned. LCC4 will make decisions through dynamic governance, guided by a leadership team of four to five annually-elected individuals. LCC4 will also conduct a developmental self-study to document and share our collective journey and lessons learned. Funds from HHMI will support both institution- and LCC-level efforts. The University of Georgia (UGA) will contribute to Projects 1 and 3 by sharing our progress and lessons learned in revising institutional promotion, tenure, and annual evaluation guidelines (Policy) to require the use of multiple forms of evidence to demonstrate contributions to teaching excellence (Sources of evidence). UGA will also share the team’s experiences working with department heads to advance department-level teaching evaluation policies (Policy) as well as practices for peer and self-evaluation of teaching (Sources of evidence). UGA also aims to learn through involvement in Projects 1 and 3. Specifically, UGA aims to learn how to provide more informative student-level data regarding the effectiveness and inclusiveness of instruction (Sources of evidence), both for faculty to improve their teaching over time and for colleagues and administrators to make more equitable and evidence-based judgments about teaching quality. Second, UGA aims to learn how to build consensus around an institution-wide definition of excellent teaching that addresses both the effectiveness and inclusiveness of instruction, and to align incentive and reward systems with this definition (Policy). UGA’s team includes key individuals at all levels of the institution to carry out the work and ensure substantive, institution-wide change.

• Funder: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• Amount: $493,065
• PI: Erin Dolan

Although 5G has dramatically improved network capacity and spectrum efficiency (SE), the explosive growth of Internet of Things (IoT) demands for more spectrum and energy resources to support high device density and massive traffics. It is estimated that at least 5.2 GHz bandwidth is required for just eHealth Care IoT if spectrum is accessed exclusively, or 1.3 GHz even with dynamic sharing strategy. It is clear that shortage of spectrum resources is a major bottleneck for the success of IoT popularity. On the other hand, current IoT devices use standards such as Bluetooth, LoRA, Sigfox, narrow-band IoT (NB-IoT), or Zigbee, which require power-hungry active radio frequency components like oscillators and converters. Battery-driven IoT devices can hardly sustain years of life-cycle goal even with infrequent transmission and optimized low-power protocols. Thus, sustainable energy consumption is another challenge. With tens of billions of IoTs desire for connectivity by 2030, there is a pressing need to address both SE and energy efficiency (EE) challenges to accommodate for such densified IoT networks. This research seeks to improve SE and EE performance while providing guaranteed quality of service (QoS) for IoTs at large-scale, thereby providing a feasible and practical connectivity solution in massive IoT era. Outcomes from this project can bring following impacts: 1) a hybrid and cooperative communication architect for IoTs, which combines benefits from both active and passive mode; 2) integration of research and curriculum design, capstone projects to both undergraduate and graduate students; 3) cutting-edge research experiences to a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI).

The core approach is to enable IoT device with a wireless-powered hybrid communication structure that can not only minimize energy footprint with energy harvesting from ambient signals, but also integrate coordinated passive and active communication to support versatile QoS needs with efficient spectrum utilization through user cooperation. This project offers a holistic solution to deliver following innovations. 1) A novel PHY transmission architect. It combines a bio-inspired symbiotic radio to coordinate excessive interference. Optimization problems for SE and EE metrics are introduced from PHY resource allocation perspective. 2) The co-designed MAC layer protocol to ensure proper user and resource coordination. Two protocols will be introduced, one for maximum performance and the other for lower complexity. 3) System validation with software and hardware implementations. Extensive experimental verification is designed to systematically validate the performance of proposed schemes and algorithms.

• Funder: NSF
• Amount: $175,000
• PI: Haijian Sun