Award Data

Industrial Microbes is developing a green fermentation platform to replace carbon-emitting petrochemical production with newer methods that build chemicals out of methane and carbon dioxide.Chemical production is a major source of carbon pollution, responsible for 18% of direct industrialemissions. Our innovation is an engineered microbe that can consume carbon dioxide and methane and produce a ch ...

The commercial marketplace has made tremendous advances in Virtual Reality (VR) technology and product maturity. VR is being used to enhance training in a number of areas including maintenance and operation of complex systems, but application of this technology to the training of dismounted soldiers has proven challenging. Fortunately, these advancements in VR technology now make possible the deve ...

The final product will include a suite of three app-based puzzle games aligned to national math standards for number sense, algebraic thinking, and problem solving. The games will be designed for use in grade 5 and 6 classrooms where students develop and apply content expertise to solving challenges. The games will include an adaptive engine that assesses and adjusts content based on student level ...

Through previous development grants from IES and the National Science Foundation, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute developed 16 virtual laboratory simulations and 57 inquiry activities aligned to Next Generation Science standards in physical, life, and earth science. This project will develop Inq-Blotter, a dashboard to provide teachers real-time formative and summative assessment re ...

Biological agents pose high threats, because they are invisible and odorless and a relatively small amount can infect a large population when released in a densely populated area. For the same reasons, assuring safety after cleaning decontaminated sites c

A variety of organic and inorganic contaminants originating from municipal, agricultural, and industrial wastewater sources are being found at increasing frequency in the Nation’s natural and drinking water supplies. These “emerging contaminants” include pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, steroids/hormones, flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds, personal care products, and herbicides/pestici ...

Patterns of electricity generation and consumption in the United States have rapidly changed over the past decade and are forecasted to continue doing so in coming decades. On the supply side, increasing generation from renewable sources has raised concerns about the ability of the electrical grid to stay stable given renewables’ intermittent and distributed nature, and has increased calls for n ...

Toyon proposes development of a system which performs automated analysis of images for fish population monitoring and fishing regulation enforcement application. The proposed system is capable of processing images collected from autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), as well as images collected using electronic monitoring (EM) cameras used to observe fish catc ...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are primary drivers of global climate change. Hence there is a crucial need to quantify their sources and sinks. A powerful method to constrain source and sink strengths is the analysis of the relative proportions of isotopic variants of GHG’s in atmospheric samples like those collected globally by NOAA’s Cooperative Air Sampling Network. Measurements that are ca ...

Inexperienced swimmers are often unaware of the presence of treacherous rip currents and this leads to many drowning deaths each year. Even when signs are posted, the public probably does not clearly understand the danger. It would be more informative if the public were ale to maps of the location, speed, and direction of coastal currents. Ocean safety officials are using various methods to inform ...