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A Message from CISE Leadership
I would like to dedicate this newsletter to highlighting some of our funding opportunities that support semiconductor research. As you know, our nation’s semiconductor chip shortage has far-reaching implications for industries ranging from consumer electronics to national security. The “CHIPS and Science Act of 2022”—short for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act” — aims to address this shortfall by supporting investments in semiconductor research, development and manufacturing capabilities within the United States, fostering innovation and job creation.
In alignment with the Chips and Science Act, the U.S. National Science Foundation continues to support foundational research that leads to cutting-edge semiconductor solutions and nurtures the expertise and skills necessary to foster innovation and workforce development. NSF’s Future of Semiconductors program stands as a cornerstone, fostering collaborative research and education partnerships with industry.
The program aims to drive innovation towards energy-efficient, enhanced-performance, and sustainable semiconductor-based systems. This holistic approach to semiconductor design is essential for addressing the challenges facing semiconductor microelectronic systems.
Furthermore, the NSF Enabling Access to the Semiconductor Chip Ecosystem for Design, Fabrication, and Training (Chip Design Hub) program aims to establish a comprehensive community infrastructure for research on semiconductor chip design. The program fosters collaboration and experimentation surrounding end-to-end integrated micro/nano-electronic circuit (IC) semiconductor chip design, which is fundamental to driving innovation across various critical domains, including artificial intelligence, communication, security, and computing. Chip Design Hub also aims to democratize IC chip design education and broaden participation beyond traditional institutions.
I hope you enjoy our April newsletter and please consider leveraging these opportunities to advance research, education, and workforce development activities in semiconductors.
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Dilma Da Silva
NSF Acting Assistant Director for CISE
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Funding Opportunities and Deadlines
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 Next Era of Wireless and Spectrum.
Supports fundamental research to investigate new spectrum access, management approaches and underlying technology enablers for the next spectrum era.
Full proposal deadline:
May 28, 2024.
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 Computer Science for All.
Supports partnerships and research that helps equip high school teachers to teach computer science, K-8 teachers to incorporate computer science and computational thinking in their classes, and school districts to create computing pathways across all grades.
Full proposal deadline:
June 4, 2024.
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 Data Science Corps.
Supports data science education and training by engaging students in real-world implementation projects in partnership with organizations and communities — helping to build a strong national data science infrastructure and workforce.
Full proposal deadline:
June 21, 2024.
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News & Announcements
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, named Avi Wigderson as recipient of the 2023 ACM A.M. Turing Award for foundational contributions to the theory of computation.
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At some point in their careers, NSF has funded seven of the nine recipients of the National Medal of Science and six of the 12 recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Among the laureates, Juan Gilbert from the University of Florida has been a member of the CISE Advisory Committee.
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The National Academies have published a report that identifies the foundational research and resources needed to support the development of digital twin technologies.
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NSF-supported researchers at MIT and University College London researchers created Umwelt, a software that enables blind and low-vision users to build customized, multimodal data representations without needing an initial visual chart.
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The investment seeks to augment the capacities of the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research for testing and validation of Open Radio Access Network systems and subsystems.
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Cooler transformers could help relax the U.S. electric grid at elevated temperatures, according to research supported by the Texas Advanced Computing Center’s NSF-funded Stampede2 supercomputer and led by The University of Texas at Austin Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering researchers.
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An Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) allocation on the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center’s Bridges-2 is helping researchers at The University of Tennessee Veterinary Medical Center understand viral pathogens in snakes. ACCESS and Bridges-2 are made possible thanks in part to CISE funding.
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Get more CISE News
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Events
Future Research Directions for the CISE Community (CISE-RV) Program Webinar.
Join CISE program directors for this informational webinar on the research and development strategic visioning of the CISE-RV program.
May 3, 2024. 3-4pm, ET.
ExpandAI Virtual Office Hours.
Join NSF program directors representing different categories of minority serving institutions, who will answer your questions about the program.
May 20, 2024. 3-4pm, ET.
Exploring EPSCoR Research Ecosystems Workshop Series.
The series of workshops is designed to bring the entire EPSCoR community together to discuss strengths, opportunities, and challenges as they work to develop their research ecosystems.
May 22-23, 2024. 9am-6pm, ET.
NSF Grants Conference – Philadelphia.
The conference is designed for new faculty, researchers, educators and administrators who want to gain insight into a wide range of important and timely issues at NSF.
June 3-5, 2024. Philadelphia, PA.
28th NSF EPSCoR National Conference.
Join researchers, students, and staff from EPSCoR jurisdictions in Omaha, Nebraska to connect, collaborate and keep science flowing.
October 13-16, 2024. Omaha, NE.
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David Andrews, Ph.D., is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Arkansas.
He is a leading expert in the architecture of computer systems that can work together efficiently, regardless of their location – an essential requirement for handling tasks that require a lot of computing power or involve handling large amounts of data. Andrews’ research is driven from a systems perspective, looking at the definition, design and interactions of programming languages, runtime system software and hardware components within a complete system architecture framework.
At his lab at the University of Arkansas, Andrews and a dedicated team of students are diving into the intricate realm of computer hardware design, pushing the boundaries of domain-specific hardware/software customization. Through an NSF Computer Systems Research grant, Andrews is pioneering the democratization of field-programable gate arrays (FPGAs), a super-dense computer chip that can configure its gates to process enormous amounts of data in a very small space. While these chips possess immense computational power, configuring them for diverse tasks traditionally demanded expertise in hardware design—a skill set in short supply. Therefore, Andrews invented a system called hthreads, which allows software designers to describe a task to the system and can generate an appropriate FPGA platform tailored to specific requirements. In addition, Andrews is working on ways to make this system available in the cloud so more software designers can access it.
With a CISE Community Research Infrastructure award, Andrews also seeks to democratize access to an infrastructure resource known as SCA-in-Cloud, which aims to facilitate the study and analysis of side-channel attacks (SCA) on cryptographic algorithms. By providing an open platform for researchers to develop and evaluate innovative SCA methods, both in hardware and software, the project aims to foster more secure cryptographic implementations and encourage collaborative research efforts. The initiative involves a multidisciplinary team with expertise in cryptography, software engineering and cybersecurity.
A current CISE Software and Hardware Foundation collaborative grant with the University of South Carolina is supporting Andrews' efforts to address real-time decision-making and control systems for dynamic structures operating at extreme velocities or experiencing high-rate dynamic for emerging applications, such as hypersonic and military systems that demand control decisions at microsecond intervals. The research is expected to transform the capabilities of control systems for dynamic structures, paving the way for advancements in various domains, including manufacturing, robotics, aviation and beyond.
“NSF funding has provided the financial resources needed to develop my lab, explore my research and scientific interests and importantly fund the next generation of scientists, researchers and educators. Education is an opportunity, and my NSF funding has opened new opportunities for many students including first generation college graduates who otherwise would not have had the resources to enjoy the life changing effects opened through advanced degrees,” said Andrews.
Andrews received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Missouri, and his doctoral degree from Syracuse University. Before he began teaching, he worked for General Electric in the Advanced Technology Laboratory.
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Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS)
Supports research and education on the interrelated roles of people, computers, and information to advance knowledge of artificial intelligence, data management, assistive technologies, and human-centered computing.
Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC)
Supports the conceptualization, design, implementation, and operation of research cyberinfrastructure to advance and transform research and education in science and engineering.
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