Oct. 25, 2018

Team led by 2014 Vannevar Bush Fellow Dr. Charan Ranganath Finds that Brain Wave Device Could Enhance Memory Function

Electrical activity in the brain causes different kinds of measurable brain waves. One of these is the theta wave, which is associated with a brain actively motoring a task -like navigating a maze.  There is still debate among neuroscientists on their role and function. Some think that these waves have no role and are just a product of regular

Sept. 4, 2018

Team Led by 2016 Vannevar Bush Fellow, Dr Jennifer Lewis, Develops System to Print Using Sound Waves

Sound waves are incredibly important - we use them every day in applications like communications, medicine, and sensing. Vannevar Bush Fellow Dr. Jennifer Lewis and her team at Harvard University have potentially extended the utility of sound waves to additive manufacturing.  In a new paper published in Science Advances, the team created a tool

Aug. 27, 2018

Collaboration between 2014 Vannevar Bush Fellow and 2016 LUCI Fellow enables engineering of undomesticated bacteria

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field involving the rational design and engineering of micro-organisms for a predetermined purpose. The field has shown tremendous potential in a wide range of applications including energy technologies, medical sciences, and environmental remediation. In order to reach its full potential, engineered

Aug. 7, 2018

DoD Announces Five DESI Awards for University-Industry Collaborations

The Department of Defense announced the selection of five university-industry teams for the Defense Enterprise Science Initiative (DESI). DESI is a pilot program supporting university-industry research collaboration focused on accelerating the impact of basic research on defense capabilities.  Read the Department’s press release here.  

July 23, 2018

Team led by Dr. Jian Luo, 2014 Vannevar Bush Fellow, Sheds Insight into What Makes Nickel Brittle

Nickel is essential to the stainless steel industry due to its ability to enable strong, corrosion-resistant alloys for applications ranging from gears and transmission shafts to turbines and cryogenics.  A long-standing issue in making these alloys is contamination with sulfur impurities during the manufacturing process, which cause them to fail

June 25, 2018

White Paper Submission Open for 2019 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship Class

The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship is the Department of Defense's most prestigious single-investigator award of up to $3 million over five years. The Fellowship supports bold and ambitious "blue sky" research that may lead to extraordinary outcomes such as revolutionizing entire disciplines, creating entirely new fields, or disrupting accepted

June 22, 2018

Team led by 2017 Vannevar Bush Fellow, Dr.Teri Odom, Develops Tunable Lasers Inspired by Nature

Chameleons are well-known for their ability to change color, a feature driven by nanocrystals embedded in their skin. By controlling how closely these crystals are spaced together, chameleon skin can reflect different wavelengths of light and change the color that we see. In a new study published in Nano Letters, Dr. Teri Odom and her team have

June 4, 2018

2017 Vannevar Bush Fellow, Dr. Shanhui Fan, has Research Highlighted in New York Times

The grand challenges of today won’t be solved by just improving existing technologies with current techniques. We’ll need creative and dynamic new ideas and approaches, fueled by basic research, to change the current paradigm of how we do things.In a recent New York Times article, Dr. Shanhui Fan, a 2017 Vannevar Bush Fellow, discusses his team’s

May 29, 2018

Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives to Promote US-Australian University Research Partnerships

The Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), which the Basic Research Office oversees, has long supported collaborative, team-based research that has enabled breakthroughs such as microcontact printing and self-assembled materials. With recent MURI awards granted to research teams in the US and Australia, that mission has now

May 25, 2018

Minerva Research Initiative Funding Opportunity Announcement

The Office of the Secretary of Defense recently announced a new call for proposals for the Minerva Research Initiative, a university-led social sciences program that seeks fundamental understanding of the social and cultural forces that shape regions of the world of US interest. Additional information on the Minerva Initiative can be found on its