“We are doing more research on our campus than at any time in our 225-year history, and that work is directly benefiting the people of Tennessee,” said Interim Chancellor Wayne T. Davis. “The breadth and depth of the talent, knowledge, and expertise we have here in Knoxville extend from Appalachia to Mars.” Continue reading →

Please contact Paul Montgomery (paul.montgomery@utk.edu) regarding your interest in federal opportunities.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will host a Proposers’ Day Webcast to discuss its upcoming Young Faculty Award (YFA) solicitation on August 29, 2-5 pm.  The purpose of the YFA program is to fund “elite researchers early in their careers to develop innovative new research directions in the context of enabling transformative DoD capabilities.”  YFA topics cover the following areas:

• biology
• computing
• engineering
• informatics
• manufacturing
• materials
• mathematics
• neuroscience
• physical sciences
• robotics
• social science

Eligibility: The YFA program is open to tenure track assistant and associate professors as well as to tenured faculty within 3 years of their tenure date.

To view the webcast, please register by 12pm, August 24, at this link.  Note that there is a “capacity limitation”.  Additional information about the webcast is at this link.

DARPA expects to publish the YFA solicitation in early September.

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Please contact Paul Montgomery (paul.montgomery@utk.edu) regarding your interest in federal opportunities.

NASA published a solicitation for its New (Early Career) Investigator Program in Earth Science. This program places “particular emphasis on the investigators’ ability to promote and increase the use of space-based remote sensing” as well as the below 6 topics:

• Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems
• Water and Energy Cycle
• Climate Variability and Change
• Atmospheric Composition
• Weather
• Earth Surface and Interior

To be eligible, a proposer must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, have received a PhD on/after Jan 1, 2012, and not hold tenure before Sep 14, 2017. The average award is $80-90K annually for up to 3 years.  NASA anticipates making about 12 awards. A notice of intent is due by August 14, and proposals are due by September 14.

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Please contact Paul Montgomery (paul.montgomery@utk.edu) regarding your interest in federal opportunities.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has published its FY 18 Basic Research Challenge (BRC) solicitation. This year’s BRC is interested in the following 4 topics:

• Randomized Numerical Linear Algebra for Large-Scale, Efficient Matrix Computations
• Levitated Optomechanics
• Exploring Compositional Space to Predict and Evolve Multi-Principal Element Alloys
• Guaranteed Performance of Multibody Control Systems

A maximum 5-page white paper is due by August 18, and a full proposal is due by November 17. ONR anticipates one award for topic 3 and multiple awards for the other topics, each totaling up to $6M over 4 years.

Humanities Opportunities

Please contact Alan Rutenberg (arutenberg@utk.edu) regarding your interest in Humanities opportunities.

• ACLS invites research applications from scholars in all disciplines of the humanities and related social sciences. The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant, which can take the form of a monograph, articles, digital publication(s), critical edition, or other scholarly resources.For 2017-18, the program has expanded to award 78 fellowships.

• Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for individuals who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.

The application deadline for ACLS Fellowships is September 27, 2017.The deadline for Guggenheim Fellowships is September 19, 2017. There will be separate workshops in late August devoted to each of these two fellowship programs.

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Please contact Paul Montgomery (paul.montgomery@utk.edu) regarding your interest in federal opportunities.

NASA: Early Stage Innovations

The NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) has issued a solicitation entitled Early Stage Innovations (ESI) at this link. ESI seeks basic or applied research to “to accelerate the development of groundbreaking, high-risk/high-payoff space technologies, not necessarily directed at a specific mission, to support the future space science and exploration needs of NASA, other government agencies, and the commercial space sector.”

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