Red River Valley Research Corridor’s Research Projects
Aerospace Research
Researchers at UND’s Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium are interpreting data and satellite images from NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth, and making them available to farmers and ranchers across the state and country to help them make decisions on such things as planting, crop rotation and disease control. Senator Dorgan has used his role on the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund several projects, including precision agriculture and a plan to put an AgCam on the International Space Station.
Environmental & Energy Research
The Energy & Environmental Research Center at UND is a premiere center providing consumers, farmers and ranchers, policy makers and the energy industry with research and expert opinions on such topics as energy efficiency, water quality, alternative fuels (including hydrogen fuel cells) and flood control options. Senator Dorgan has directed millions of federal dollars each year to support EERC’s mission. The center has played a leadership role in developing North Dakota’s wind energy industry and helping the state’s lignite coal industry find new ways to burn coal more cleanly for better air quality, findings that can be applied nationwide.
Microchip Design & Packaging
NDSU has established the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering, using federal funds Senator Dorgan secured in Congress. The center has created partnerships with several world–class microelectronics firms which have installed several sets of cutting–edge microchip manufacturing equipment at the university. This technology, which can be found nowhere else except in Silicon Valley, has exciting military and commercial applications. The NDSU industry teams are now using it to design and develop tiny electronic devices that are many times smaller and cheaper than those now available to our armed forces. NDSU is also working with its industrial partners to help them improve their commercial products, such as so–called electronic “smart tags.”
Polymers & Coatings
As a result of funding Senator Dorgan allocated in the Defense budget, NDSU’s Department of Polymers and Coatings is the only academic facility in the world with technology that can be used to screen, analyze and evaluate new polymeric materials much faster and more cheaply than is otherwise possible. The new technology allows NDSU to do certain types of experiments in days or weeks that would require months or years elsewhere. NDSU is using this technology to develop new environmentally–friendly coatings to protect Navy vessels against barnacles, a problem that can significantly reduce their speed, range and performance.
Deep Brain Research
Through funding Senator Dorgan secured in Congress, North Dakota is now home to deep brain research equipment and a new research building dedicated to studying the underlying causes of drug addiction and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease and other disorders. This equipment, known as a positron emission tomography scanner, tracks various transmitters in the brain which allows scientists to better understand addiction and the compulsion of drug–seeking behavior as well as to conduct research on other diseases that affect the brain.
