We announced our 2012 Young Investigator Research Program award winners! Approximately $18 million in grants will be given to 48 scientists and engineers who submitted winning research proposals.
The YIP is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the United States who received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years and show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research.
The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering.
This year AFOSR received 220 proposals in response to the AFOSR broad agency announcement solicitation in major areas of interest to the Air Force. These areas include: aerospace, chemical and material sciences; physics and electronics; and mathematics, information and life sciences. AFOSR officials select proposals based on the evaluation criteria listed in the broad agency announcement. Those selected will receive the grants over a 3 to 5-year period.
The recipients and their anticipated research areas are:
- Pieter Abbeel, University of California, Berkeley, Apprenticeship Learning for Robotic Control
- Kramer Akli, The Ohio State University, Toward A Table-top Laser-driven XUV/X-ray Source
- Rae Anderson, University of San Diego, Elucidating the molecular dynamics, conformations, and interactions occurring in complex entangled biopolymer systems via novel single-molecule techniques
- Zeb Barber, Montana State University, Synthetic Aperture Ladar Imaging and Atmospheric Turbulence
- Jesse Barezovsky, Case Western Reserve University, Coupling photonics and coherent spintronics for low-loss flexible optical logic
- Riccardo Bevilacqua, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Propellant-free Spacecraft Relative Maneuvering via Atmospheric Differential Drag
- Bryan Boudoris, Purdue University, Molecular Design and Device Application of Radical Polymers for Improved Charge Extraction in Organic Photovoltaic Cells
- Paola Cappellaro, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Modular Paradigm for Scalable Quantum Information
- James Caverlee, Texas A&M/Texas Engineering Experiment Station, Detecting, Analyzing, Modeling, and Predicting Strategic Manipulation and Adversarial Propaganda in Social Media
- Zhilei Chen, Texas A&M/Texas Engineering Experiment Station, A self-assembling protein hydrogel technology for enzyme incorporation onto electrodes in biofuel cells
- Stephen Chong, Harvard University, Integrating Programming Language and Operating System Information Security Mechanisms
- Michael Clarkson, The George Washington University, Making Cybersecurity Quantifiable
- Tanja Cuk, The University of California, Berkeley, In-Situ UV-VIS and IR Spectroscopy of Water Oxidation on Transition Metal Oxide Catalysts
- Samantha Daly, University of Michigan, New Approach Towards Characterizing Microstructural Influence on Material Behavior Under Very High Cycle Fatigue
- Kaushik Dayal, Carnegie Mellon University, A Multiscale Approach for Complex Functional Materials and Nanostructure