Nanoscience Connected to Life: An Interdisciplinary Traineeship Program in Bioinspired Nanotechnology

纳米科学与生命相连：仿生纳米技术的跨学科培训计划

• 批准号: 2151945
• 负责人: Rein Ulijn
• 金额: $ 300万
• 依托单位: CUNY Graduate School University Center
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2027-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2151945&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Nanoscience; Connected; Life; Interdisciplinary; Traineeship

The living world provides many fascinating examples of highly evolved, sophisticated machinery working in synergy to sustain life. A fundamental understanding of nature’s architectures and processes can be applied to create new biology-inspired and green technologies for the benefit of human and environmental health. However, this challenging task requires integrating aspects of research in biology, chemistry, and physics focused down to the smallest functional scale: the nanoscale. This NSF Research Traineeship (NRT), "Nanoscience Connected to Life: an Interdisciplinary Traineeship Program in Bioinspired Nanotechnology," will provide education, research, and career development to help build a new workforce in the emerging field of bioinspired nanotechnology. As this field undergoes rapid expansion and industry embraces these new approaches, society needs a uniquely trained and diverse workforce. Building on the City University of New York’s (CUNY) reputation as an engine for upward mobility of a diverse student population, this traineeship will provide a novel and comprehensive graduate education for 125 graduate students. The program will serve 25 directly funded trainees, including individuals from minority populations underrepresented in their pursuit of STEM fields of study, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Graduates will become effective leaders who will be able to solve complex problems facing the U.S. and provide new scientific breakthroughs in energy harvesting, agriculture, medicine, and environmental remediation. The broad educational vision of this project is to train a generation of STEM Ph.D. students as collaborative, systems-level thinkers who can translate concepts across scales and disciplines. The project strengthens and integrates chemistry, biochemistry, and physics Ph.D. programs at CUNY through convergence around common goals. Students will become well-positioned to work on convergent teams to address urgent societal challenges related to environmental instabilities and health crises. At the heart of each student’s experience is a use-inspired project in one of several different areas of research employing biology-inspired approaches. These include: i) harvesting and conversion of energy, ii) designing nanoscale interfaces to measure and influence living systems, iii) newly designed sustainable green materials, and iv) development of adaptive metabolic systems and functional materials for therapeutic and industrial use. These investigations will span theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches. The project will prepare CUNY Ph.D. students for STEM careers in industrial, government, academic, and entrepreneurial tracks by integrating career awareness throughout the training period. The training plan is based on an innovative Integrating Mental Models and Experimental Research in Scientific Education (IMMERSE) training model, designed to create a learning community of systems thinkers. In this model, participants exchange knowledge and communicate across unfamiliar concepts, cultures, and methods. The IMMERSE training model can be replicated at other universities and in other convergent research areas. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

生命世界提供了许多令人着迷的例子，说明进化的、高度复杂的机械协同作用来维持生命，可以应用对自然结构和过程的基本理解来创造新的生物学启发的绿色技术，以造福于人类和环境健康。这项具有挑战性的任务需要整合生物学、化学和物理学方面的研究，重点关注最小的功能尺度：纳米尺度。这项 NSF 研究实习项目 (NRT)“与生命相连的纳米科学：生物启发的跨学科实习项目”。纳米技术”将提供教育、研究和职业发展，以帮助在仿生纳米技术新兴领域建立新的劳动力队伍。随着该领域的快速扩张和工业界接受这些新方法，社会需要一支经过独特培训的多元化劳动力队伍。纽约市立大学 (CUNY) 作为多元化学生群体向上流动的引擎而享有盛誉，该培训将为 125 名研究生提供新颖且全面的研究生教育。该计划将为 25 名直接资助的学员提供服务，其中包括来自少数族裔的个人。人口在追求 STEM 研究领域的女性和 LGBTQ+ 群体中代表性不足的毕业生将成为有效的领导者，他们将能够解决美国面临的复杂问题，并在能源收集、农业、医学和环境方面取得新的科学突破。该项目的广泛教育愿景是培养一代 STEM 博士学生成为能够跨尺度和学科转化概念的协作型、系统级思考者。纽约市立大学的生物化学和物理学博士课程通过围绕共同目标进行融合，学生将能够在融合团队中工作，以解决与环境不稳定和健康危机相关的紧迫社会挑战。采用生物学启发方法的几个不同研究领域之一的使用启发项目，其中包括：i）能量收集和转换，ii）设计纳米级界面来测量和影响生命系统，iii）新设计的可持续绿色。 iv) 开发用于治疗和工业用途的适应性代谢系统和功能材料。这些研究将涵盖理论、计算和实验方法，该项目将为纽约市立大学的博士生在工业、政府和学术领域的职业生涯做好准备。培训计划基于创新的科学教育中的整合心理模型和实验研究（IMMERSE）培训模式，旨在创建一个系统思考者的学习社区。跨越陌生领域的知识和交流IMMERSE 培训模式可以在其他大学和其他融合研究领域复制，旨在鼓励 STEM 毕业生开发和实施大胆的、具有潜在变革性的新模式。该计划致力于通过创新、循证且符合不断变化的劳动力和研究需求的综合培训模式，对 STEM 研究生进行高度优先的跨学科或融合研究领域的有效培训。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定规定。使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。