IUCRC Phase I University of Southern California: Center for Soil Technologies (SoilTech), Lead Site

IUCRC 第一阶段南加州大学：土壤技术中心 (SoilTech)，牵头站点

• 批准号: 2231659
• 负责人: Mahta Moghaddam
• 金额: $ 95万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-03-01 至 2028-02-29
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2231659&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IUCRC; Phase; University; Southern; California

Healthy soils are needed to sustain life, to grow food, to provide shelter, to provide resilient infrastructure, and to enable mobility, but there is presently a lack of knowledge about many key aspects of soil and its dynamics such as variations in the moisture and organic matter content, and how these variations affect soil health and stability. The Center for Soil Technologies (SoilTech) is a partnership among the University of Southern California, Iowa State University, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Washington to address this knowledge gap with a mission to support industries related to agriculture, defense, energy, and environment. By convening researchers across the nation with complementary areas of expertise, and by recruiting Industry Advisory Board members from a broad range of industry, foundation, and government organizations, SoilTech will make crucial progress in understanding soil dynamics. SoilTech will serve as a first-of-its-kind hub for technical exchange and research among these organizations, providing inter-disciplinary knowledge synthesis and broad applications of its research. SoilTech’s participating sites have strong education and outreach programs addressing underrepresented populations in STEM fields. These programs will train the next generation of workforce in soil measurement and monitoring practices that will broadly benefit society. The SoilTech research teams are poised to make significant advances in the understanding of dynamic processes in soils through four research themes - Soil Sensors and Sensor Networks; Soil Modeling and Data Analytics; Soil Carbon Capture and Accounting; and Soil Health and Sustainability. SoilTech-enabled research will meet a number of as-yet unaddressed needs in several industry sectors. SoilTech will provide the underlying research necessary to develop new, more efficient, and more sustainable ways of understanding soil properties and managing soils as a natural resource. At the University of Southern California (USC), their research contributions will include the development of miniaturized and inexpensive sensor systems for soil moisture, organic content, and contaminants, as well as soil data analytic methods using machine learning and artificial intelligence, ground-based and drone-based sensor swarms to probe the soil profile properties to the root zone, and soil geospatial analysis for decision support. Their research will be conducted with considerations of diversity, equity, and inclusion woven into the fabric of our work. Their workforce development plan includes creation of new courses and training modules, utilizing the USC iPodia online distributed classrooms, experiential learning modules, and collaboration with the NSF I-Corps Hub: West region for student entrepreneurial engagement.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.

需要健康的土壤来维持生命、种植粮食、提供住所、提供有弹性的基础设施以及实现流动性，但目前人们对土壤及其动态的许多关键方面缺乏了解，例如湿度和土壤的变化。土壤技术中心 (SoilTech) 是南加州大学、爱荷华州立大学、康涅狄格大学和华盛顿大学之间的合作伙伴关系，旨在解决这些问题。与支持农业相关产业的使命的差距，通过召集全国各地具有互补专业领域的研究人员，并从广泛的行业、基金会和政府组织中招募行业顾问委员会成员，SoilTech 将在了解土壤动力学方面取得重大进展。作为这些组织之间首个技术交流和研究中心，SoilTech 的参与站点提供跨学科知识综合和广泛应用，并针对 STEM 领域中代表性不足的人群提供强大的教育推广和项目。计划将训练土壤测量和监测实践领域的下一代劳动力将广泛造福社会。土壤技术研究团队准备通过四个研究主题——土壤传感器和传感器网络，在理解土壤动态过程方面取得重大进展。分析；土壤碳捕获和核算；土壤健康和可持续性研究将满足多个行业领域尚未解决的需求。在南加州大学 (USC)，管理他们的研究贡献将包括开发用于土壤湿度、有机含量的小型化且廉价的传感器系统。他们的研究将包括使用机器学习和人工智能的土壤数据分析方法、基于地面和无人机的传感器群来探测根区的土壤剖面特性，以及用于决策支持的土壤地理空间分析。进行时考虑到他们的员工发展计划包括创建新课程和培训模块、利用南加州大学 iPodia 在线分布式教室、体验式学习模块以及与 NSF I-Corps Hub：West 的合作。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，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。