Twelve Missouri S&T research teams have received inaugural Kummer Missouri S&T Ignition Grants totaling $365,000. The Ignition Grants are designed to provide resources for Missouri S&T faculty members to build teams that can lead to long-term, externally funded, multi-investigator research programs.

The first 12 Kummer Ignition Grant projects and principal investigators are:

• “AI and Nanomaterials Enabled Real-Time Dynamic Electro-Chemical Sensing and Analytic System” led by Dr. Chenglin Wu, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering
• “An Integrated Framework to Accelerate the Design of Bioactive Glasses for Cardiac Tissue Engineering” by Dr. Aditya Kumar, associate professor of materials science and engineering
• “An Integrated Geophysical Investigation of Critical Mineral Resources in the Southeast Missouri Mineral District” by Dr. Stephen S. Gao, Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of geosciences and geological and petroleum engineering (GGPE)
• “Compound Flooding Risk Assessment and Hazard Resilient Building Design under the Changing Climate to Improve Coastal Resilience” led by Dr. Grace Yan, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering
• “Convergent Research and Entrepreneurship towards an Aerial Transportation Ecosystem (CREATE)” by Dr. Genda Chen, the Robert W. Abbett Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering,
• “Determining Pathways of Biological Aging Using Statistical Modeling of Sleep in the Fruit Fly” by Dr. Gayla Olbricht, associate professor of mathematics and statistics
• “Development of Targeted Drug Delivery Systems to Treat Breast Cancer” led by Dr. Yue-wern Huang, professor of biological sciences
• “Missouri Water Technology and Resilience (MoWaTeR) Initiative” led by Dr. David Borrok, Gulf Oil Foundation Professor of geosciences and geological and petroleum engineering (GGPE)
• “Mitigating Fire Risks of Battery Electric Vehicles in Transportation Infrastructure” by Dr. Guang Xu, associate professor of mining engineering
• “Novel Biomaterials to Treat Muscular Dystrophy” by Dr. Richard K. Brow, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Ceramic Engineering and interim deputy provost for academic excellence
• “Trustworthy Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based Framework Development for Hybrid and Sustainable Energy Systems” project led by Dr. Syed Alam, assistant professor of nuclear engineering and radiation science
• “Working Group on Infrastructure Resilience and Adaptation” led by Dr. Jenny Liu, professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering.

The Kummer Missouri S&T Ignition Grant Initiative (IGI) is an annual planning grant created by the office of the vice chancellor for research and innovation to fund new and innovative ideas that will ultimately lead to large research proposals in strategic areas for Missouri S&T. The proposals will integrate multi-disciplinary ideas and ignite teamwork and collaboration to strive toward achieving the visions of the Kummer research centers.

The grants support initiatives from S&T’s 2021 Research Road Map. This road map identifies major research constellations selected based on the existing research foundation, projected directions of disciplines, and potential to create a research ecosystem.