Research Grants - Resnick Institute

Slowing Down Climate Change: Architecting Resilient, Efficient, and Safe Solid State Batteries for Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Julia R. Greer
Team:Fernando Villafuerte and Yuchun Sun

Noncorrosive Electrolytes for Mg and Ca Batteries

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Kimberly See and Theodor Agapie
Team:Steven Stradley, Christopher Povinelli, Tianyi He, Meaghan Bruening and Tyler Fox

Development of Thermally-Activated Transient Polymers

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Maxwell J. Robb
Team:Xiaoran Hu and Brooke Versaw

Development of Synthetic Strategies to Prepare Redox Active Microbial Metabolites Relevant to Sustainability

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Sarah E. Reisman

Automated Ecological Monitoring - Learning from Context

Climate Science Grants; Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Pietro Perona
Team:Sara Beery and Elijah Cole

Soil by the Numbers: A Rhizosphere Database

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Elliot Meyerowitz

Storage Optimization for Voltage Stability in Power Distribution Grids

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Steven Low
Team:Tongxin Li, Lucien Werner, Chen Liang, Fengyu Xhou and Zachary Lee

Predicting Riverbank Erosion for Climate-Change Adaptation Planning in Thawing Permafrost Landscapes

Climate Science Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Michael P. Lamb
Team:Madison Douglas

Uptake modeling and transport of CO2 during the carbonation of cement

Climate Science Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Melany Hunt

Alkali carbonate sorbents in fluidized bed for highly efficient point source CO2 capture and separation

Climate Science Grants; Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Michael Hoffman
Team:Clement Cid and Alan Y. Gu

Suppressing Populations of Drosophila Suzukii, an Invasive Pest of Fruit in California and Elsewhere

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Bruce A. Hay
Team:Georg Oberhofer

Developing the nematode Steinernema hermaphroditum as a delivery vector for engineered microbes into soil environments

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Paul Sternberg and Richard Murray
Team:Mengyi Cao, John Marken and Hillel Schwartz

Sustainable Carbon Concentration and Storage in Pistachio Shell-Derived Activated Carbons

Climate Science Grants; Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Brent Fultz
Team:Channing Ahn and Cullen Quine

Tracing the Fate of Water Through Snow: A Cryo-Hydrologic Model for Meltwater Percolation

Water Resources Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Xiaojing (Ruby) Fu
Team:Adrian Moure

Impact of Climate and Regenerative Agriculture Practices on Soil Methane Sinks

Climate Science Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Woodward Fischer
Team:Hannah Dion-Kirschner

Dust Composition and Climate - Understanding Drylands Soil Mineralogy from Remote Sensing

Climate Science Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Bethany L. Ehlmann
Team:Rebecca Greenberger and Abigail Keebler

Acquisition of a Laser Source for a Hard X-ray Spectrometer

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Scott K. Cushing
Team:Danika Nimlos, Jonathan Michelsen and Levi Palmer

Managing water resources in a changing climate: More intense but shorter monsoon seasons?

Climate Science Grants; Water Resources Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Simona Bordoni
Team:Katrina Hui

Optical Remote Sensing of Earth Surface Changes due to Climate Change

Climate Science Grants; Water Resources Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Jean-Philipe Avouac
Team:Saif Aaati

Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide using an Electrochemical pH Swing

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Harry Atwater and Chenxiang (CX) Xiang
Team:Zachary Schiffer

Using Insights from the Lab to Better Design Reactors for Carbon Storage in Natural Waters

Climate Science Grants; Water Resources Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Jess F. Adkins
Team:Holly Barnhart

RSI Summer School on Computer Vision Methods for Ecology

Climate Science Grants; 2021 grants; Impact Grants;

PI:Pietro Perona
Team:Sara Beery, Suzanne Stathatos and Tarun Sharma

An Open Synthetic Biology Toolkit for Engineering Reliable Genetic Circuits in Microbes in Soil

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Richard M. Murray
Team:John P. Marken and Elin M. Larsson

Distributed and Intelligent Energy Systems: Energy Storage, Renewable and Smart Energy Homes

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Adam Wierman and Animashree (Anima) Anandkumar
Team:Yuanyuan Shi

Constraining Oil and Natural Gas Methane Emissions using Ethane and Propane

Climate Science Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Paul O. Wennberg
Team:Ariana Tribby

Carbon Export in the Southern Ocean

Climate Science Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Andrew F. Thompson

Diffuse CO2 Emissions and Ecosystem Response at Costa Rican Volcanoes

Climate Science Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Joann M. Stock

Acoustic Patterning of Photosynthetic Microbes for Enhanced Biomass Production

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI: Mikhail G. Shapiro
Team:Yuxing Yao

Acquisition of a Spectroscopic Water Isotope Analyzer

Climate Science Grants; Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; Water Resources Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Alex L. Sessions and Nathan F. Dalleska

Acquisition of PICARRO CO2/CH4/CO/H2O Analyzer

Climate Science Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:John H. Seinfeld, Richard C. Flagan and Jess F. Adkins

The Great Human Experiment By The Numbers

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Rob Phillips
Team:Griffin D. Chure, Avi Flamholz, Tine Valencic and Nichols S. Sarai

Microbial Processes in the Seagrass Rhizosphere: Blue Carbon Burial & Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Victoria J. Orphan
Team:Kriti Sharma

Identifying Beneficial Microbial Partnerships in Citrus and Pistachio Rhizospheres

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Dianne K. Newman
Team:Kurt M. Dahlstrom and Elena K. Perry

The Caltech Critical Zone Initiative

Climate Science Grants; Water Resources Grants; 2021 grants; Impact Grants;

PIs:Christian Frankenburg, Michael Lamb, Ruby Fu, Woodward Fischer and Michael Alvarez
Team:Josh Anadu, Samantha Baker, Hannah Dion-Kirschner, Danny Ebanks, Emily Geyman, Harrison Martin, Beatrice Magistro, Adrian Moure Rosende, Joselyn Reahl, Alexis Renchon and Bryn Stewart

Polymer-Encapsulated Molecule/Carbon Composites as High Energy Density Slurry Electrolytes for Energy Storage and Conversion Technologies

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Ryan G. Hadt
Team:Brendon J. McNIcholas

The Sustainable Synthesis of Organic Compounds: Iron-Catalyzed Enantioselective Carbon–Carbon Bond Formation

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Gregory C. Fu

Modernizing Insect Censusing Technologies to Inform Conservation Models

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Michael H. Dickinson and Joseph Parker
Team:William B. Dickson, Kellan P. Moorse and Katherine J. Leitch

Algae-based Biocomposites to Replace Plastics and Engineered Woods

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Chiara Daraio

An Integrated Geodetic Approach To Understand Central Valley Water Resources

Water Resources Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Venkat Chandrasekaran and Andrew M. Stuart
Team:Mike Turmon

Seismic Ocean Thermometry

Climate Science Grants; 2020 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Joern Callies and Zhongwen Zhang
Team:Shirui Peng and Wenbo Wu

A Circum-Owens Lake Fiber Seismic Network for Groundwater Research

Water Resources Grants; 2020 grants; Impact Grants;

PI:Zhongwen Zhan
Team:Elijah Bird and Yan Yang

Initial Exploration into the Implementation of Buried Cameras for Long Timeline Rhizosphere Study

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Changhuei Yang
Team:Ruizhi Cao

Machine Learning Guided Discovery of Polymer Membranes for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Climate Science Grants; 2021 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Zhen-Gang Wang
Team:Yasemin Basdogan

Tuning Light Harvesting Complex in photosynthetic algae for improved carbon capture and fitness in diverse environments

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2025 grants; Impact Grants;

PI:Shou-oh Shan
Team:Yelim Yi

Antarctic Ocean-Ice Interactions: Pathways to Catastrophic Sea Level Rise

Climate Science Grants; 2024 grants; Impact Grants;

PIs:Andrew F. Thompson, Jane Bae, Hannah Druckenmiller, Ruby Fu and Mark Simons
Team:Diederik Beckers, Ching-Te Lin, Junning Liu, Ruth Moorman and Auden Reid-McLaughlin

Hydrological Hazards under Climate Change: AI-Accelerated Risk Predictions

Climate Science Grants; 2024 grants; Impact Grants;

Continuous, Accurate and Cost-effective Counting of Migrating Salmon for Conservation and Fishery Management in the Pacific Northwest

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2024 grants; Impact Grants;

PIsPietro Perona and Georgia Gkioxari
Team:MIchael Hobley, Suzanne Stathatos, Madison Van Horn and Sevan Brodjian

New Tools for Estimating Location-specific Ecosystem Values at National Scale to Inform Sustainable Management

Climate Science Grants; 2024 grants; Impact Grants;

PIs:Hannah Druckenmiller and Georgia Gkioxari
Team:Lauren Hyoseo Yoon

Connecting Scales of Coastal Seagrass Health and Extent with Imaging Spectroscopy

Climate Science Grants; 2025 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Victoria Orphan
TeamJohn Magyar and James Mullahoo

Engineering Salinity-Resilient Plants via Rapid Spatial CRISPR Screening

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2025 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Trevor M. Nolan
Team:TBD

Constraining the world's deep soil carbon stores in riverine corridors

Climate Science Grants; Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; Water Resources Grants; 2025 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Michael Lamb
Team:Harrison Martin

Non-transgenic environmental curing of virulence plasmids from bacterial plant pathogens

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2025 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Bruce Hay and Richard Murray
Team:Thomas Adamo Schmidt and John Marken

Blue Carbon Storage Changes in Southern California's Largest Salt Marsh

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2025 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Woodward Fischer
Team:Theodore Present

A Universal, Host-Independent, Cell-Free Biomanufacturing Platform to Produce Plant Pathogen-Targeting Bacteriophages for Sustainable Agricultural Biocontrol

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2025 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:William M. (Bil)Clemons and Richard Murray
Team:Yan Zhang

Understanding the Networked Dynamics of Social Pressure: Application to adoption of pollution-reducing cookstoves in Nepal

Climate Science Grants; 2024 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Marina Agranov and Juni Singh

Enabling Superhot Dry Rock Energy and Gigaton Carbon Storage

Climate Science Grants; 2025 grants; Impact Grants;

PI:Jean-Phillipe Avouac
Team:Ruby Fu, Zach Ross, Allen Husker, Samson Marty and Yijian Zhou

Heavy metal transport in the wake of urban megafires: Building a dynamical framework to assess, mitigate, and adapt to an emerging climate threat

Climate Science Grants; 2026 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Francois Tissot and Christian Frankenberg
Team:Merrit McDowell

Synthetic routes to iridoids for invasive ant control

Climate Science Grants; Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2026 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Sarah E. Resiman and Joseph Parker
Team:Joshua Belfield and Hayley Smihula

Accelerated Discovery of Earth-Abundant Zintl-Compound Semiconductors for High-Voltage, High-Radiative-Efficiency Solar Cells with >30% Efficiency

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2026 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Harry Atwater
Team:Mina Mandic and Amelyn Phang

Synthesis of Biodegradable Plastics by Engineered Enzymes Enabled by Machine Learning

Climate Science Grants; Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2026 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Frances Arnold
Team:Ethan Quinn

Engineering Nitrogenase for the Bioelectrocatalytic Reduction of N2 to Ammonia

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2022 grants; Impact Grants;

PIs:Steven L. Mayo and Douglas C. Rees
Team:Olive Cheng, Mikhail Hameedi, Andrew Orta, Lucas Schaus, Rebecca Warmack

Characterizing the Rates and Fates of Degrading Carbon in the Environment

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2023 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:John Eiler
Team:Sarah Zeichner and Lubna Shawar

Sustainable Ammonia Synthesis for Zero-Carbon Fertilizers and Fuels

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2023 grants; Impact Grants;

PI:Jonas Peters and Karthish Manthiram
Co-PIs:Theodor Agapie, Harry Atwater, Julia Greer and John Gregoire
Team:Sayan Banerjee, Emily Boyd, Cyrus Fiori, Anukta Jain, Channing Klein, Gangsan Lee, Catherine Romero, Ellis Spickermann, Michael Yusov

Image from workplace decarbonization project

Workplace Decarbonization through Real-time Data, Learning and Control

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2023 grants; Impact Grants;

PIs: Steven Low, Adam Wierman
Team: Lucien Werner, Yiheng Xie, Nico Christianson, Thuy-Linh Le, Christine Ortega

From Sediment to Spodumene: Age-dependent Lithium Fractionation in Granites

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2024 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Claire Bucholz
Team:Paolo Sanchez

Monitoring Bioavailable Phosphorus with an Integrated Biosensor and Wireless Reporter System

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2022 grants; Impact Grants;

PIs:Azita Emami, Julie Kornfield, Dianne Newman and Chanhuei Yang
Team:Reinaldo Alcalde, Fatima Aghlmand, Ting-Yu Cheng, Jarek Kwiecinski, Elin Larsson, Raj Mukkamala and Oumeng Zhang

SustainGym: Reinforcement Learning for Carbon Emissions Reduction

Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Adam Wierman and Yisong Yue
Team:Christopher Yeh

Observing and modeling change in the High Latitude Northern Forests

Climate Science Grants; Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PIs:Paul Wennberg and Christian Frankenberg
Team:Ke Liu and Junjie Liu

Design of Mesostructures Exhibiting Anisotropic Wetting for Solar Water Evaporation

Climate Science Grants; Sunlight to Everything Grants; Water Resources Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Nathan Lewis
Team:Azhar Carim, Madeline Meier and Sarah Kabboul

Exploration towards quantitative fungal profiling across environmental niches

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Rustem F. Ismagilov
Team:Reid Akana, Jenny Ji and Anna Romano

Electrochemical Synthesis of Ferrate for Rural Water Treatment Systems

Water Resources Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Michael R. Hoffman
Team:Sean McBeath and Yi (Sam)Zhang

Instrument for Measurements of Nucleation in Stratospheric Climate Intervention

Climate Science Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Richard Flagan
Team:Mingyi Wang

Building a Greenhouse to Enable Broad Sustainability Research Across Campus

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Gozde Demirer

Biocomposites from wastewater treatment algal ponds for packaging and construction

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; Sunlight to Everything Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Chiara Daraio
Team:Israel Kellersztein and Helen Wexler

Machine-learning-enabled models of ground water transport processes

Water Resources Grants; 2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Kaushik Bhattacharya
Team:Mina Karimi

Polyolefins for Improved Upcycling

2022 grants; Explorer Grants;

PI:Theodor Agapie
Team:Meaghan Bruening and Tianyi He

Engineering a technology platform for monitoring gene expression dynamics within soil microbes in the undisturbed rhizosphere: lateral gene transfer, conditional guide RNAs, and sentinel plants

Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants; 2022 grants; Impact Grants;

PIs:Gozde Demirer, Bruce Hay, Elliot Meyerowitz and Niles Pierce
Team:Julia Abrego, Shuwen (Eric) Lei, John Marken, Paul Tarr and Yunqing Wang