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Caltech
Resnick Sustainability Institute

Research Grants

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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
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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
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Development of Thermally-Activated Transient Polymers
Sunlight to Everything Grants;  2021 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Maxwell J. Robb
Team:Xiaoran Hu and Brooke Versaw
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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
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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
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Soil by the Numbers: A Rhizosphere Database
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  2021 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Elliot Meyerowitz
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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
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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
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Uptake modeling and transport of CO2 during the carbonation of cement
Climate Science Grants;  2021 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Melany Hunt
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Carbon Export in the Southern Ocean
Climate Science Grants;  2020 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Andrew F. Thompson
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Diffuse CO2 Emissions and Ecosystem Response at Costa Rican Volcanoes
Climate Science Grants;  2020 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Joann M. Stock
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Acoustic Patterning of Photosynthetic Microbes for Enhanced Biomass Production
Sunlight to Everything Grants;  2020 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI: Mikhail G. Shapiro
Team:Yuxing Yao
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Algae-based Biocomposites to Replace Plastics and Engineered Woods
Sunlight to Everything Grants;  2020 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Chiara Daraio
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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
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Seismic Ocean Thermometry
Climate Science Grants;  2020 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PIs:Joern Callies and Zhongwen Zhang
Team:Shirui Peng and Wenbo Wu
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Hydrological Hazards under Climate Change: AI-Accelerated Risk Predictions
Climate Science Grants;  2024 grants;  Impact Grants; 
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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
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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
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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
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Engineering Salinity-Resilient Plants via Rapid Spatial CRISPR Screening
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  2025 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Trevor M. Nolan
Team:TBD
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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From Sediment to Spodumene: Age-dependent Lithium Fractionation in Granites
Sunlight to Everything Grants;  2024 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Claire Bucholz
Team:Paolo Sanchez
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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
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SustainGym: Reinforcement Learning for Carbon Emissions Reduction
Sunlight to Everything Grants;  2022 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PIs:Adam Wierman and Yisong Yue
Team:Christopher Yeh
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Instrument for Measurements of Nucleation in Stratospheric Climate Intervention
Climate Science Grants;  2022 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Richard Flagan
Team:Mingyi Wang
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Building a Greenhouse to Enable Broad Sustainability Research Across Campus
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  2022 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Gozde Demirer
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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
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Machine-learning-enabled models of ground water transport processes
Water Resources Grants;  2022 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Kaushik Bhattacharya
Team:Mina Karimi
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Polyolefins for Improved Upcycling
2022 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Theodor Agapie
Team:Meaghan Bruening and Tianyi He
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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
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Quantifying the Effects of Methane Mitigation Strategies on Microbial Rumen Fermentation
Climate Science Grants;  Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  2023 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Alex Sessions
Team:Elliot Mueller and Yeonsoo Park
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Development of Isotopic Analysis for Sulfur Source Attribution
Climate Science Grants;  2023 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PIs:John Seinfeld and Alex Sessions
Team:Haroula Baliaka
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Landscape-scale tracking of insect populations
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  2023 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PIs:Joseph Parker and Michael Dickinson
Team:Tarun Sharma
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Immobilization of Heavy Metals from Fluid Flows by Manganese Oxide Generating Biofilms
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  Water Resources Grants;  2023 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Jared Leadbetter
Team:Hannah Way
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Neural Mechanisms of Odor-Guided Foraging in Alternative Pollinators
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  Water Resources Grants;  2023 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Elizabeth Hong
Team:Pratyush Kandimalla and Aubrie de la Cruz
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A modular microbial consortium for bioremediation
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Grants;  Water Resources Grants;  2024 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PIs:Sarkis Mazmanian and Matt Thomson
Team:Joseph Boktor
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Towards an Efficient Magnetic Refrigerator
Climate Science Grants;  2024 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
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A Physics-Based, Data-Ready, Modular Workflow for Sedimentary Geothermal Energy for Turning Hydrocarbon Reservoirs into Geothermal Power
Water Resources Grants;  2024 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI:Jean-Phillipe Avouac
Team:Mateo Acosta, Kyungjae Im and Ruby Fu
Minnich proposal random image
Wafer-scale synthesis of transition-metal dichalcogenide thin films for solar energy storage
Sunlight to Everything Grants;  2025 grants;  Explorer Grants; 
PI: Austin Minnich
Team: David Catherall, Finley Donachie, and Yifei Yan