Weekly Newsletter

February 9, 2021

Dear colleagues-

Are we in Indiana or the great north? While our own fraction of the polar vortex may be keeping us inside, we are still staying active.

We have a couple of events taking place this week, including the first business meeting of the Building Sustainable Communities signature research area tomorrow, Wednesday, at noon as well as a very exciting science communication event concerning COVID-19 research organized by affiliates Andrew Whelton and Caitlin Proctor taking place this Thursday.

We are also looking forward to several more events next week including the second lecture on Urban Transformations & Regional Resilience, happening on Wednesday the 17th. And our second EJ movie, Return to the Andes, will take place on Thursday, 2/18.

And finally, shout outs to both Linda Wang (Chem Eng) and Davide Cammarano (Agronomy) on their recently announced partnerships with industry partners.

Upcoming Events

Building Sustainable Communities Signature Research Area - Open Meeting

Wednesday, February 10 | 12:00 PM

The Building Sustainable Communities Signature Research Area will be holding their first meeting of the semester, February 10 at Noon. All faculty affiliates are welcome to attend, please visit this page for the link to join.

Online Webinar: Journalism, Science, and Policy: Communicating Risk and Relevance

Thursday, February 11 | 10:30 - 12:00 PM

ProPublica reporter Ken Ward Jr., Pulitzer-prize winning writer Deborah Blum and New York Times bestselling author Seth Siegel will share insights with scientists and engineers about how to communicate risk and relevance from research findings on water safety and health related to COVID-19 in a webinar this Thursday at 10:30 AM. The webinar will be moderated by Center affiliates Andrew Whelton and Caitlin Proctor. Click here for more info and the link to join.

Virtual Lecture Series: Urban Transformations & Regional Resilience

Thursday, February 17 | 12:00 - 1:30 PM

Center affiliates and Civil Engineering professors Suresh Rao and Satish Ukkusuri have organized a virtual lecture series on the effects of rapid urbanization titled "Urban Transformations and Regional Resilience”.

The next installment in the series features Dr. Rachel Davidson, Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, a core faculty member in the Disaster Research Center, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Chief Diversity Advocate in the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware. Her talk will describe a computational framework that can be used to identify disaster risk management policy solutions based on behavior of the system as a whole. More info/link to register.

Environmental Justice Film Series: Return to the Andes

Thursday, February 18 | 6:00 PM

Join us for the next installment in the 2020-2021 Environmental Justice Film Series, featuring the film Return to the Andes, a documentary about Nelida Silva who returns to her Peru birthplace with a dream of helping rural women start businesses. Following the film, there will be a post screening discussion with Silva and director Mitch Teplitski. Register here.

Other Upcoming Events

2021 HLA Spring Seminar: Dr. Diane Jones Allen, UT Arlington

Thursday, February 11 | 3:30 - 4:30 PM

Join Purdue's HLA department for their Spring 2021 Seminar: "Transit Deserts: The Landscape of Socioeconomic and Environmental" with Dr. Diane Jones Allen, Program Director for Landscape Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington. The research Dr. Allen will present investigates how housing and transport policy have played their role in creating these "Transit Deserts," and what impact race has upon those likely to be affected. Click here for more info and to join the seminar.

Affiliates in the News

American Resources Corporation Acquires Exclusive Rights to Purdue University's Rare Earth Element Innovations
Yahoo! Finance | February 2021

Center faculty affiliate Linda Wang's lab developed technology for rare-earth element separation and purification, and it was recently announced that American Resources Corp. has acquired the rights to the tech. Read more here.

Ag-Analytics and Agronomy Professor Announce Research Partnership
Purdue Agriculture | February 2021

Ag-Analytics and C4E affiliate Davide Cammarano, associate professor of agronomy, have announced a recently established research partnership. Using precision agriculture data, Cammarano’s research team will develop farm management strategies that optimize economic outcomes for businesses and individuals. Continue reading.

Issue 4 of Earth Today, our monthly environmental newsletter for Purdue undergraduates, is out now. This month features a spotlight on Purdue's Agricultural and Biological Engineering program, undergrad research opportunities, and some upcoming events open to students.

Faculty are encouraged to forward the link to their students.

Funding Opportunities

COVID-19 Funding Opportunities – This list is updated frequently.

NSF Dear Colleague Letter: Pilot Projects to Integrate Existing Data and Data-Focused Cyberinfrastructure to Enable Community-level Discovery Pathways
Through this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF encourages proposals to the Cyberinfrastructure for Emerging Science and Engineering Research (CESER) program within the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for pilot projects that bring together researchers and CI experts to develop the means of combining existing community data resources and shared data-focused CI into new integrative and highly performing data-intensive discovery workflows that empower new scientific pathways. Deadline: March 23

NEA Research Labs
NEA Research Labs cultivate a series of transdisciplinary research partnerships, grounded in the social and behavioral sciences, to produce and report empirical insights about the arts for the benefit of arts and also for non-arts sectors such as healthcare, education, and business or management. Deadlines: March 29 – Part 1; April 8 – Part 2

EVPRP Virtual Workshop: Managing Your Award: SPS Post-Award and Research Regulatory Affairs
Good news! You’ve just been notified that your research project is receiving funding. Now what? The Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships along with Sponsored Program Services can help you answer that question at this informative virtual workshop. Presenters will discuss Purdue's policies and processes related to the management of awards as well as issues for compliance that all researchers should know. This workshop will be especially helpful to new faculty but all faculty are invited to attend. Topics to be covered in this session include:

Award management
Project reporting
Working with human research subjects
Working with animals
Working with biohazards, rDNA, radiation, lasers, or other controlled substances
Grant to protocol reviews
Avoiding financial conflicts of interest
Research information assurance (including confidential information and export control regulations)

The virtual workshop will take place via Zoom on February 16 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM. Registration is required.

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