Innovation requires latitude to
experiment and freedom to explore without fear of failure. Strategic innovation
requires experimentation with a purpose.
Every year since 2006, DARPA has awarded
grants to promising academic scientists, engineers and mathematicians to foster
strategic innovation in a defense context and, in the process, enhance basic
research at colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Under the auspices of the Young Faculty
Awards (YFA) program, DARPA hopes to develop the next generation of researchers
in key defense-related disciplines and encourage them to focus a significant
portion of their careers on defense issues.
This year DARPA welcomes 51 recipients,
hailing from 18 states and 34 academic institutions, who will each apply
$300,000 grants over two years to a wide spectrum of basic research in areas
spanning physical sciences, materials, mathematics and biology. Though the sponsored
research is not expected to feed directly into DARPA programs, faculty and
projects are selected in part for their potential to seed future breakthroughs
in defense-related research areas.
In fact, members of the 2006-2010 YFA
classes participate in 27 recent or ongoing DARPA programs.
“The Young Faculty Awards are a pipeline
that connects early career researchers to DARPA programs where their ideas for
novel research might take root and grow over time into new capabilities,” said
Bill Casebeer, a DARPA program manager and director of the YFA program.
“DARPA’s aim is to channel existing expertise by funding basic research,
mentoring tenure-track individuals and helping them build their networks to
bridge academics, defense and industry. We measure success not through
development of specific capabilities, but through expanding a base of
scientific knowledge and human capital that will serve as building blocks for
future efforts.”
The leeway granted to YFA recipients to
pursue innovative ideas is given in recognition of the fact that technological
breakthroughs often result from cross-collaboration among disciplines and
operating outside of commonly accepted disciplinary boundaries.
YFA is designed to support that business
model.
“The challenging budgetary climate in
which researchers currently operate makes it harder to justify risks for a lot
of the organizations that help the United States to maintain its technological
edge. However, budget concerns don’t alleviate our need to keep pressing forward
and exploring,” said Jay Schnitzer, Director of DARPA’s Defense Sciences
Office. “DARPA’s mission is to prevent and create strategic surprise, so it is
incumbent on the Agency to invest in the people, research and technologies that
will keep us successful in that mission.”
Ideas nurtured through YFA have shaped
research in six DARPA programs to date, on top of their contributions to
advancing basic science. At the same time, grant recipients experience
professional benefits in their academic careers.
For example, YFA recipient Dr. Howard
Salis at Pennsylvania State University developed predictive biophysical models
to design synthetic DNA sequences for biotechnology applications, including the
therapeutic nucleic acids that regulate protein expression across many
bacterial species. These medicines are a potential alternative to antibiotics.
His lab’s advanced methods for designing synthetic DNA are available to the
scientific community here.
YFA recipient Dr. Martin Zwierlein of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studies ultra-cold gases near
absolute zero temperature. In Fermi gases, atoms team up in pairs that can flow
without friction; this has direct analogy to electron pairs in superconductors,
which transport current without resistance. Dr. Zwierlein’s YFA research could
ultimately provide insight into the unsolved problem of high-Tc
superconductivity. He is currently expanding on his research in DARPA’s Optical
Lattice Emulator program.
A record 560 researchers applied to YFA
in 2012, marking a 38% increase over the 2011 applicant pool; applicants
represented 46 states and territories, and 150 universities. DARPA selected 51
applicants to receive grants totaling approximately $15.3 million, representing
the largest class of awardees since the program began. Each grant recipient
will receive approximately $150,000 per year for two years.
“The world’s best and brightest are
applying new ideas to advance the sciences and develop technologies which could
prove to be very useful to deployed servicemembers. This year we are funding
scholars investigating topics ranging from the latest developments in quantum
theory to novel synthetic biology research,” Casebeer said.
A complete list of the 2012 Young
Faculty Award recipients and research topics is available.
YFA is open to U.S. citizens and
non-citizens employed by a U.S. research institution. The YFA solicitation is
published annually on FBO.gov and at Grants.gov.
Information for this post provided by
DARPA
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