Funded by the NSF, a nearly is helping UofL cultivate environmentally conscious educators to equip students with knowledge of Louisville’s environmental issues and promote a more just and sustainable city.

Eight JCPS teachers participated in a six-week summer program where they partnered with UofL faculty in their urban-based ecological research. Mackenzie Kuhns, a Waggener High School chemistry teacher, collaborated with UofL Biology professor Mikus Abolins-Abols to study how Louisville’s urban heat island effects its robins.

“I didn’t like biology very much before I started this,” said Kuhns, who has previously participated in RET programs at UofL. “I have an appreciation now when learning about field work and different career opportunities for my students. When doing these programs, I always have something fun to bring back to them.”

For some teachers, it was their first lab or research project. Justin McFadden, an associate professor in the and one of the principal investigators of the grant, said this experience with UofL researchers strengthens their teaching.

“Learning what research is and what can happen during research helps our teachers think about what their students are capable of in classrooms,” McFadden said. “That’s one of the hidden things that come to life when you’ve been working in a lab for six weeks.”

The second part of the institute was to create curriculum support pieces that the teachers can weave into the established JCPS science curriculum.

Erin Brock, a biology teacher at Seneca High School, said the program opened her eyes to all kinds of environmental issues she was unaware of previously and by bringing in local examples, her students will be more engaged throughout the year.

“We learned that Louisville is the fifth most air polluted city in the nation. And I was like, ‘What the heck?’,” said Brock, a first-year participant in a RET program at UofL. “Our cohort has talked about how we don’t want to be all doom and gloom. We want to show students the activists working to address these issues. Some of these neighborhoods that are more affected by environmental issues are not able to have a voice for various reasons and we want our students to know that and to speak up.”

Teachers seeing themselves as agents of changes is one of the primary goals of the program, according to Linda Fuselier, chair of the and one of the principal investigators of the grant.

“Learning about pollution, in and of itself, can just be depressing and boring,” Fuselier said. “But when you put it into the context of here are some activists right down the road from you who are working to interpret the science so that communities understand what is going on with these big industries and regulating authorities, it can make the content hit home.”

During the school year, teachers will receive ongoing support through professional development sessions and a collaborative network designed to foster curriculum sharing, continued research and teacher leadership.

The NSF grant will fund the program for an additional two years to train a total of 24 teachers. Applications for the summer 2025 cohort will open in the spring.

“This is absolutely the best training I’ve ever had as a teacher, to make me a better teacher. I feel like I have so much to bring to the classroom this year that I want to get the kids kind of hyped up about. I’m very thankful for UofL for offering this program,” said Brock.

The new , one of only 10 across the U.S., is part of the operational backbone of the NSF’s National Innovation Network, which helps translate academic research for the marketplace. The Hubs are charged with providing experiential entrepreneurship training to researchers across all fields of science and engineering while working to build diverse and inclusive regional innovation ecosystems.

The MidSouth Hub is a collaboration among nine regional research universities, led by Vanderbilt University and including UofL, George Mason University, Jackson State University, Meharry Medical College, Tennessee State University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee – Knoxville and the University of Virginia. As part of the Hub, UofL will receive $1 million over five years to support focused product development and training.��

“As a top-tier, Carnegie Research-1 university, UofL has a strong track record as a driver of technological innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Kevin Gardner, executive vice president for research and innovation. “We are excited to work with our Mid-South Hub partner institutions to accelerate that work, furthering important and often life-saving technologies, launching new growth-focused companies and creating opportunity here and beyond.”��

UofL’s role in the new hub follows years of leadership as a member of NSF’s I-Corps Site Program. UofL was named an I-Corps Site in 2015, the first in Kentucky, and has since awarded product development training and microgrants to more than 250 innovative faculty, staff and students.

Those awards have supported the creation of at least 16��new companies, eight intellectual property��licensing agreements and more than $8 million in follow-on funding secured to further product development. Several UofL teams also have been selected to participate in the competitive I-Corps National TEAMS program, each receiving $50,000 to further develop technologies that could improve health care through artificial intelligence, extend the shelf-life of donated blood and more.��

“Our goal is to take these brilliant research-backed ideas out of the lab and develop them into full-fledged, market-ready products that can improve the way we live and work,” said Will Metcalf, an associate vice president for research and innovation and a lead for the UofL program. “Participating in the new Mid-South Hub dramatically expands our ability to support the development and growth of scalable companies that bring ideas to life.”����

UofL’s I-Corps programming is led by UofL New Ventures in the , and includes entrepreneurial mentors, prototyping support and , UofL’s eight-week product innovation bootcamp. The office strives to launch and scale innovative companies that can bring technologies to market and solve big problems.

I-Corps is part of UofL’s unique suite of prestigious, grant-backed programs aimed at supporting the translation of research into viable commercial products. UofL is one of only a handful of universities in the country to host each of these innovation-associated programs — and it’s the only one to receive��all��of them.

“These programs have helped support a wide range of technologies and teams, helping them learn the product development process and lens,” said Jessica Sharon, director of innovation programs and a lead on the UofL Hub program. “Through this new Hub, we are very excited to work with our regional partner universities to train more innovators and get research-backed products to market.”

The study identifies opportunities to optimize access to and outcomes from medications, vaccines and related therapies while reducing U.S. health care spending on avoidable hospitalizations and other medical services by as much as $200 billion per year. CHOT also announced the launch of the , a multi-sector, multi-university collaborative organized to conduct research that supports implementation of prioritized strategies.

The study recognizes new ways to protect and improve the health of U.S. populations through action by pharmacists and pharmacies, along with their care team partners including patient advocates, physicians and clinicians, health systems, clinics and aging care providers, health plans, plan sponsors, pharmaceutical firms, digital health firms and others.

Findings include strategies for optimizing delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and tests, strengthening value-driven practice and payment models, developing more unified performance measures for the sector and strengthening person-centered data sharing infrastructure.

Founding participants in the RAPID Alliance Research Consortium include leaders from the Patient Advocate Foundation, American Pharmacists Association, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations, National Association of Chain Drug Stores, National Community Pharmacies Association, the Community Pharmacy Foundation, CPESN USA, Sanofi, Sanofi Pasteur and others to be named. Recognized researchers from leading schools of pharmacy and health science centers also are participating to help conduct the research.

UofL’s Judah Thornewill, Demetra Antimisiaris and Robert Esterhay are the study’s lead investigators.

“The report identifies meaningful opportunities to improve the health and well-being of individuals throughout the United States. We are honored to be able to provide a research platform to help this happen,” Thornewill said.

The study’s industry sponsors, Sheila Thomas, global head of Patient Insights and Engagement Strategy at Sanofi and Michael Greenberg, vice president, Regional Medical Head, North America at��Sanofi��Pasteur, said that “Sanofi is proud to support this important research collaboration to address pandemic-driven barriers U.S. pharmacists and the pharmacy sector face in helping improve patient health and well-being.��The RAPID Alliance report identifies new strategies for improving population health during the pandemic and beyond, including optimizing medication use. We look forward to being part of continued efforts to help ensure the collaboration leads to lasting change.”

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Carbon dioxide is the most significant greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere. Since the Industrial Revolution, human-caused emissions of CO₂ – primarily from combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation – have rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global climate change. Projected increases in worldwide energy usage will result in even higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels unless practical alternatives are developed. The new funded research has the potential to decrease CO₂ emissions by creating a profitable pathway to convert this waste into marketable industrial chemicals such as solvents, alcohols, acids and polymer precursors.

NSF funding of the UofL team focuses on development of new catalyst materials and convert it to fuels and chemical products. The catalyst employs an abundant metal, such as zinc, within a supporting framework. The catalyst works synergistically with an alloy electrode to generate higher value products.

The research is led by chemistry professor Craig Grapperhaus and Joshua Spurgeon, theme leader for Solar Fuels at the in the . Funding of $323,542 over three years was secured by Grapperhaus and Spurgeon to conduct the research, which includes opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and high school students.

“Rising CO₂ levels are a serious problem,” Grapperhaus said. “The technology from this research could be used to treat carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion directly at the source. We may even be able to directly convert atmospheric carbon dioxide, too.”

“The thoughtful design of molecular catalysts such as these gives us the opportunity to achieve greater control over the products we make, which may ultimately make chemicals and fuels from CO₂ commercially viable,” Spurgeon said. “The Conn Center is excited to collaborate with the and NSF to develop these advances in green, sustainable chemistry.”

The supports promising early-career faculty who are potential role models in research and education. The award is $500,000 spread over five years, and��Spurgeon is one of only a handful of non-faculty recipients.

“I’m thrilled,” said Spurgeon, theme leader for solar fuels at . “These grants are so competitive, and this is huge for me.”��

Spurgeon’s work at UofL centers on hydrogen fuels, which he can make with just water and sunlight. With this award, he hopes to lower the cost of that method to make solar hydrogen more competitive with hydrogen derived from fossil fuels.

“We’re targeting the intersection between high-efficiency and low-cost,” he said. “The goal is to make clean, green, renewable fuel accessible.”��

The basic idea is to separate water, or H₂O, into hydrogen and oxygen using photocatalysts, which cause chemical reactions when exposed to sunlight. Spurgeon places the photocatalyst in the water, shines sunlight on it, and boom — potent, energy-dense hydrogen fuel.��

The problem, he said, is that this method is currently more expensive than fossil fuels because it relies on a combination of expensive commercial photovoltaic and electrolysis equipment. Spurgeon’s CAREER Award research will seek to lower the cost by integrating all of those components into a single semiconductor particle, making the whole process more cost-effective.��

“This would enable low-cost solar energy storage and sustainable fuel production,” said Mahendra Sunkara, director of the UofL Conn Center. “Such a technology could revolutionize the energy industry and greatly expand the energy independence of the United States.”

You can check out some of Spurgeon’s technologies and��

In addition to the research component, Spurgeon also will use his award to help build and develop a new master’s degree at the J.B. Speed School of Engineering focused on renewable energy and materials. He also plans to help underrepresented undergraduate students secure research internships and help final-year graduate students with their entrepreneurial and commercialization efforts.��

“Dr. Spurgeon is pursuing truly ground-breaking work that can broadly impact fields as diverse as transportation and utilities,” said Robert S. Keynton, Interim Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation. “We’re very proud of his accomplishment and his contributions to research and innovation at UofL.”��

Including Spurgeon’s, UofL researchers have received 21 total NSF CAREER Awards totaling some $7.1 million.

Three UofL faculty – Dan Popa, Karla Welch and Greg Barnes – along with a researcher from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, have received a four year, $1.2 million award from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health to study robots’ impact on autistic kids. UofL is one of a handful of institutions to receive a joint NSF/NIH grant through a program called Smart and Connected Health.����

Popa said the grant will allow his Next Generation robotics team and the UofL Autism Center to do three things:

• Build a new robot that’s more interactive and intelligent;
• Develop a new quantitative scale, using the robot, to more accurately determine where children fall on the autism spectrum;
• Develop more focused, adaptive therapies for each child.

Popa said the goal is to come up with a robot that’s a diagnostic tool as well as a “friend” to kids with autism beginning at age six. Currently, Popa said, there is no objective, quantitative way to assess the severity of a child’s autism. He thinks robotics and artificial intelligence could change that.

A robot could potentially be used in group and one-on-one therapy sessions with the child also taking their friendly, non-threatening partner home with them. The robot could continue to collect data on the child’s behavior and cognition at home.

“Studies show autistic kids interact with technology as well as non-autistic children by the time they’re 18 years old” Popa said. “If we give them a robot it could help them develop social skills comparable to the robot and, ultimately, other kids.”

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have too many connections between the part of the brain that controls their motor skills and the part that controls their sensory, social and emotional skills.

“With the help of robot�� peers, we seek to understand not only how these areas influence motor actions but also how those connections influence the social skills, communication, perception of sensations and expression of emotions in people with autism,” said Barnes, director of the UofL Autism Center. “These advances will help us better understand how to design therapies, using technology, for people with ASD.”

Check out the previous and�� about UofL research on robots and children with autism.

The grant will be used for a three-year, campus-wide initiative called Advancement Through Healthy Empowerment, Networking, and Awareness (ATHENA), to help promote success for women faculty in STEM fields.

“This grant will help the University of Louisville meet its strategic goal of promoting equity for all faculty,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “The STEM fields play such a critical role in the future of our commonwealth. We must ensure that our female faculty have every opportunity to progress in their careers so they can inspire the next generation of leaders and innovators.”

ATHENA is a broad initiative supported by the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation, College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business, School of Medicine, Vice Provost Office for Faculty Affairs, Human Resources, the Office of Diversity & Equity and others.

Together, they will implement five key interventions:��

• Changing the search, recruitment and hiring practices to increase diversity and excellence;
• Creating a faculty mentoring program with an emphasis on improving opportunities for mid-career promotion;
• Establishing a program to support the career progress of faculty experiencing major life events;
• Implementing data collection to support evaluation and monitoring efforts;��
• Educating faculty about gender and ethnicity biases that affect the advancement of women in STEM disciplines through theatre-based workshops.

“The hope is that these interventions will help, not only women faculty in STEM, but everyone to grow, advance and succeed,” said Olfa Nasraoui, a professor in the computer science and computer engineering department and principal investigator on the grant. “We have people working on diverse subjects related to equity research all across campus. ATHENA brings them together.”

ATHENA is funded by NSF’s ADVANCE program. UofL is one of only two schools in Kentucky to be awarded under this program.

Professors Stephanie Philipp from the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development and Olfa Nasraoui from the earlier this year won a three-year,��$600,000 Research Experience for Teachers (RET) grant from the National Science Foundation to train the educators.

Ten teachers from Jefferson, Carroll and Bullitt counties are on Belknap Campus through the end of July learning about big data and data science, plus getting��practical help developing lesson plans to teach the concepts to their students.��

“The teachers in our cohort are a diverse group with a diverse population of students,” said Philipp, who teaches in CEHD’s Department of Middle and Secondary ����ֱ��.

Philipp and Nasraoui are also focused on introducing computer science to groups historically underrepresented in the field: women, people of color and those with disabilities.

“This is a form of professional development that Kentucky teachers seek out but, in a time of limited resources, have trouble finding,” said CEHD Dean Ann Larson. “With this grant, the university continues its longstanding tradition of supporting local educators through science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) partnerships and career and workforce readiness opportunities in STEM fields for high school students, including underrepresented groups.”

The project will have an impact beyond STEM teachers, said Nasraoui, who is professor and endowed chair of e-commerce in the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science and director of the .

“Its impact will be significant as these teachers go back to their classrooms and pass on the knowledge to their students. Thousands of students will be exposed to these concepts,” she said.

Kevin Walsh, associate dean of research and facilities in the Speed School, said the grant was “a huge win” for UofL and local high school students.

“NSF only awarded nine such grants throughout the entire country.” Walsh said. “Big data science is such an important field these days, as it is being used to solve real-world problems in numerous fields.”

Philipp added the project will support “active, long-term collaborative partnerships between teachers and university faculty and students to enhance the knowledge and capacity of teachers through participation in authentic research experiences. We also predict that the university faculty will learn more about how high school teachers support students to think computationally and prepare students for college and career.”

To avoid information overload, computer scientists have created algorithms and systems to help humans sort through all of that data. The algorithms recommend products and articles you might like, or tell you what information other people already searched for.

“The world is simply drowning in information,” said Dr. Olfa Nasraoui, a professor of computer engineering and computer science at the University of Louisville. “Our brains couldn’t handle the volumes of information and number of options, especially on social media, so these systems emerged out of necessity — not luxury.”

But while these algorithms may make our lives easier, there’s a problem: they can become biased.

Nasraoui, director of the UofL Knowledge Discovery and Web Mining Lab at the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, is studying this bias— and, possibly, how to fix it. Her research is backed by the National Science Foundation.

First, it’s important to note that these algorithms don’t necessarily start out biased. But, through machine learning — where computers analyze data examples to “learn” how to make decisions — they learn what humans like and don’t like and show us that.

“It’s possible that you perpetuate your biases as a human being because the algorithm can act as a filter,” she said. “It will filter the world for you.”

This, she said, creates “filter bubbles,” where we only see information that reinforces or strengthens our preexisting beliefs. This can increase polarization and division.

The current algorithms for filtering or sorting information for us typically fall into one of two categories: search engines and recommender systems.

Search engines allow you to sift through the available information to find what you want after you submit a search query. Recommender systems on the other hand, which are used increasingly such as on online shopping sites and on apps, learn about us over time and recommend information they think we might like.

As the algorithms analyze our data and look for trends, they can become biased in several ways.

For example, they might notice that people of a certain age group or who live in a certain area like or dislike certain things. This is sample set bias, and it’s why the recommendations in a hip urban neighborhood might look different from those you get in a small town.

Another type is iterative bias, which is common in online shopping platforms. If you search for the same kinds of things over and over, the algorithm will begin to make assumptions about what you like and start limiting what you can see by filtering information results.

Aside from just researching this bias, Nasraoui and her team of UofL students, ranging from undergraduates to doctoral candidates, are trying to prevent it.

Say, by creating an algorithm that can “tune” results according to the user’s wishes for exploring outside the filter bubble or finding ways to make the algorithms more transparent.

“Hopefully, as more people become aware of Big Data algorithmic biases, these algorithms will evolve for the better,” she said. “We must be aware.”

It’s part of a pilot program called , or Accelerating Women and Underrepresented Entrepreneurs: Accelerate Entrepreneurial Success, which is in its first year of providing networking, training and other support.

Speakers with UofL ties, including some founders, were highlighted at the program’s Commercialization and Entrepreneurship Summit in Indianapolis on Oct. 5.

One of those presenters was Maggie Galloway, CEO of Louisville-based health tech company , which she co-founded as a UofL MBA student. She said programs like AWARE:ACCESS are important because “the odds are against female and minority founders.”

reports that just 2 percent of venture capital went to female startup founders in 2016. According to , a recent study of more than 60,000 startups found just 88 were led by black women — about 4 percent of the 2,200 total women-led tech startups in the U.S.

“Women and underrepresented researchers have great innovations, but have lagged in successful federal grant funding programs for early stage startup companies: SBIR and STTR awards,” said UofL’s Dr. Rob Keynton, lead investigator. “We’re trying to change that with this program.”

Galloway said the program is�� an extension of UofL’s current support for entrepreneurs, such as technology licensing, the FirstBuild makerspace and the LaunchIt business accelerator.

“UofL’s involvement in this program shows that UofL is not only committed to the commercialization of great UofL technologies, but also supportive of the entrepreneurs driving the commercialization,” she said.

Another presenter is Dr. Angelique Johnson, who founded her health-tech company, MEMStim LLC, . She said programs like AWARE:ACCESS also support women and minorities who want to found companies in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

“This program is important, because too few women and minority entrepreneurs are going into the STEM space,” she said. “We need more attention placed on this critical issue.”

The AWARE:ACCESS program, funded through a National Science Foundation grant, is a partnership between UofL, Indiana University and Missouri University of Science and Technology.

NSF program director, Dr. Jesus Soriano, said he hopes AWARE:ACCESS “will enable more underserved groups to get entrepreneurship training and achieve their technological and commercial potential, as well as help enhance U.S. leadership in science and engineering.”

MEMStim is now working to translate its technology to the clinical marketplace. After its founding, Inscope went on to win , and soon, will launch its first device into the market at the American College of Emergency Medicine conference.