Grants Database

The Foundation awards approximately 200 grants per year (excluding the Sloan Research Fellowships), totaling roughly $80 million dollars in annual commitments in support of research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics. This database contains grants for currently operating programs going back to 2008. For grants from prior years and for now-completed programs, see the annual reports section of this website.

Grants Database

Grantee
Amount
City
Year
  • grantee: The University of Chicago
    amount: $80,000
    city: Chicago, IL
    year: 2015

    To organize a workshop of early career researchers studying the microbiology of the built environment

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Microbiology of the Built Environment
    • Investigator Jack Gilbert

    To organize a workshop of early career researchers studying the microbiology of the built environment

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  • grantee: University of California, Davis
    amount: $997,485
    city: Davis, CA
    year: 2015

    To provide renewed support for the Microbiology of the Built Environment Network

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Microbiology of the Built Environment
    • Investigator Jonathan Eisen

    Funds from this three-year grant support efforts by Jonathan Eisen at the University of California, Davis to provide key intellectual infrastructure support and services to the growing multidisciplinary community of researchers working in indoor microbial ecology. Through the Microbiology of the Built Environment network (microBE.net) Eisen organizes meetings and workshops, provides a hub for resource and information sharing, disseminates results and funding opportunities, aids in the dissemination of data collection and analysis standards and protocols, and helps bridge disciplinary boundaries by connecting researchers in biology, informatics, architecture, and the building sciences. Over the next three years, Eisen will continue the work of microBE.net, providing additional resources to the MoBE community in six thematic areas:  antimicrobials in the BE; nonhumans in the BE; extreme BEs; BE water systems; technical needs for the MoBE field; and general MoBE interests. Activities targeting each theme will include web development, meeting and workshop organization, social media, pilot research projects, creation and curation of open textbooks, development of a community-driven genome sequencing program, writing of scholarly articles on research and tool development, and continued development of the microBEnet blog with further recruitment of MoBE scholars to contribute to the development of modules for MoBE educational activities (e.g., college courses).

    To provide renewed support for the Microbiology of the Built Environment Network

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  • grantee: University of California, Davis
    amount: $250,000
    city: Davis, CA
    year: 2015

    To study the technological, economic, and environmental trade-offs associated with the use of natural gas as a low-carbon transportation fuel option in the United States

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Energy and Environment
    • Investigator Amy Jaffe

    This grant supports a multidisciplinary research effort led by the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis) to examine natural gas as an alternative fuel option to power trucks, other long-haul vehicles, municipal bus and taxi fleets, and light-duty passenger vehicles. Bringing together leading economists, engineers, geographers, policy experts, and computer scientists, ITS-Davis will organize a workshop on the issue and commission a series of papers providing a comprehensive overview of the tradeoffs associated with the use of natural gas as an alternative fuel in the transportation sector. Data from the workshop will then be used to enrich ITS-Davis’s model of the infrastructure and refueling network that must sustain any transition to natural gas as an alternative fuel. Working closely with researchers at Arizona State University, ITS-Davis also plans to expand its model to accommodate changes in diesel and natural gas fuel prices, alternative technology costs, various rates of new vehicle diffusion, altered traffic flow patterns, and changes to state-level policies.

    To study the technological, economic, and environmental trade-offs associated with the use of natural gas as a low-carbon transportation fuel option in the United States

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  • grantee: The University of Chicago
    amount: $900,000
    city: Chicago, IL
    year: 2015

    To accelerate scientific discovery by using statistical machine learning to enable advanced search of mathematical literature

    • Program Technology
    • Sub-program Scholarly Communication
    • Investigator John Lafferty

    Mathematical formulas are undiscoverable by modern search engines. If you are looking for a famous theorem or an equation with a name, standard search engines like Google or online encyclopedias like Wikipedia can direct you to it. But if what you are looking for is an equation that expresses one variable in terms of another, you are out of luck. Because the consumer base for such information is small and because the task of programming computers to recognize mathematical formulas is difficult, no major search engine has prioritized mathematical search. Yet from a societal point of view, the benefits of accelerating discoveries by providing such search capabilities could surely be enormous.   This grant funds a project by John Lafferty from the University of Chicago and David Blei from Columbia University to advance the field of mathematical search by developing a software program that uses sophisticated pattern recognition and statistical machine learning techniques to recognize and identify mathematical formulas on the web.

    To accelerate scientific discovery by using statistical machine learning to enable advanced search of mathematical literature

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  • grantee: University of Oregon
    amount: $1,375,000
    city: Eugene, OR
    year: 2015

    To provide renewed support to the Biology and the Built Environment Center

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Microbiology of the Built Environment
    • Investigator Kevin Wymelenberg

    This grant provides two years of continued support to the University of Oregon’s Biology and the Built Environment Center (BioBE). Led by microbiologist Jessica Green and architect GZ Brown and founded with the assistance of a 2010 Sloan Foundation grant, the BioBE Center aims to develop a predictive science of the built environment microbiome by bringing together a multidisciplinary research team of microbiologists, engineers, architects, and building experts. Over the next two years, Center researchers will launch a number of research projects that attempt to expand our understanding of how ventilation, structure, and daylight influence the composition and function of indoor microbial communities. Specific topics to be studied include how antimicrobial compounds influence the indoor microbiome and how that influence is mediated by building design, how restricting exchange with outside air affects community composition indoors, and whether earlier findings suggesting that design influences the microbial dust communities are generalizable across building types. In addition to supporting the Center’s research, additional grant funds support the Center’s training and outreach activities designed to bring new talent into the field and disseminate research results widely among the scholarly community and public.

    To provide renewed support to the Biology and the Built Environment Center

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  • grantee: University of Southern California
    amount: $373,612
    city: Los Angeles, CA
    year: 2015

    For screenwriting and production of science and technology films by top film students

    • Program Public Understanding
    • Sub-program Film
    • Investigator Alan Baker

    Funds from this grant support a program at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts that encourages top film students to write, direct, and produce films with accurate, high-quality scientific content. Grant funds support a number of interrelated activities at USC, including an annual production grant competition, which gives two $22,500 grants to help quality student scripts become films, two $15,000 screenwriting awards given to the best student science-themed scripts, and an annual $17,500 animation award for the best science themed animation produced by a student animator. In addition, USC hosts an annual seminar that introduces students to the program and brings in working scientists to expose students to cutting-edge scientific research and discoveries and an annual screening night where winners’ works are screened. USC also helps facilitate student interaction with industry professionals and the submission of science themed works to film festivals and other dissemination outlets.

    For screenwriting and production of science and technology films by top film students

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  • grantee: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    amount: $1,262,700
    city: Cambridge, MA
    year: 2015

    To support dissertation-stage research by economics doctoral students  working on a range of labor market issues related to an aging population

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Working Longer
    • Investigator David Card

    This grant provides continued support for a fellowship program by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which supports young economics scholars whose research focuses on issues relating to the labor market for aging workers. Fellowships are awarded for a single year, with a review at the end of the first year and a second-year of funding available but conditioned on satisfactory progress in the first year.  The annual selection process includes a broadly disseminated call for proposals that is sent to an extensive list of U.S. Ph.D.-granting economics departments, to researchers who are members of the Society of Labor Economists, and to researchers affiliated with the NBER research programs in Aging, Labor Studies, and Public Economics. Applications are then reviewed by a panel of experts on labor economics, aging, and public finance. Fellows are selected based on the panel’s evaluation of their potential to make important contributions to understanding the determinants and consequences of labor market activity at older ages. Funds from this grant will support three cohorts of four doctoral students beginning with the 2016-17 academic year.

    To support dissertation-stage research by economics doctoral students  working on a range of labor market issues related to an aging population

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  • grantee: University of California, Los Angeles
    amount: $315,100
    city: Los Angeles, CA
    year: 2015

    For screenwriting and production of science and technology films by top film students

    • Program Public Understanding
    • Sub-program Film
    • Investigator Kathleen McHugh

    This three-year grant provides continuing support for efforts by the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film, and Television to encourage top film students to write and produce accurate, engaging films about science and technology. The UCLA program includes a yearly $10,000 screenwriting award given to the best student script that explores scientific themes or characters; a yearly $30,000 directing award given toward the production of a dramatic or comedic film about science or technology; and a yearly day-long colloquium that brings working scientists and researchers into the classroom to expose students to exciting new developments in science and introduce them to the narrative possibilities that science and technology offer the aspiring filmmaker. Additional grant funds pair student filmmakers with scientific mentors who advise students on the scientific content of their work and ensure that scripts depict science and the scientific endeavor accurately.

    For screenwriting and production of science and technology films by top film students

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  • grantee: American Film Institute
    amount: $315,000
    city: Los Angeles, CA
    year: 2015

    To encourage the next generation of storytellers to create more realistic and dramatic stories about science and technology, and to challenge stereotypes about scientists and engineers through film

    • Program Public Understanding
    • Sub-program Film
    • Investigator Joe Petricca

    This grant provides three years of continued support to the American Film Institute’s (AFI) efforts to encourage young screenwriters and filmmakers to write and produce compelling, engaging narrative films that explore scientific themes or have scientists, engineers, or mathematicians as major characters. AFI’s program includes three annual award programs: a $25,000 award given to the best student film project that brings science and technology to life; a $10,000 annual screenwriting award given to the best science-themed script; and a yearly tuition scholarship worth $35,000 given to an incoming filmmaker with a background in the hard sciences who wishes to incorporate scientific themes in his or her filmmaking. In addition, AFI holds a seminar series where established actors, writers, directors, and producers talk to students about science and Hollywood, and provides access to working scientists to serve as mentors on student scripts.

    To encourage the next generation of storytellers to create more realistic and dramatic stories about science and technology, and to challenge stereotypes about scientists and engineers through film

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  • grantee: RAND Corporation
    amount: $347,872
    city: Santa Monica, CA
    year: 2015

    To understand how joint retirement and partial retirement interact

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Working Longer
    • Investigator Katherine Carman

    Whereas retirement in a traditional marriage of breadwinner and homemaker involves a single retirement decision, in a two-earner marriage, the decisions are dual, and in many cases, joint. Yet, exactly what the pathways are for both members of working couples as they transition from full employment to full retirement are less than clear. This grant to the RAND Corporation supports a research project aimed at increasing our understanding of couples’ work and retirement trajectories by developing a theoretical model describing joint work-to-retirement transitions that can be applied to 12 waves of the Health and Retirement Study data. The data will allow the RAND team to examine how preferences for joint retirement and opportunities for partial retirement interact in the retirement decision, provide the first estimates of the prevalence of different joint work-to-retirement trajectories, and examine how factors such as age differences, part-time work opportunities, and leisure cause couples to make similar or different retirement transitions. In addition, the RAND team will explore how multistate models can be applied to the analysis of Health and Retirement Study data to explain retirement transitions across a range of pathways from full-time work to full-time retirement, including transitions through part-time employment.

    To understand how joint retirement and partial retirement interact

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