Colleagues,

Welcome to the May 2021 Research Newsletter.

Events and Workshops

On Friday April 23, 2021, 57 faculty and staff attended the Working with Industry Workshop to learn how to develop and maintain relationships with industry partners, as well as navigate the variety of agreements related to disclosures and intellectual property (PI) required with industry partners. The five panelists included Dr. Daryl Beetner, Director of the Center for Electromagnetic Compatibility, Dr. Doug Bristow, Director of the Center for Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies, Dr. James Castle, Technical Fellow for the Boeing Research & Technology Metals technology team, Dr. Frank Liou, Director of Manufacturing Engineering, and Mr. John Woodson, Interim Director of Technology Transfer and Economic Development. The panelists’ shared valuable information on the differences between working with industry partners compared to funding agencies, how individuals can find potential industry partners, what is required when asking for support, and who to contact to gain assistance in navigating industry partner agreements. Attendees were informed about Research Enabled, an online portal to assist researchers and industry to connect and collaborate. This workshop was organized and moderated by Faculty Fellow, Dr. Nancy Stone. The recording of this workshop can be found on our website.
On May 6 we organized a webinar to discuss the Roadmap To R1. The webinar was attended by more than 110 S&T faculty and staff. The webinar together with the Q&A is on our website.
Our last two “Let’s Talk Research” get togethers (March 26 and April 30) were dedicated to the annual research presentations by our Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellows. The attendees had the opportunity to learn about the excellent research done by our Fellows at different stages of their studies. The Fellows who presented were:
- Daniel Bowerman, Mathematics
- Alexander Douglas, Mining Engineering
- Christopher Hogan, Mathematics
- Cody Lough, Mechanical Engineering
- Matthew Luebbe, Materials Science & Engineering
- Nicole Moon, Chemistry
- Cesar Ortiz Rios, Materials Science & Engineering
- Sasha Petrenko, Computer Engineering
- Jeremiah Rittenhouse, Aerospace Engineering
- Rachel Stiffler, Mechanical Engineering
- Lauren Tomanek, Mechanical Engineering
- John Tubbesing, Chemistry
- Samuel Vanfossan, Systems Engineering

Cody Lough’s poster was the first place winner. Runner up was Samuel Vanfossan’s presentation, and honorable mention went to Matthew Luebbe.

I wish to congratulate all our Chancellor Distinguished Fellows who presented, and to thank Drs. Leslie Gertsch and Melanie Mormile who helped with the judging. The recording and students' posters are available on our website.

We continued to host “We Dig Research!” with slight changes to accommodate for the virtual nature of the event. Our final event was held May 14 and included three research presentations and also presentations by the Infrastructure and by the Training, STEM Education, and Workforce Development Research Constellations.

Personnel Additions

It gives me great pleasure to introduce two new staff members of OSP:

Jessica Hays joined S&T as a pre-award Grants and Contract Administrator. She earned a BS in Business and Management Systems and an MBA from S&T. She then worked as a Fiscal Analyst for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education before joining S&T as a Senior Budget Analyst, and in February 2021 joining the Office of Sponsored Programs as a pre-award Grants and Contracts Administrator. Jessica said that she is excited to be part of the grants community and looks forward to working with our faculty and departments across campus.
Ramona Nicewaner joined us as a post-award Grants and Contracts Specialist. She has earned a BS in Accounting, a BS in Management, and a BS in Human Resources. Her previous work experience includes accounting, financial reporting, and contracts. She is working on post-award and is assisting post-award accountants with invoicing, extensions, changes to funding and budgets, project set up and close out, and other related tasks.

Please join me in welcoming the new staff members of OSP.

Numbers

The research performance of the S&T faculty continues to set records. In the first 9 months of FY2021 (July 1-March 31):

Requested funds are $194.98M, up 43% from the previous year ($136.48M).
Awards are also record breaking: they are $55.07M, up 51% from last year ($36.60M).

These and other research statistics since FY2010 are always available at: https://sponsoredprograms.mst.edu/funding/awarded-and-submitted/

Reporting

Since April we are providing a personalized report containing the expenditures for all of your open projects for the previous month. Reports are being sent out on a monthly basis, containing one-month worth of information and a link to log your review with our office. This report is in no way intended to replace working with your departmental staff. The information in the report provides a more concise starting point to identify areas of concern and prompt questions sooner, while allowing staff more time to correct any issues.

Reminders

I encourage you to consider adding an REU supplement to your NSF grant. NSF estimates it awards around 1,600 new REU Supplements a year. If you are interested, first contact your NSF program director, and also check specific rules and deadlines of your directorate. For more information, please visit https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5517
Limited Submissions: We strive to increase campus awareness of limited submission opportunities, conduct fair and transparent internal selection competitions, and mitigate the risk of exceeding institutional submission limits or of non-authorized proposal submissions compromising institutional designees’ ability to submit proposals. We have a limited submissions website which features a collection of advertised limited submissions opportunities, instructions for internal competitions, and a retrospective of the calendar year’s designees for internally competed opportunities. The opportunities list and retrospective are updated weekly.

Although we strive to identify major limited submission competitions, the online list may not be comprehensive. Identifying limited submission opportunities, particularly those that are new or are issued by foundations and societies, is a community-wide effort. If you identify a limited submission opportunity that is not included among the posted advertisements, or discover solicitation updates that differ from the content posted, please notify us at limitedsubmissions@mst.edu. Thank you for helping ensure that Missouri S&T’s applications to these prestigious opportunities represent the best our campus has to offer.

With best Miner wishes,

Costas Tsatsoulis

Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies

Recent Awards:

To view the award list please visit our website.