UALR scientists and researchers won five out of six awards in a recent statewide NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development (RID) grant competition.

The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR, establishes partnerships with government, higher education and industry designed to affect lasting improvements in a state’s or region’s research infrastructure, research and development capacity, and competitiveness.

“We won outright five of the six awards with principal investigators on our campus,” said Dr. Patrick J. Pellicane, UALR’s vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school. On the sixth award, UALR will share co-principal investigator roles with the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

UALR submitted 11 projects.

“While all were found scientifically sound and worked towards NASA goals, we could only fund six proposals — five with federal funds and one with state funds,” said Dr. M. Keith Hudson, director of UALR’s Graduate Institute of Technology.

Eight members of the Arkansas NASA Technical Advisory Committee judged the statewide competition for RID grants competition. Judges included representatives of higher education institutions, Arkansas state institutions, and an out-of-state reviewer.

The UALR projects include:

• “An Innovative Approach to Arrayed ZnO Nanowires for Advanced NASA Photodetector Applications”
  Principal Investigator: Dr. Jingbiao Cui, UALR assistant professor of physics and astronomy
  Co-Principal Investigator: Shui-Qing Yu, UAF

  The project explores specially designed nanostructures for ultraviolet photodetector applications in space, including high temperature flame sensors for combustion monitoring, astronomical observations, asteroid and comet detection, and UV telescope detectors for space platforms.

• “Responses of Cyanobacteria to Hypergravity”
  Principal Investigator: Qingfang He, UALR associate professor of applied science
  Co-Principal Investigator: Yushun Chen of University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
• “Synergistic Characterization of Energy and Acoustic Absorption Properties of Metallic and Ceramic Foams”
  Principal Investigator: Dr. Swaminadham Midturi, UALR professor of engineering technology
  Co-Principal Investigator: James Steuber of ArkansasTech University
• “A Broadband Flying-Wing Design: Elastic Metamaterial Airfoil”
  Principal Investigator: Michael Reynolds of University of Arkansas at Fort Smith
  Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Guoliang Huang, assistant professor of systems engineering at UALR

  The project proposes a revolutionary approach to flying-wing technology designed for use in low-noise and long-life vehicles for NASA space shuttles.  This wing, made from the most modern high-tech materials, will improve efficiency and effectiveness by reducing vibrations and increasing functionality.

• “Towards a Better Understanding of the Nature of Dark Matter”
  Co-Principal Investigators: Dr. Marc S. Seigar, assistant professor of physics and astronomy and Dr. Anton Empl, visiting professor of physics at UALR, and Abdel Bachri of Southern Arkansas State University

  Seigar and his team, in collaboration with Princeton University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are pursuing two methods of understanding the mysterious dark matter that accounts for about 85 percent of the matter in the Universe. The team will study the distribution of dark matter in galaxies in an effort to estimate how much dark matter can be expected in experiments on Earth. A second experiment, located near Gran Sasso, Italy, aims at constraining the nature of dark matter particle or particles.

• “Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reducation: Prospect as Cathodes for Polymer Electrolyte as Membrane Fuel Cells”
  Co-Principal Investigators: Dr. Ali U. Shaikh, professor of chemistry, and Dr. Anindya Ghosh, assistant professor of chemistry, both of UALR; and Abul B. Kazi of UAPB

  The aim of the project is to produce low-cost and lightweight cathode materials for fuel cells that can produce electricity indefinitely from, for example, hydrogen and oxygen.