By Prof. Lynn Cominsky and Dr. Laura Peticolas
EdEon STEM Learning has been awarded four new grants since the last SST newsletter. Two are led by Associate Director Dr. Laura Peticolas, one is led by Psychology Prof. Matthew Paolucci, with Prof. Lynn Cominsky as Co-PI, and Cominsky leads the largest grant, a five-year award from NASA for almost $5 million.
Both of Peticolas’ grants are from NASA: one is a two-year award entitled “Do Habitable Worlds Require Magnetic Fields? (MACH CENTER)” totaling $151,297, while the other will build SSU’s third CubeSat. This five-year, $899,539 program will support IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), a major NASA Heliophysics mission. The MACH (Magnetic fields, Atmospheres, and the Connection to Habitability) Center will bring together a scientifically diverse team from the University of Colorado, UCLA and the University of Kansas, to construct tools using observations, computer simulations, and theory to evaluate the influence of a global magnetic field on the escape of charged particles, with emphasis on Venus, Earth and Mars. EdEon will lead the broadening impact activities, including creating a team website, and training scientists to reduce gender bias and sexual harassment. The IMAP CubeSat project is a partnership with the University of New Hampshire and Howard University in which SSU students will support scientists' research into electron heating in the ionosphere and ion outflow from Earth's magnetic boundary between open and closed magnetic fields.
Supported by a three-year, $320,802 grant from the National Science Foundation, Profs. Matthew Paolucci and Lynn Cominsky will be developing ‘Expanding STEM Ethics Education to Reduce Gender Bias and Sexual Harassment”. This grant will create two educational modules designed to be infused into STEM professional development/ethics courses. Drawing from social psychology research on gender bias and sexual harassment in STEM, the modules’ objective is to expand traditional ethics training beyond ethical research practices to encompass ethical behavior among fellow researchers. Modules will be piloted at SSU and then disseminated using STEM-Net to other CSU campuses with an eventual goal of nationwide dissemination. The workshop version of the modules will be used to train scientists at national professional societies as well as international scientific collaborations.
Finally, the biggest grant ever awarded to EdEon was just announced by NASA: Cominsky has been chosen to lead a five-year almost $5 million program entitled NASA’s Neurodiversity Network: Creating Inclusive Informal Learning Opportunities Across the Spectrum. This program will develop resources for autistic high school students, involving SSU physics majors and graduates on the autism spectrum, in partnership with the Education Development Center (EDC) and the New York Hall of Science. Activities will include observing with GORT, SSU’s NASA-funded robotic telescope, as well as building payloads and model rockets. This cooperative agreement is under negotiation with NASA, and will start in January 2021.