Dr. Konrad Meister (BMOL Faculty) was recently granted a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award totaling $740,000 over the next 5 years! CAREER Awards are one of the most prestigious grants that the NSF offers to early-career faculty, specifically to investigators who serve academic roles in research and education.
Meister’s proposal entitled “Elucidating Biogenic Control of Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation” has three main objectives: “1) Elucidate how superior bacterial ice nucleators nucleate ice, 2) Unravel the correlation between ice-nucleating abilities and assembly of ice-binding units into large functional domains 3) Develop a biomimetic approach to ice nucleation by incorporating ice-binding proteins as building blocks.”
Besides the research component, the project aims to “enhance rural student engagement in STEM by fostering greater awareness and interest through service-learning and the use of modern media and to help the communities develop environmentally friendly capacities to better predict, navigate and mitigate ice-associated challenges in a changing world.”
To learn more, see the Boise State News article.