Grant Highlights

Hariri Institute community of researchers secure competitive funding for pioneering research and innovation across engineering, artificial intelligence, health, climate, education, and the humanities. These awards support interdisciplinary collaborations that advance scientific discovery, address pressing societal challenges, and strengthen the University’s leadership in research and scholarship.

Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Computing

“DESC: Type I: FlexDC: Flexible Artificial Intelligence Data Centers for Optimized Computing,” National Science Foundation. $600,000. PI: Ayşe Coskun (ENG). Co-PI: Emiliano Dall’Anese (ENG).
“AI-powered Performance Analytics for Heterogeneous HPC Systems,” Sandia National Laboratories. $495,000. PI: Ayşe Coskun (ENG). Co-PI: Brian Kulis (ENG).
“LLM Training and Evaluation for Pandemic Prevention and Response,” NSF National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot. 220,000 NVIDIA A100 GPU hours (valued at $880,000) and $5,000 in OpenAI API credits. PI: Yannis Paschalidis (ENG).
“LLM-Based Tracing Management for User-Friendly Performance Analysis in the Cloud,” Google Academic Research Award. $100,000. PIs: Ayşe Coskun (ENG) and Gianluca Stringhini (ENG).
“Towards Mechanistic Audits of LLMs,” NSF/DOE National AI Research Resource Pilot Award. PI: Mark Crovella (CAS, Computer Science).
“Evaluating the Abilities of Large Language Models at Performing Academic Machine Learning Research,” Open Philanthropy. $756,396. Co-PI: Najoung Kim (CAS, Computer Science and Linguistics).
“CPS: Medium: Federated Learning for Predicting Electricity Consumption with Mixed Global/Local Models,” National Science Foundation. $1.2M. PI: Alexander Olshevsky (ENG). Co-PIs: Venkatesh Saligrama, Michael Caramanis, and Yannis Paschalidis.
“NSF Medium Effortless Data Locality Through Near-memory On-the-fly Data Transformation,” National Science Foundation. $728,000. PI: Renato Mancuso (CAS, Computer Science). Co-PI: Manos Athanassoulis (CAS, Computer Science).
“Multilevel Stochastic Orthogonal Subspace Transformations for Robust Machine Learning with Applications to Biomedical Data and Alzheimer’s Disease Subtyping,” NSF DMS/NIGMS. $600,000. PI: Julio Castrillon (CAS, Mathematics & Statistics). Co-PI: Mark Kon (CAS, Mathematics & Statistics).
“ATD: Anomaly Detection and Functional Data Analysis with Applications to Threat Detection for Multimodal Satellite Data,” NSF DMS. $250,000. PI: Julio Castrillon (CAS, Mathematics & Statistics). Co-PI: Mark Kon (CAS, Mathematics & Statistics).

Health and Biomedical Innovation

“Digital Cognitive Assessment of Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias,” NIH National Institute on Aging. $792,380. PI: Rhoda Au (Chobanian & Avedisian SOM). BU Co-PI: Vijaya B. Kolachalama (Chobanian & Avedisian SOM).
“Integrating Multi-Modal Data and Biomechanics in COPD: Toward Robust and Interpretable Biomarkers for Disease Subtyping and Progression,” NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. $3.1M. PI: Kayhan Batmanghelich (ENG).
“Intracardiac Beating Heart Tricuspid Valve Repair via Robotics,” NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. $564,148. PI: Tommaso Ranzani (ENG).
“High-speed, Real-time Feedback-driven Single Particle Tracking with Concurrent smFRET,” National Institutes of Health. $216,675. PI: Sean B. Andersson (ENG).
“Optogenetic Control for Metabolic Engineering Using Protein-level Regulation,” National Science Foundation. $519,071. PI: Mary Dunlop (ENG).
“Pragmatic RCT of AI in Mammography: Effect on Accuracy, Patient Reported Outcomes, and Health Equity,” Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. $917,583. BMC Site PI: Clare Poynton (Chobanian & Avedisian SOM).
“Combining AI with Physics-Based Models for the Prediction of Antigen-Antibody and MHC-Peptide Structure and Binding,” Merck Research. $200,000. PI: Diane Joseph-McCarthy (ENG). Co-PIs: Yannis Paschalidis (ENG) and Sandor Vajda (ENG).
“Comprehensive Assessment of Speech Physiology and Acoustics in Parkinson’s Disease Progression,” National Institutes of Health. $691,289. PI: Cara Stepp (Sargent College).
“Environmental Resources for Individual Cognitive Health/Resilience (EnRICH),” National Institutes of Health. $824,386. PI: Marcia Pescador Jimenez (SPH).
“Extending Reach, Accuracy, and Therapeutic Capabilities: A Soft Robot for Peripheral Early-Stage Lung Cancer,” NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. $297,000. PI: Sheila Russo (ENG).
“Computational Mesoscope for Ultrafast Multiscale 3D Imaging,” Chan Zuckerberg Donor Advised Fund. $1.3M. PI: Lei Tian (ENG).

Climate, Environment, and Public Health

“Community Adaptations to City Heat (CATCH),” Wellcome Trust Climate Impact Award. $3.2M. PI: Patricia Fabian (SPH). Collaborators: Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, Madeleine Scammell, Greg Wellenius (SPH), Ian Sue Wing (Earth & Environment), and Lucy Hutyra (Earth & Environment).
“C2H2 RCN GeoCAFE: An RCN to Convene, Accelerate, Foster, and Expand Geosciences Research Addressing Climate Change Impacts on Human Health,” National Science Foundation. $500,000. PI: Gregory Wellenius (SPH). Co-PIs: Lucy Hutyra and Dan Li (CAS, Earth & Environment).
“MRA: Using NEON and Other Network Data to Anchor a Continental Multi-scale Carbon Cycle Assimilation and Forecast,” National Science Foundation. $929,221. PI: Michael Dietze (CAS, Earth & Environment). Co-PI: Jonathan Huggins (CAS, Mathematics & Statistics).

Pandemic Preparedness and Biosecurity

“EAGER: The Biothreats Emergence, Analysis, and Communications Network (BEACON),” NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences. $199,979. PI: Nahid Bhadelia (Chobanian & Avedisian SOM). Co-PIs: Yannis Paschalidis (ENG) and John Brownstein (Boston Children’s Hospital).
“Predictive Intelligence for BEACON: The Biothreats Emergence, Analysis, and Communications Network,” Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute. $300,000. PIs: Nahid Bhadelia (Chobanian & Avedisian SOM) and Yannis Paschalidis (ENG).
“EMERGE: ExaEpi for Elucidating Multiscale Ecosystem Complexities for Robust, Generalized Epidemiology,” U.S. Department of Energy. $449,943. PIs: Yannis Paschalidis (ENG) and Peter Nugent (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). Co-PIs: Alexander Olshevsky (ENG) and Helen Jenkins (SPH).
“PIPP Phase I: Predicting and Preventing Epidemic-to-Pandemic Transitions,” National Science Foundation. $1M. Lead: Yannis Paschalidis (ENG, FCDS).

Engineering, Robotics, and Physical Sciences

“Neuro-Autonomy: Neuroscience-Inspired Perception, Navigation, and Spatial Awareness for Autonomous Robots,” Department of Defense and Office of Naval Research. $7.5M. PI: Yannis Paschalidis. Co-PIs: John Baillieul (ENG), Roberto Tron (ENG).
“Koopman in the Field: Feedback, Teaching, and Adaptation for Real World Mechanical Systems,” National Science Foundation. $522,592. PI: Roberto Tron (ENG). Co-PI: Andre Sabelhaus (ENG).
“Collaborative Research: ASCENT: Heterogeneously Integrated Electronic Photonic AI Accelerators (HIEPAA),” National Science Foundation. $496,708. PI: Ajay J. Joshi (ENG).
“Non-reciprocal Circuit-QED Devices Using Synthetic Band Topology,” Department of Defense/Air Force Office of Scientific Research. $858,781. Co-PI: Anushya Chandran (Physics).

Research Infrastructure and Education

“Accelerating the Expansion of the New England Research Cloud (NERC),” Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. $1.34M. Lead: Orran Krieger (ENG).
“IUCRC Phase I Boston University: Center for Systems Innovation at Scale (i-Scale),” National Science Foundation. $750,000. PI: Orran Krieger.
“NRT: ENERGIZE Interdisciplinary Graduate Program Integrating Data Science in Energy Materials Research,” National Science Foundation. $3M. PI: Malika Jeffries-EL (Chemistry). Co-PIs: David Coker (Chemistry), Brian Kulis (ENG), Emily Ryan (ENG), and James Chapman (ENG).
“A Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess the Efficacy of the Numbershire Level K Gaming Intervention for Improving Math Outcomes for Students with or at Risk of Mathematics Learning Disabilities,” U.S. Department of Education. $703,000. Lead: Nancy Nelson (Wheelock).
“A Strategic Approach to Building High-Quality, High-Impact Cybersecurity Curriculum for the Nation,” Towson University. Awardees: Yuting Zhang and Shengzhi Zhang.

Arts and Humanities

“Visions of Salvation: Chinese Christian Propaganda Posters in an Age of Revolution,” J.M. Kaplan Fund’s Furthermore Book Grant. Awardee: Daryl Ireland (School of Theology).