A multistate research collaboration led by Jun Wang, Iowa’s James E. Ashton Professor of Engineering and the departmental executive officer of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, is investigating agricultural communities grappling with effects of severe weather, such as floods, droughts, and heat waves. A $6 million, four-year project funded by the National Science Foundation will focus on communities in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas. 

Valkyrie Analytics, an environmental biotechnology firm, has pledged $1.5 million to the Bioenergy Innovation Fund to support the research of Craig Just, the Donald E. Bently Professor in Engineering and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. The goal is a scalable approach to turning animal biproducts and food waste into renewable energy, a breakthrough that could reduce carbon footprints worldwide. 

Kim “Avrama” Blackwell, professor and departmental executive officer of the Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, was awarded a $2.86 million National Institutes of Health grant to investigate the correlation between substance abuse and female sex hormones. Blackwell will explore the role of female sex hormones in mechanisms underlying memory storage in a part of the brain involved in substance use disorders.

The Driving Safety Research Institute was awarded $2 million from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to analyze the effectiveness of driver monitoring systems on their ability to detect if someone is driving while drunk—specifically, if they are over the legal limit or not. The study is being led by Tim Brown, DSRI’s director of drugged driving research.